大象传媒

After 6 weeks in Egypt we returned to Italy and moved up to the Gothic line. I was still driving the stretcher jeeps and was based in a little town in the mountains called Castel del Rio. The weather was terrible. We were only in Castel del Rio to have our jeeps serviced, most of the time we were in the middle of nowhere in the snow. The conditions were very bad for getting about. The mountain tracks were covered in ice and snow but the Willys jeeps could cope fully fited with chains. My mate Freddie Westhead and myself devised a way of getting out of the wind and snow. We dug a cave into the hard packed ice and snow and put our ground sheets and blankets in it. However the first night in the cave it snowed heavily and the entrance was blocked up. We were OK but there had been a callout in the night and nobody could find us. Our sergeant gave us a rollicking for not letting him know about it.
Transporting the wounded along those iced up tracks must have been rough for them but they were strapped on. One night I got a callout to bring back someone who was badly wounded. When I got there they told me he had died but I should bring him just the same. They slid the stretcher onto my jeep but they hadn't strapped him on. On the way back the jeep lurched to one side and he fell off into the snow. I managed to get him back onto the jeep with a struggle as he was heavy. I felt upset over it.
With the start of spring coming we left the mountains and went down to Forli. I left the jeeps and became a DR, dispatch rider. I had a BSA M20 to ride. Didn't think much to it, too heavy and slow. As soon as I could I got a Matchless G3L. A lot better.
My time in the war came to an end when I crashed my motorbike. I hit a large hole in the road and finnished up with a fractured shoulder. After a flight in a dakota plane to Bari and a spell in hospital, I was sent up to Austria to rejoin the 78th Division with 57 Coy RASC. My mate Freddie Westhead was there already. We had two and a half years there We were first stationed in Villach and did runs to Udine to bring fresh fruit and veg. Also a supply of Italian vermouth and other various drinks. After that we spent the rest of our time in Millstat. A pretty little village on the edge of a large lake.
It was like a long holiday with swimming in the summer and sking at Anton in the mountains in the winter.
I didn't really want to leave. But demob time came and I was sent to Aldershot and returned to civillian life.
It had been 5 years to the day that I was called up.
More details of my time in Austria are on
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