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This story has been submitted to the ‘People’s War’ Web Site by Betty & Don TEMPEST of Lancshomeguard on behalf of Joe ELLIS and has been added to the Web Site with his permission.

‘I Left My Leg in Italy.’

I was called up in 1940 and served in the Royal Army service Corps. I spent six months in Northern Ireland, then I was posted abroad to Madagascar, then we went to Bombay, to Karachi, where we sailed up the Persian Gulf to Basra. We drove through Basra, through Baghdad and into Persia, where we stayed through the winter of 1942.

We then drove through the terrain back through Baghdad, Jordan and onto Egypt. We drove over the Suez Canal, over a bridge to Palestine. We stayed there for a month, then we went back to Beirut, where we waterproofed all the lorry that were there, ready for the invasion of Sicily, which took place in 1943. Then we moved on to Italy, after that invasion we drove through a railway tunnel for about two miles, making our way to the Adriatic side of Italy.

I got wounded in Lanciarno. My left leg was blown off and I was injured in my right leg as well. I stayed in hospital for a while and gradually got back down to Barri, where I stayed for three months. I was then put on a hospital ship which sailed round the Bay of Naples. Whilst on the hospital ship we got bombed and the ship received a direct hit. It didn’t sink but needed repairs which we eventually got and then sailed back to England, landing at Avonmouth.

I then travelled by ambulance to Whalley in Lancashire, where I was transferred to Chapel Allerton, to a big Military Hospital that was there. I was there for a few weeks and whilst there I was measured for an artificial leg. I was discharged and had to find my own way on the train with my crutches and carrying my kit bag. I didn’t get demobbed until December 1943.

I got my artificial leg the following September. I got married on the 1st. November 1944. My wife and I have just celebrated our Diamond wedding.

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