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In 1941, when I was 17, the Germans bombed my home town Greenock, in Scotland, and killed 450 innocent women and children. I had just been admitted to Glasgow University as a 17 year old because I had taken my Higher leaving certificate in the 5th form. I was so incensed by the carnage that I went to the recruitment office in Sauchiehall St in Glasgow, put a year on my age and tried to enlist in the Black Watch. The recruitment sergeant asked me how old I was and I lied and told him I was 18. He said to me ‘what do you do for a living?’ and I told him I was at university. He said to me ‘what are you studying?’ and I replied ‘civil engineering’. He then said ‘that’s too bad, all engineering students, civil, mechanical and electrical are exempt!’ I returned the next day. The same recruitment sergeant was on duty. He asked once again how old I was and once again I lied. He asked what I did for a living and I replied that I was a barman. He said ‘Fine! Sign here’, and then gave me the King’s shilling. ‘It will take about 10 days’, he told me, ‘and then you will report to Queen’s Barracks Perth, where the Black Watch depot is.’

About 10 days later I got my papers to report. I completed my 6 weeks’ training programme and at the end I was promoted to the dizzy heights of ‘Acting Unpaid Lance Corporal’, and was transferred to the 70th Young Soldiers Battalion of the Black Regiment at Monefeith near Dundee. My platoon commander there was Lieutenant Timothy Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother’s first cousin! (He later became the Earl of Strathmore and died prematurely from a large fire in his stately home after the war). Since I had the Scottish equivalent of ‘A’ levels I was very quickly sent off to the OCTU (Officer Cadet Training Unit) in Douglas, Isle of Man, where I was billeted in a very nice hotel on the sea front. Six months later I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. I quickly volunteered for the Paratroop Regiment and having undergone a mentally and physically difficult entry course at Chesterfield I was accepted. I then went to Ringway Airport near Manchester and underwent my parachute training which consisted of 9 training jumps from a mixture of balloon and aeroplane. The aeroplane was a converted light bomber caked a Whitley, and it only took 10 paratroopers, five forward of the hole and 5 behind the hole. The hole itself was lined with plywood for about 12 feet down, and if you did not push off hard enough, your pack hit the edge of the hole and you could easily break your nose. If you pushed off too hard, on the other hand, it had the same effect! This feat was known as ‘ringing the bell’, and it was customary for anyone damaging his nose to buy drinks all round from the nearest pub when he’d landed safely!

On completion of my training I reported to the 5th Battalion (Scottish) — the Parachute Regiment, at Lark Hill on Salisbury Plain, very near Stonehenge. Shortly afterwards I sailed off to Algeria where I spent some time near Mascara before eventually moving to a place called Sousse in Tunisia, by the sea. After some weeks of training under very hot conditions and with a great shortage of water- we only had one water bottle per day for all purposes, both shaving and drinking- we found an abandoned German water tank and the CO appointed me as Battalion Water Officer in order to increase the supply available for our soldiers. In fact, a little song was made up which went

‘Lieutenant Christie, he was there
With his water cart
Stuck somewhere in no man’s land
Trying to make it start’!

After some weeks of training it was decided that our brigade would be sent to Italy following the capture of Sicily. At this time our American C-47 aircraft were all sent to the Far East to operate against the Japanese, and when we invaded Italy a little time later we sailed in fast mine laying cruisers from Bizerta to Taranto, in the heel of Italy. We were the second cruiser to enter the harbour and the cruiser in front of us carrying the Welsh Paratroop battalion hit the only unswept mine in the harbour. The casualties were extremely heavy. The brigade, however, landed without any more casualties, since we were not opposed by the Italians, who welcomed our presence. Not long afterwards as we advanced northwards we were opposed by the German First Parachute Division whom we managed to defeat. This was the beginning of a two year stay in Italy where my battalion had many encounters with the Germans. During this time I met soldiers from many countries. There were three Indian divisions there- the Fourth, the Eighth and the Tenth. There were two Canadian divisions, one New Zealand division and a South African division. We also had two Polish divisions who eventually captured Monte Cassino, a battlefield which I believe had more casualties than any other battle in the war. The American casualties there were horrendous. Eventually, the Italians, who had been our former enemies, produced three divisions to fight on OUR side- and they did very well!

In August 1944 it was decided to invade Southern France. The airborne forces were partly American and partly British, the British consisting of Second Parachute brigade, which had an English battalion, a Scottish battalion and a Welsh battalion. The descent, which took place at about 3:45 in the morning, was widely scattered, but nevertheless the brigade got together and took our objectives, the most important being le Muy. I was dropped into the river Argens out of my depth, and I had to jettison my submachine gun and my heavy kit bag, to swim with great difficulty to the shore. When I got out it was still dark and despite giving the usual signals I could not contact any soldiers. I then started moving off toward the rendez-vous and stumbled upon 10 French Resistance fighters, led by a young woman who embraced me, then gave me a new Sten gun and ammunition and said she would stay with me until I could locate some British or American paratroopers. After about 20 minutes I managed to find four American and four British paratroopers, and the Americans agreed to come under my command.

I had just started moving off again towards the rendez-vous when I heard the sound of a motorbike approaching along the road. I knew it could not be French because there was a curfew on the French moving at that early time in the morning. I signalled to my soldiers, who lined the road and as the motorcycle sidecar came round the bend we opened up and killed the two German SS officers and unfortunately their two French girlfriends. The officers were wearing their best uniforms and the girls long dresses as if they’d been at a dinner dance. We were starting to move off, once again, for the rendez-vous, when we ambushed some German soldiers in trucks. We killed 7 and three of the wounded escaped (we found the blood trails). I then continued and managed to find my company commander and the other two platoons of the company I was in.

The whole company started moving forwards again, when we were fired upon from a chateau. We attacked the chateau and killed many Germans and the rest put up white flags and came out of the main door to surrender. We had lined up on both sides of the door, and when one of the German officers with his white flag drew level with a corporal known as Doc Davies (one of the few pre-war regular soldiers in the battalion) he produced a very small pistol from the back of his neck and shot Davies in the head and killed him. This was cold-blooded murder, because he had surrendered, and his life was only saved because the company commander Doug McCall said ‘don’t shoot’, and he was correct because if we had opened up we would have shot each other, lined up on both sides. So the German officer ended up as a POW, alive.

The fighting in the South of France did not last too long, because we killed many and took many prisoners. The Germans seemed to have lost heart, which we had never encountered before. After about 10 days I returned to Italy on a liberty ship full of German POW, and once again met our Italian friends. During the two years, we had got to know the Italian peasant population very well and we gave the mothers large quantities of coffee, which they hadn’t had for a long time. We used to give our sweets to the children and tins of 50 free issue cigarettes to the men. The Italians were fairly short of food at this time, but nevertheless the grateful peasants often slipped us the odd dozen eggs, a chicken or a rabbit, not to mention the odd bottle of wine.

Shortly after our return from France to Italy it was decided to invade Greece, and in October ‘44 we parachuted into a place called Megara to the West of Athens and started pursuing the Germans up towards Salonika. The German resistance was pathetic. I think by then they knew their number was up- and we had very light casualties on our side. We felt very pleased with our progress, and we had wonderful ‘thankyous’ from the Greek people. However, as we prepared to return to Italy to once again take on the Germans, the Greek Eam Elas suddenly attacked us and I lost my best friend Peter Conway. We then got involved in a month’s horrendous street fighting outnumbered by these left wing Greek terrorists. However, although we lost 1/3 of our brigade in casualties, we managed to win the conflict during the month, and peace returned to Greece.

Winston Churchill came to visit the Second Brigade in Athens in November 1944, whilst we were there, and fortunately our engineers searched the sewage system in the hotel where he was staying and found explosives, which they deactivated and thereby saved his life. He was no chicken- you don’t hear of any prime ministers these days going to active service! It has always struck me as being extraordinary that although I received a Campaign Star for North Africa, a Campaign Star for Italy and a Campaign Star for the South of France, we never received a Campaign star for Greece, although our losses were extremely heavy there. But about six years ago, unbelievably, the Greek government traced all the veteran survivors and sent us a Greek medal.

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