大象传媒

On the 13th. November 1941 I received my calling up papers instructing me to report to the Royal Corps of Signals at the British Rail holiday camp in Prestatyn in North Wales.

After six weeks parade ground training I was posted to Colwyn Bay for more training this time as a dispatch rider.

On the 6th March 1942 I became a dispatch rider group D class with an increase in pay, moving then onto Largs in Scotland to become a part of 78dr section 1st Army Signals. When it was approaching embarkation time I had to show a despatch rider from another unit the daily run to Glasgow which was part of the sections duties. Of we went over the moors the other motor cycle behind me complete with a pillion passenger, when out of nowhere a figure without any thought for his own safety jumped into the road waving his arms for me to stop. I applied my brakes, the rider behind me did not stop and consequently hit my rear mudguard jamming it tight against the wheel. I went one way the bike went the other way. Not only did I tear my breeches but I set light to a box of Swan Vestas matches that were in my pocket.
After the mudguard was freed and the fire extinguished I asked why was I stopped and was told there was ice on the road. A kind thought! As it was I suffered a burn, grazes and a badly scratched helmet, not to mention my pride. Soon after this incident I with the rest of the section embarked on the SS Stralallan in convoy on our way to North Africa.

North Africa

When we reached the port of Algiers we were welcomed by German aircraft who started attacking the convoy hitting one ship. I eventually disembarked, my motor cycle unloaded later. After a few days in Algiers I was on my way to Constantine 400 kilometres from Algiers.
I will never forget Constantine. I developed a severe case of toothache, a back tooth, and as there was no dental unit available I had to find a dentist. I eventually found a French dentist, who was a very small man with a daughter who acted as his assistant. I was given an injection and he left me with my thoughts, coming back minutes later. He stuck his forceps into my mouth grabbed hold of the tooth gave a twist and pulled and pulled. I thought my head was coming off. The tooth did not budge so he tried again. No luck. So this time with his knee in my chest, and a word with his daughter who held my head he had another go and this time he won!
I left with a bruised chest and a split mouth.

I and the rest of the section made our way a further 165 kilometres to Ain Seynour a village in the hills. The billet was a barn filled with hay bales, overlooking a valley, quite a delightful spot. It did not seem possible that I was in a war. After making sleeping quarters as partitions from the bales of hay I finally settled down with a feeling that this was going to be my base for some time, and also that being a despatch rider was a lonely job always on my own in a country with a language I did not understand.
The regular run was to 5 Corps a journey of 103 kilometres. On the morning run there was only one despatch rider, in the afternoon run there would be two. The afternoon pair stayed overnight on their return met up with the morning run in a cork forest for a chat and a smoke
The road from our village wound down to another village, Ghardimaou, just inside the Tunisian border which was the start of a plain. A long straight road which at the beginning had ,believe or not a sign which said 鈥淔amous last worlds its OK, it is a Spitfire, Be on your guard!鈥�
I soon found out what it really meant for on one occasion I was on the road with the other despatch rider on the afternoon run when I heard above the noise of my motor cycle the sound of aircraft. Looking over my shoulder, out of the sun came two German fighters who started strafing the road. I lost complete control of my machine made for the ditch leaving the bike in the road, My companion shouted at me to come out of the ditch as the Germans loved strafing ditches. After the second fighter had climbed up I ran like a scalded cat into the field. They came back again and I was wishing that the ground would swallow me up.

After they left I found that their target was not two despatch riders but an American convoy and a hospital train that was loading with wounded from ambulances from the front. On another occasion I was on my own on the same road still with the memory of my experience in my mind, when once again I heard the sound of an aircraft, and to my left was this airplane hugging the ground, The pilot gave me a wave. This time it was a Spitfire.
The overnight stay at 5 Corps HQ was in a granary and again was divided into sleeping compartments this time by empty army biscuit rations cans, which were quite large. I found it difficult to sleep because of the rats who at nightfall spent their time clambering over the cans looking for food.
As the advance of the Allies progressed towards Tunis I left with the others from our barn in the hills to Tebessar 134 kilometres south from where we were and for the remainder of the campaign we were under canvas in bivouac tents, sometimes with scorpions and tortoises, big ones and small ones with a shells still soft. Although my base was about 40 kilometres from Kasserine when the Germans broke through the pass I with the rest of the unit were told to dig in, but as history relate they were forced to retreat. As the 1st Army advanced towards Tunis the unit going through towns like Le Kef, Mejez El Bab I finally entered Tunis soon after it fell and it was not until the beginning of September that I embarked from Bizerta to the Salerno beaches in Italy, and by now the 1st Army Signals had become the 16 Line of Communication and part of the British Divisions of the American 5th Army.

The Italian Campaign

I do not remember how long the crossing was in an American crewed LCT {Landing Craft Tank}, a rough crossing was but I do remember it was at night trying to get some sleep as I were bedded with rest on deck with the spray making sure to keep me awake amongst other things as the thought of a beach landing was making me nervous.
By morning the LCT approached the beach with the rest of the other craft together with Naval Corvettes acting as shepherds. I was looking at the beach which was still a little way off, when between the craft and the beach was a spout of water. I heard an aircraft and when I looked I saw that it was one of ours. That鈥檚 funny I said to myself why is he dropping bombs on us.
It suddenly dawned on me . It was shellfire. To make matters worse as the LCT got nearer to the beach it got stuck on a sandbank, a corvette pulled it off, the captain refusing to try again
until high tide.
I eventually disembarked, not an easy task on a motor cycle down a ramp that was partially under water and under fire from mortars. To make matters worse I learned later that the unit had arrived to early for by now it was assumed that the hills overlooking the beach would have been cleared. For the first time in twelve months I was under fire !
Eventually I found myself in Salerno billeted in a shop which had shutters in place of a window front, situated in a street to narrow for motor vehicles but ideally suitable for motor cycles, the surrounding buildings being three storeys high giving protection from enemy mortar fire

To get out of Salerno with my dispatches there was a viaduct to cross which when the German mortar crews saw any traffic the lobbed the odd shell. It was like running the gauntlet. There was protection from buildings before the start of the viaduct, so the rule of the day was to stop look and listen before to attempting to cross, put the bike into first gear open up the throttle and trust to luck. It always worked!
When finally the Germans were in retreat and Naples fell on 30th September 1943 the unit moved into Naples and I found myself billeted in a villa which overlooked the Bay in an area of Naples known as Vomero, which overlooked the city. Naples was a dangerous place, not only did the Germans tamper with the water supply but had put timed explosives in the drains and also in the main Post Office.
One of the DR sections duties was to be on stand by at the fort in the bay that was manned by the Royal Navy. My turn eventually came round and in the evening just as I set off the German Luftwaffe attacked the docks which I had to go through to get to the fort.
Every time there was an air raid the Army used mobile smoke screens that made a mess of the cobbled streets. There was thick black smoke, oil on the road, the tramlines were raised above road level. The inevitable happened. The bike skidded from under me bending the footrest into the clutch housing making the clutch useless. By the time the footrest had been straightened out with the help of the Pioneer Corps who were manning the smoke screens, the air raid was over. When I arrived at the fort I was accused by a Naval Officer that I had waited for the air raid to finish before I came on duty I thought that he was going to stop my rum ration which I might add was an entitlement us Drs had while on duty with the Royal Navy.
I finally left Naples and made my way to the towns of Caserta and Benevento and finally for awhile stayed in Morcone a village in the hills.
One of our duties was to provide convoy escort to the 6th Armoured Division through narrow mountain roads. Their tanks were on transporters, and as their movements were during the night the only light on the rear of the vehicle was the one that shone on the rear axle differential that was painted white. It was I thought a dangerous job for there was not a great deal of room for the transporters took up most of the road and I had visions due to tiredness of falling of my bike under one. Indeed it did happen to one of the escorts Stan Maudesley from Wigan but he was unhurt the vehicle going over his bike.
Early in March 1944 we left Morcone and went back to Naples to a transit camp waiting to go into Rome. It was a long wait !
A transit camp is a holding area for various units waiting to be moved to other destinations. My unit which consisted of wireless operators linesman and of course Drs had to take its turn in guard duty. My turn came round with another DR and were rather late in taking our posts when suddenly there was a huge explosion. Dashing out of our hut thinking that a bomb had been dropped I was amazed to find that Vesuvius had erupted, and I had visions of the transit camp becoming another Pompei but as eruptions go it was quite mild.
On the way to Rome I had to go through Cassino , the town and the monastery devastated, a very costly action for I understand that there were 180,000 Allied soldiers either killed or wounded.
On leaving Rome I was seconded to a South African signals unit that was based at Fano which is on the Adriatic coast. The South African air force based a little way from the town did daily sorties bombing and strafing German convoys with bombs that were attached under each wing, and sometimes due to a fault did not come off. When any aircraft returned with a bomb that had not been released it flew out to sea and the pilot waggled the aircraft until it came off dropping into the sea. On one occasion however the bomb dropped off before the pilot had time to go out to sea and demolished one half of my billet that I was sharing with the South Africans. I was blown on my back, covered with debris, unhurt but frightened to death, and after I had recovered from the shock joined the rescue party, and met a neighbour from my home town of Hendon who was helping. A small world!
Upon my eventual return to the unit I found that due to the volume of traffic the section had been issued with a jeep. It was in this vehicle that I learnt to drive.. As the war progressed I went further north, past Venice, Rimini to Udine about 70 kilometres from Villach in Austria where I and two other DRs were going to act as outriders to a mission to meet up with the Italian partisans in the mountains, but for some reason it was cancelled.

On April 13th 1945 the Russian forces took Vienna. By this time the unit had been transferred to the 8th Army. I had been in Italy since September 1943, away from home for almost two and a half years. It was not until early July that I moved into Vienna as part of the Army of Occupation. For this I and the rest of the Drs were issued with Thompson 45mm submachine guns and the section with three Canadian Ford scout cars.
Here I was with the war in Italy over, armed to the teeth and protected by armour. How very strange !
At first it was difficult to drive the scout car just looking out of a slit in the front, but us Drs managed to find windscreens from the plentiful German abandoned vehicles that were around which were fitted to the vehicles, so with the driving seat raised one could drive without being choked to death from dust and flies
When I did finally get to Vienna in July it was not like Rome but showed Russian battle scars. Overhead tram power cables hung everywhere. One even cracked my beloved windscreen as I made my way to barracks that were part of Schoenbrun Palace, which was to become The British HQ.
When I reached the barracks and showed where everybody was going to sleep, the Russians who had occupied the barracks before had left there straw palliasses that were alive with bugs. They were every where, even on the walls. All of us refused to sleep there until the whole barracks had been fumigated and the bug ridden palliasses had been which meant that the night was spent on the parade ground under the stars.

There was an occasion when I was on guard duty in the wireless trucks compound when I was fired upon by Russian soldiers who occupied a tobacco factory just the other side of a railway line. It was the first time that I had done guard duty on my stomach!
There was a daily run to Venice, a distance of about 400 kilometres and I always had another DR with me. As we were not able to return on the same day the night was spent on the roof of a two storey car park cooking our rations on a petrol stove that was part of the equipment of the scout car.
Part of the journey to Venice was through Russian held territory and coming out of Vienna the road was a series of bends. On each bend stood a armed Russian soldier, some were women and most did give us a friendly wave. Even though I was in an armoured vehicle with my Thompson I and my companion felt a little nervous To pass the time and still having the motor cycles I and some of the section used to go into Vienna woods for motor cycle scrambles and in the Palace grounds entertained the Viennese by forming a Royal Signals display team with four Drs on their motor cycles and others forming a pyramid on shoulders.
On the 14th of October 1945 I returned to Vienna having had home leave. I found that after a time life was getting very routine, when I was not delivering dispatches I was on duty in the signals office so I jumped at the chance of getting early release from the army by applying to join the Metropolitan Police which the army an arrangement the with the police for recruits, so on the 10th of September 1946 once again I returned to the UK. I failed to get past the selection board although I had passed the medical and exams. Although as I had failed I was due back to Vienna but I was sent to Thirsk in Yorkshire to await my discharge by helping farmers harvesting potatoes,
Finally on the 11th November 1946 I received my discharge papers and went back home.

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