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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Claire White of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of Bob Wight and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born 22nd of December 1918. I was called up under the Militia to the Second World War on my birthday, 22nd of December, to Peebles to serve with the Lothian and Border Force regiment. We then moved south from Peebles to various places in Britain and eventually went overseas to North Africa where I served in the North Africa campaign and, after that, moved into Italy where the regiment was in action from Cassino onwards up towards the north of Italy. I was wounded in a place outside Florence and eventually returned to hospital at Naples. From there I was sent home on a hospital ship to a hospital near Liverpool and later up to the Borders' Peel Hospital.

I was a tank driver driving the Sherman tank. We were in the Sixth Armoured Division with the First Army. We ended up in North Africa meeting up with the Eighth Army outside Tunis. There was a victory parade held in Tunis which many of the regiments attended.

One of the occasions in North Africa I was shot out of a tank but none of us were wounded and we got away without being injured. We had quite a few very fierce battles out there going through minefields etc. and in one of the battles we lost quite a few tanks and personnel as well.

Coming over to Italy I remember at the Cassino driving up the highway towards Rome in the early morning (about 5am) and seeing the dome of St Peter’s shining in the sun. We never got to Rome, but moved onto a place called Perugia — a very nice little place — and from there went on to where we had the battle near Vallombrosa. It was near there that I was shot out of the tank with an 88mm gun from the German side. The shell came through between myself and the co-driver. Unfortunately the co-driver was killed after he got out of the tank, but the rest of the crew and myself managed to escape and get back to their own lines. From there I was taken on to a field hospital and operated on during the night and flown back to Naples hospital the next day. Coming into Naples looking down we saw Mount Vesuvius was erupting at that time and we were looking down on that and also onto the Isle of Capri. A nice sight it was.

Eventually I was sent home by Red Cross hospital ship to a hospital near Liverpool. And then after I was operated on there again, sent up to hospital in Galashiels. I was finally discharged about a year later through my wounds and that was more or less the end of the army career.

Coming under attack you just took things in your stride and, being in a tank, you didn’t notice much around you because you had limited vision. You could look through a periscope and drive but you didn’t see much in front of you. You knew you were being fired on manys a time because you could hear the bullets going around the tank and banging off the metal. But it was difficult to remember all the real experiences that you were in. You were often lying ready during the night, and had to get up, get on your equipment and off into battle. You used to be sometimes in the tank from daylight to dark and you were just there with the crew having to make your wee bit bite in the tank. It was quite confined. If you’d moved out of the tank you’d have got a bullet no doubt. That didn’t happen too often when you were under fire for a whole day, but it did happen on occasion.

In North Africa in the night it was quite cold but during the day it could vary quite a bit. Italy was quite hot, but you got all sorts of weather and all sorts of conditions. Bridges were blown so you had to take side tracks and there were often temporary bridges put up by engineers to get us across streams and so forth.

I remember while I was in North Africa there were so many of the regiment allowed home escorting Italian prisoners, and I managed to get home for about a month during that time, bringing these prisoners back from North Africa to Britain. That was quite a nice break for us. We called in at Gibraltar on one of these occasions and that was at a time when the Polish Premiere was shot down with his sea plane in Gibraltar harbour. I remember that.

When our tank was knocked out near Massicault, a place outside Tunis, a German gun had sighted us and fired on us and put our tank out of commission. At the same time one of our other tanks was ready and fired straight away and knocked the gun out. So that saved any more casualties in that respect.

The crew were all killed there and they were lying around in different positions. But we never dallied very much, we just passed on, because we were moving on quite fast at the time, and I didn’t get another tank for some time. By the time I had another tank we were nearly finished in Tunis. The end of the war in North Africa came about that time.

The Shermans were reasonably good. They came from America and that was the first time we were in North Africa when we collected them. That was the first time we were in action. When we were fully loaded with ammunition they weighed about 40 tonnes and on a good road we could get up to 30-35mph on them, but different over the land. We felt reasonably safe in them, but the 88mm German gun was so good, it could more or less penetrate any metal. So you knew what you were up against.

In Italy we got quite friendly with a lot of them because we were mostly billeted on crofts or farms or whatever. The time we were waiting for Cassino to start we were in a place called Piedmonte and we got on very well there with the Italians. However, once Cassino was captured we moved quite quickly up north and we were never very long in one place after that. After Florence the rest of the regiment went on and away up and during the winter they were amongst the hills in the snow fighting as infantry rather than tanks. They had quite a rough time before they eventually finished off.

I was never right up to Monte Cassino at all, but previously there used to be 100s of American planes come over in the evening and bomb Cassino and soften it up. And that was quite a sight in itself. In the night the bombs flashing was quite a sight to see. That went on for quite a few nights just before the attack happened. It was quite a grim battle for Cassino and there quite a few Polish troops lost there as well as our own.

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