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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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by threecountiesaction

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Contributed by听
threecountiesaction
People in story:听
William Palmer
Location of story:听
France and Germany Campaign, Home Guard, Palestine 45, 46, 47.
Article ID:听
A7463315
Contributed on:听
02 December 2005

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Three Counties Action on behalf of William Palmer and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was in a hurry to get into uniform and at the age of 15 years I joined the Home Guard in 1940 and was given a rifle and 50 rounds of bore 300 ammunition to do the guards on the local tunnels etc.

At the age of 17 and a half years I was given a medical and then was ready for call up to his H.M.F in early 1944. Aged 18 years.

My first action was in the fighting on the Hells Highway on the approach to Arnhem, after then in late 44, 45 the battles in Holland and Germany the crossing of the river Rhine the assault into Germany and during the battle for Bremen, sheltering in a doorway of a house from the shelling and small arms fire the door opened behind me and the old couple appeared in the opened doorway.

They told me between the shelling etc that they were Americans and had been interned through the war and hadn鈥檛 eaten for a week, but I could not do anything about it as in war you had to move on into the action.

The other thing which happened to me was a shooting of one of my pals on the last day of the war, by one of our own men, he died on the way back to the R.A.P. It was caused by a man handling a German rifle which he didn鈥檛 know too much about. (A sad end in 1945)

In peace we moved to a place called Meetze which was near to Belsen Horror Camp and the Battalion did guards there and helped to bury the dead etc.

Which was awful to young men straight out of war.

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