大象传媒

Message 2 - 27th lancers bare rations

Posted on: 04 January 2006 by regworrow

hello tom
sincere appologies for not replying sooner.coulndt answer due to unforseen circumstances.
the 27th lancers crossed the frontier in austria on the 8th of may 1945.for the next few weeks the four squadrons of the regimentwere kept busy rounding up german remnants and maintaining uneasy contact with the russian and bulgarian forcesand keeping titos partisans in check.
eventually things settled down and my sqn (A sqn ) was stationed at the small village of scheifling with
B sqn at kuflach ,C sqn at weisskirchen,D sqn at judenberg and shq at preblau.
the 27th being one of the hostilities only regiments was disbanded on 15th decemberand the personnel were transfered to various other regiments,the majority,including myself,went to the 12th royal lancers.
after a months home leavein november and returning to austria we started to prepare for a move back to egypt,moving overseas in january 1946 and in april that year to palestine as a peace keeping force.
i left palestine at the end of august and was demobbed on 9th september 1946.
hope you find this interesting.

cheers

Message 3 - 27th lancers bare rations

Posted on: 04 January 2006 by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper

Reg -
It's always interesting to hear from old Chancers - after I recovered from wounds at the Gothic Line I went first to Rieti for retraining on Armed Cars - then joined 16/5th At Knittelfeld for a while and went lumberjacking in Leoben all winter long. In the early spring '46 we had a job to do at Judenberg to sort out the Russian deserters(?) who were being sent back to Russia - for extermination as we later found
from the BBc in 1976 !
We then had the Vienna tattoo which was much more enjoyable, we then moved down to Strassburg near Sankt Veit for a few months then finally Villach when we were made up to full regimental strength for service in Lybia and Egypt - at which point my number came up and I left for demob in may '47.
I have written of these times so if you are interested - there are afew stories of Africa - Italy and Austria -with a few chuckles in them -
Cheers
Tom Canning - B Sqdn 16/5th

Message 4 - 27th lancers bare rations

Posted on: 18 January 2006 by regworrow

Tom late on parade again.the reason is i dont have a computer so my son does the necessary. ivisit him for the day every wednesday and i get messages one week and by the next week i have a reply ready for him to send --hence the delay
how serious were your wounds ? i came through it virtually unscathed but with a few narrow escapes. there was an incident when me and another trooper were reported missing. it was in the Apennines region and we were patrolling dismounted because the difficult terrain was unsuitable for armoured cars.
one night we reported in at shq in a farmhouse and our officer when in while the rest of the troop sat outside around a haystack with the two of us last in line out of sight of the farmhouse.the officer had orders to take up an outpost about a couple of miles further on in a deserted house and the signal to move on was to nudge each other along the line,the idiot next to me didnt signaland the both of us were left there in the dark having a whispered conversation. we must have been there for quite a long time before realising the others had gone because when we reported in to shq the ssm was already organising a search party. the rest of the troop had already reached the o.p. and had wirelessed back that two were missing.
a guide had to take us in the dark to the o.p. and about halfway there was a small footbridge over a stream. we stooped there as the guide said that the germans had a spandau firing on a fixed line at the spot every two or three minutes. we had to sprint across one at a time between the bursts of machine gun fire and eventually reached the o.p. after giving everyone a scare.

Message 5 - 27th lancers bare rations

Posted on: 18 January 2006 by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper

Hello again Reg - can well understand your delay as son's have enough to do without baby sitting old dad !We are fortunate in all the children have computers and so we keep in good touch with each other - the two boys are in Vancouver and our daughter is still in London U.K. while we are in Agassiz - a small village 75 miles east of Vancouver. Even the Grandchildren have a computer so we are in touch with them as well !
You ask if my wounds were serious - not as bad as many but enough to get me out of the line for more than six months - for which I was duly thankful - I have written about it - as I read a book about the Gothic Line and the Author had made a few boo - boos and so I wrote and told him the real story - your sone can find it if he clicks on my name in red at the top of this messgae and follow through to "Gothic Line- The Battle for San Martino" - all the stories about Austria are also there which might give you a chuckle !
Cheers
tomcan