大象传媒

My name is Earnest Argent. I now live in Stilton, Peterborough,but I was born in Ilford, Essex, and went to school there. When the war broke out I was working in my father's removal firm,Argent & Sons. I was called up in 1940 and went into The Rifle Brigade as a Driver/Mechanic. Of my two brothers, one, Len, went into the Navy and the other, William, into the RAF.
In early 1942 whilst serving in North Africa I was in a Bren gun carrier which was hit and I was wounded and received burns to my hands, which could be seen clearly until quite recently. After first aid I was in an ambulance with other wounded, which was captured by the Germans. The German Officer made sure that we were all genuine wounded and saluted us as men wounded in battle! The Germans transferred us to their field hospital where we were very well looked after
When we had recovered we were handed over to the Italians to be taken to Scicily. On the way to Sicily the italian ship was torpedoed by the Royal Navy, and we had to abandon ship. I was unable to get to a lifeboat as I was trying to persuade another chap to leave. As the ship rolled over I ran down the side and into the sea. I spent the night on what I believe was a door, with another POW, not seeing anything else, but in the morning, after a freezing cold night, we were rescued by an Italian Warship.
Eventually I arrived in POW camp in Italy, Camp 66, I think it was called Ancona. We were quite well treated by the Italians but food was very short until our Red Cross parcels began to arrive.
When the Italians surrendered in 1943 we found one morning that all the Italian guards had gone! We were told by the Senior British Officer that we were supposed to stay in the camp until German troops arrived to take it over. This seemed to us a daft idea so we walked out, about 1,000 of us, heading south, in small groups. We were befriended by Italian farmers , and were on the run for about 10 months. One farmer helped us by dyeing our uniforms black to look more like civilian clothes
Some of the farmers had radios where we could hear 大象传媒 broadcasts from India, so we could follow the war. Eventually we heard that Polish and Anti-Fascist Italian troops were approaching along the Adriatic coast and we were able to reach their lines.
I evetually returned to England in late summer of 1944. After attending a clearance camp. I was transferred to the RASC, presumably becuase of my driving skills. I was married in 1944 and spent the remainder of my service ferrying supplies to airfields for the troops in Europe.

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