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Army Service Part 4

by CovWarkCSVActionDesk

Contributed by听
CovWarkCSVActionDesk
People in story:听
MR A F ADAMS
Location of story:听
SUTTON VENEY/N AFRICA/ITALY
Article ID:听
A5287322
Contributed on:听
24 August 2005

PART 4

The CO of ME 53, Major White, was a colourful character who had led a bayonet charge in the Western Desert in 1941. He had a difficult job in keeping order in the unit. I have already said that military discipline was very much relaxed in the SO(M). In addition to that, the operational personnel were in general a bunch of cavaliers who were throwing a perpetual party, either because they were about to jump into the unknown or because they had just returned from the same, often exhausted and lousy and in need of letting off steam. There was a long counter in the officer鈥檚 mess building, about five feet high. A favourite game was to 鈥榩ractise鈥 parachute falls by lying full length at one end and being propelled along the counter at high speed by means of a good push from about four others, to shoot off the end and fall successfully to the floor. The PT instructor had the idea that we, the staff could benefit from joining in the PT9 classes, which we did very unwillingly. However, he arranged for the clearance of a piece of land, acquired from somewhere two basket ball hoops and we were soon enjoying some very physical basket ball games on the hard- packed earth. Somebody else suggested touch Rugby (no tackling allowed) but of course it was not long before people began breaking the rule. As well as PT, we joined in the weapons training and were soon handling and firing an assortment of guns such as no ordinary members of the RASC would ever see. Also amongst our stock were some wicked looking Commando knives and there was often talk of silent killing and also unarmed combat (well before the popularity of judo and other 鈥榤artial arts鈥). To balance this sort of thing, we sang! The stone floors of the villas and the almost empty rooms provided wonderful acoustics and one of our musical corporals formed a 鈥榗hoir鈥. We had no music, of course, and we learned words and music as we went along and performed from memory. There were about ten of us and the results were surprisingly good. The farmers living round about the hamlet were very friendly, selling us eggs to supplement our diet, and their wives would do our washing for a few lira. On one occasion two or three were entertained to supper.

The peasants were living on the 鈥榖read line鈥 themselves and had little to give us. Supper was a large plate of spaghetti sprinkled with tomato, herbs and a very strong home-made goat鈥檚 cheese washed down with jugs of the local red wine. Our thirst became chronic and we drank a great deal of water. (Incidentally, the water supply was from shallow wells actually inside many of the cottages. You dropped a small bucket top downwards into the narrow neck of the well and hauled it up with the string attached to its handle. We never thought to question the purity of the water and certainly it seemed to be very sweet and cool). Drinking lots of water with pasta is not a good idea and our stomachs were distended for hours afterwards!

During the summer of 1944 the stores had extended into all available space and two of us were ordered to sleep under canvas in the scrubland behind the house. We set about making ourselves as comfortable as possible. A truck was still going daily into Bari and we asked the driver to buy two metal camp beds for us. With 鈥榝urniture鈥 made from any old wooden crates scrounged from the stores we soon had the nearest thing to home that we had experienced for a year. In November I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. The family presents were exclusively books except for a cake, which arrived intact and was soon demolished. The books were fine except that I had to carry them with me on the rest of my travels.

Also during the summer, we were given a weeks 鈥榣eave鈥 at a rest camp set up on the shore of the Adriatic north of Monopoli. I think it was a pre-war Italian style Butlins! I met a chap from an infantry unit who had taken part in the capture of Naples and had made friends with an Italian family in a village near there. He proposed that we should break camp and hitchhike over there instead of staying in the boring old camp. There was no form of roll call, so travelling light we went out to the main road on the morning of the third day and stuck out our thumbs. This of course was the accepted means of transport all over Italy. We rode north to Foggia mostly on American trucks going to the many airfields on the inland plain. Then it was westward over the mountains to Benevento and Avellino on an assortment of trucks, jeeps, ambulances, even a tank transporter. We reached the village (whose name I never remembered) quite late in the evening and my companion (whose name I have quite forgotten) went ahead to warn the family of our arrival. I continued to walk down the dusty lane in the early moonlight entertained by hundreds of fireflies twinkling in the hedgerows. Alas, when I reached the village the whole place was in darkness and it was quite some minutes before a door opened and I was called in. It was a very odd experience. We stayed two nights and were fed mostly on eggs and pasta. Then back over the mountainous roads with their horrendous gradients (we saw many vehicles that had failed to take he sharp bends at the bottom of the slopes). We had one narrow escape ourselves when the back of the truck in which we were riding skidded into the back of another as we passed on a bend. Our progress was slower on the return journey, despite a long stretch in a jeep with a friendly American, and at nightfall we were still about thirty miles from 鈥榟ome鈥. In the village of Trani, looking for food, we went into a long dimly lit bar room. It was like a scene from a film. As we walked in the conversation in the room died and everyone turned to see who had invaded their privacy. We took the hint and backed out! We later found a British Army unit with whom we spent the night, and shot off early in the morning before too many questions could be asked!

Work at the stores continued to grow. Unfortunately, the rules of 鈥榚stablishment鈥 of ME 53 had not provided for the store. The CO told me regretfully that I was doing the work of a quartermaster sergeant but he had no power to promote me. That is the Army for you! We continued daily to equip, advise, train and arm our brave volunteers. It was bravery indeed to drop by parachute into mountainous enemy territory especially if a mistake was made or the wind was stronger than anticipated. One loss concerned a man whose chute caught in a tree and left him dangling in mid air, in pitch darkness. He cut himself free and fell to his death 鈥 he had been suspended over a chasm.

At Christmas 1944 we had visitors 鈥 the first squadron of the now famous SAS. They were a friendly but wild bunch. Our party on Christmas night was uproarious. Their sergeant, a tough-looking little man, was serving the drinks at a table and frequently helping himself. About midnight I was just about to say to one of ours that he seemed to be holding his liquor well when without warning he keeled over backwards into the bath of water that he had been using to clean the glasses! It was one of the SAS who during the Festive Season put a message on the unit notice board-

NOTISS

BREEVIN

Breevin is a Privlidge xpresly reserved for orfissers. Orl Uther Ranx will seese breevin forfwif.

The notice disappeared the next day without comment!

By April 1945 the war was drawing to a close. The Germans withdrew from Yugoslavia as the Russians advanced through Poland. This meant that we had no more to do and a great deal of shifting around began. I was first sent to a regrouping centre at Nola, just east of Naples, and then to another actually on the Bay of Naples at Castellamare di Stabia. The coast road between Naples and Sorrento in those days was a narrow badly maintained road with innumerable sharp bends. The only barrier between the road and the sea was a low wall only a couple of feet high in places. We came across a truck one day with its front wheels balanced on the top of the wall, the driver鈥檚 cab on the sea side poised over the edge. The driver had carefully slid out and had been waiting there three days for assistance!

With no official duties except organisation of the unit itself we had much more time to spend at leisure. We swam most days from the local beach, which was not brown sand like English beaches but black volcanic ash from Vesuvius. It got so hot in the sun that duck boards had to be laid over it to enable people to get to the water without burning the soles of their feet. Eventually arrangements were made for several excursions, the most exciting of which was the ascent of Vesuvius. Nine of us rode in a truck to about 1,500 feet of the top where we were met by a local farmer to be our guide. The climb even for super fit young men was exhausting. The whole side of the mountain is covered in loose ash. We took one step forward and slid back two! That must be an exaggeration because eventually we reached the lip of the crater, very hot (there was no shade on the slopes), very dusty and extremely thirsty. This last was not helped by the thick sulphurous smoke coming from the crater, which had spewed tons of hot ash and lava out only twelve months ago. Mindful of this, we did not linger for many minutes. To descend, we simply turned and ran down the loose ash just digging our heels in and sliding to a halt. About halfway down, our guide took us to an outcrop of lava where a gust of air was issuing from one or two small fissures. He grouped us all behind the holes and asked for a cigarette packet. When this was produced he dropped it over one of the holes. There was a sudden roar: the packet burst into flames, which spread out in a long tongue for an instant and then died away. It was a very impressive demonstration of the heat generated by the volcano! The farmer took us back to his house, which had a cellar cut into the rock of the mountain. Here it was wonderfully cool and he served us each with a glass of the local wine that tasted like nectar after our exertions. It is a dessert wine produced from vines grown in the volcanic soil and has a sweet and smoky flavour. Its name, the farmer told us is Lacrima Christi 鈥 the tear of Christ. That was a wine tasting that I shall never forget!

Our second outing was a delightful voyage in a fishing boat across to the Isle of Capri. No tourists at all of course, just a deserted quayside with a scattering of nets and upturned boats. Our captain took us round the headland to the Blue Grotto. For a few extra lire we were transferred to rowing boats and taken into the grotto, ducking our heads as we went through the low entrance. Inside a trick of the light being concentrated by the tiny aperture transforms the water into silver and shimmers on the cave roof in blue and silver. One or two lads (who were not wearing much anyway) dived in and also became silvered. It was another memorable experience.

The third trip was to the nearby ruins of Pompeii. Once again we benefited from the absence of tourists. What is more, we were taken to several points of interest that are not now included in the tourist routes. I am thinking particularly of the brothel house with its lewd tiling, which caused many embarrassed sniggers. The visit sparked off in me an interest in archaeology and excavation, which has lasted a life-time and led to chairmanship of the local archaeological society in Coventry in the 1970鈥檚. I was fascinated to see, for instance, some hollow shapes in the fossilised pumice where both humans and animals had perished under the falling hot ash nearly 1900 years ago. Now, only the shape of their curled up bodies was preserved in the solidified rock.

At last in August 1945 we boarded the 鈥淓mpire Trooper鈥 at Naples for the journey home. The ship was a worn out old tub, which took 15 days to get us to Southampton. On the way it seemed that every day they were throwing overboard a hoard of rotten food. The stench was awful, especially if the crates of whatever it was floated along with us. We arrived in England just two years after I had set out. The change from Mediterranean light and heat to an English 鈥榮ummer鈥 (grey overcast skies and cool wind) was a bit upsetting but after a few days we became acclimatised. After leave I reported back to the Army and was shuttled about in various 鈥榟olding camps鈥 and depots in Woking, Cliftonville and Cardiff before being appointed to the RASC Headquarters of 55th Infantry Division in Cuckfield, Sussex. The return to regular Army procedures was not welcome after the informality of the Special Operation units. However I was not to suffer long. Whilst we were on our way home the war against Japan (which we had been destined to join) had ended abruptly with the dropping of the two atom bombs on 15 August. So again, there was no more to do except to wait for demobilisation or 鈥榙emob鈥 as everybody called it. Meanwhile, my father had fallen seriously ill with cancer of the throat. He died in November 1945 and when I applied for leave to attend his funeral and to clear up the affairs of his watch repairing business instead of leave I was granted 鈥榗ompassionate release鈥 from the Forces. So early in January 1946 I went to the Demob Centre at Northampton, drew my civilian suit, shirts, socks, hat and coat etc., handed in my battle dress and went home on the train feeling very peculiar!

Reading this over, I feel that it is a fairly accurate record of my Army service except for innumerable little instances and experiences, which are too numerous to set down and yet, are part of the whole. I went into the Forces still really a schoolboy despite a year in the Inland Revenue office in Coventry 1941/42. I came out a man of twenty two very much more mature. On the whole I am sure that it 鈥榙id me good鈥.

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