大象传媒

On a certain day in January 1940, I forget the exact date, I was told by official letter to report to the Royal Artillery training camp at Park Hall, 7th Field Regiment, Oswestry. After a few weeks of rigorous training there followed a couple of weeks at the Royal Artillery H.Q. in Woolwich, London, followed by two weeks embarkation leave. I, like very many other young fellows went abroad on the troop ship Orontes. We set sail on 4th August 1940(a Bank Holiday). Our destination was hinted at after a few days at sea. This turned out to be correct; we were going to the Middle East. The ship suffered engine trouble and unfortunately this slowed the Orontes down considerably so the rest of the convoy went ahead while we struggled on with a corvette as a protector. To avoid any U boat trouble we carried out a zig-zag journey.
When we arrived at Cape Town, all the troops changed from the Orontes to the Strathaird. In all it took 6 weeks to reach our destination of Port Tewfik, Cairo. A few days were spent there being armed and vaccinated etc. Now we were on our way to Mersa Matruh by train. Here we were assigned to an artillery unit known as the Essex Yeomanry, 104 R.A. 414 battery. Our first contact with the enemy was the Italian army. I won鈥檛 go into gory details. In fact due to excellent leadership by General Wavell, the Italian forces were soon ready to give in. So, we were able to move forward comparatively easily to Benghazi and beyond. I estimate we covered six hundred miles at this time. As we were moving forward, part of the 7th armoured division (Desert Rats) were diverted to a different war zone. Almost at the same time we came up against the Afrika Korps and Field Marshal Rommell! Consequently we finished up going into retreat to Tobruk where we were besieged. We were there for several months where we made two attempts to break out of Tobruk. The first was a mess and a complete failure! It was said that the attempt to break-out was openly talked about in Cairo. However, the second attempt was a terrific success, even though we had help from forces coming from Cairo. This allowed us to have a week鈥檚 leave in Cairo.
When we returned to our units we were suddenly diverted to the Far East and the rumour was that we were going to Singapore but Singapore fell to the Japanese while we were at sea so we landed at Ceylon(Sri Lanka). However in reality we were in Burma before the Japanese arrived; we had to put up with much trouble from Burmese 5th columnists in Burma, they were every bit as cunning as the Japanese but eventually we got out of Burma across the Naga hills into India. It was here that I lost touch with my unit because I was detained in an Indian Army Hospital in Bareily. With help, I was able to rejoin my unit and pals in the Bombay area. After a while, we set off again to the Middle East but this time it was to Baghdad via Basra; to our relief we found out this was the end of hostilities for us but we still had a job to do, we had to make ourselves known and influence countries to stay neutral or stay on our side. In a way it became a sightseeing tour! We moved around as the 51st Indian Division covering Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and right up to the Turkish border.
Now it was time for my repatriation. My 2 pals, Len Mills and Vic Childs had to stay put for a little while longer. When the repats. ship arrived back in Liverpool, it was approximately six years since I had first left Liverpool to go to war. When we docked, six char ladies gave us a clap and said 鈥淲ell done boys鈥�. After a short stay in a camp near Tenby(Penally) I met my wife, Heather. Soon after I had been demobbed we were married. The really good news for me after I had arrived home was, that I saw so many wonderful sights; such as the twelve stations of the cross, the grotto of Jesus in Bethlehem; the Pyramids; the hanging gardens of Babylon and so on and oh yes the Taj Mahal in India! Why was I was so lucky?

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.