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When we returned we were issued with all the necessary kit we were short of and marched to the Seaton estate where tents had been put up for us. We were to be part of the re-formed 1st Battalion along with men who had been called up and had completed their basic training. Soon we went to the grounds of Haddo House under canvas and several other venues in Aberdeenshire for more training.

Eventually we went to Fochabers Castle in the late summer of 1941 and from there we got leave - some at Christmas but the majority at New Year. This we were told was embarkation leave. We moved to Camberley in the New Year and were trained for going abroad. In the middle of June we emarked at Liverpool.

After nine weeks on board ship we eventually landed at Port Tewfiq in Egypt as reinforcements for the Eighth Army. We soon got down to training in the desert in preparation Alamein which included ten days in the front line experience of action.

The pioneer platoon, of which I was a member, were informed we had to lead the Battalion, along with C. company, carrying empty five-gallon petrol can known as flimsies. These had had holes punched out of them to indicate the digits 6 and 1 (61) - our Battalion's army number - and were used to carry lanterns. When we got to our starting line, which was well within the enemy's lines, we had to light them to guide those following to our Battalion HQ.

However as soon as we had lit the first lantern a shower of bullets were fired at us which sadly resulted in our having two wounded men - one of them seriously. We were stopped at that position and given the order to dig in as there were lots of bullets and shells flying about.

It took us three days to reach our objective and we were relieved on the twelfth night of the battle. This was the night Rommel withdrew the German army leaving the Italians behind. They surrendered in hundreds. We were not involved in the immediate follow up and had a week or more to rest before moving on.

After Alamein we moved up the desert past Fuka airfield which had been badly damaged and a number of planes were also left badly damaged. We carried on with very little to hold us up at all until we got to El Acheila where we stayed over Christmas and into the New Year.

While there I was working on a carpenters' bench which we had on our truck and two of my comrades were messing about with Italian hand-grenades. One was supposed to know how to dismantle them by taking them apart in a certain way and would show the other one how to do it. They were both on
their haunches but, while one was showing the other how to do it, he made a mistake and it went off in his hand. He was fatally wounded and the other chap lost an eye.

We carried on into the follow-up but we didn't have a lot to do until we got very near to Tripoli but we had been in action several times in the high ground surrounding the city. Then, of course, we were the first official regiment into Tripoli - our leading column sitting on Sherman tanks which drove right into the town.

The Germans did not defend Tripoli. The only thing they had done was to sink boats in the harbour to prevent us getting any of our large supply ships in there. However, they anchored outside the harbour and we had small boats going out to the big ships. We went with them and helped to load up our supplies. There were three gangs working in shifts over twenty-four hours and also on the quay loading and unloading.

We did that for about ten days and then we moved on again. We went some distance before we were held up and then our first really big hold-up was the Mareth line which was a huge escarpment. We sat facing it and the big lake in front of it - I can't remember its name. We stayed there for some time until we got the build-up to attack.

The Northumbrian Division attacked between the escarpment and the sea, which was inclined to be marshy, and Monty sent the New Zealanders round to the south sides of the escarpment and by this time Gerry has sensed that somthing else could be about to happen and started to move by the time the New Zealanders got there.

We moved on with hold-ups here and there. We took Medenine, Sfax, and Sousse and then went on to the hills at Enfidaville. The Indian Division was sent to take these but we had to go in and take these after three days. They could not stand the shelling and holding the line. Anyway we weren't there very long before we were relieved and then had to start training for the invasion of Sicily.

We had to go way round the back of the fighting through the Kasarene Pass to Tunsia and then into Algiers. We did our training at place called Djidjelli. After that we came back to a place called Seax surrounded by olive groves. All the arrangement were made then for the landing on Sicily. Luckily I was left out of battle on that occasion. I did not go over until ten days later and landed at Syracuse. The worst of the fighting was over by then. We ended up away high up in a village, Luinguaglossa, facing Mount Etna and by this time the invasion of Italy had already happened.

Some of our injured were brought back to hospital in Sicily. They asked us to give blood and most of us went to give a pint of blood or more. We were not sent into the invasion of Italy. We were left in Sicily until Monty made up his mind about what to do with us next - whether we had to be taken home or what. We were stationed at Syracuse until we left in early November from Augusta to come home on a Yankee troopship as part of a huge convoy.

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