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I was born in Ireland in 1925 and after service in the Home Guard I volunteered for the Irish Guards at aged seventeen and a half years.

I left London shortly before the Guards Chapel was hit by a V2 and 121 people were killed. I then went to Scotland and joined a draft for Normandy.

I then joined the Guards Armoured Division and fought all the way Normandy to the Danish border on V.E. Day.

During this period the Irish Guards suffered numerous casualties. I served in the Infantry and other Irish Guards Battalion was armoured. They lost 61 tanks.

We were involved in numerous battles including the road to Arnhem.
Towards the end of the War, we were sent to ‘tidy up’ the line prior to handing over the next day. It was later discovered that three German battalions with machine guns, mortars and artillery occupied the castle, whereas we only had our rifles and bren guns. During this battle we had 176 killed and wounded needlessly. We were previously informed that there were few Germans occupying the castle.

A few days before the end of the War we occupied a graveyard where we were bombed by both the German Air Force and RAF. Whilst in the graveyard we had a number killed, and it was years later that I discovered that they had been killed by our friendly fire as they did not know we were in the graveyard.

Shortly after this incident we were ‘standing down’ and having breakfast (we though the end of war was near) and German tanks and infantry came out of the woods and attacked us. Several tanks were put out of action and a Guardsman jumped out of his tank and took the machine gun off the tank and placed it on a gate and kept firing at the German infantry and broke up their attack. A German officer recommended the Guardsman (Charlton from Manchester) for a decoration. He was awarded the Victoria Cross. Guardsman Charlton was killed and the Germans buried his body. The Officer was allowed out of the POW Camp to show us where the body was buried.

Shortly after the end of the War, the Irish Guards captured Lord Haw Haw.

I was later Commissioned and served until I was 75 years old with the TA, CCF and ACF.

I finished my service with Merchant Aylors CCF where I served for over 15 years as a Shooting Officer. When I retired they had a Cup inscribed ‘The Fitzgerald Cup’, for the best shot each year.

'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of Timothy Joseph Fitzgerald and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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