大象传媒

Stranded at Salerno

As a radar operator in the R.A.F. I was sent to Algiers in July 1943 and after a few weeks was posted along with six others to a radar unit in Tripoli.here we found that the unit had moved to Tunis and on arrival there we were told that it was now in Bizerta.At Bizerta the latest news was that it had been put aboard a L.S.T.and was on its way to Italy to take part in the landings at Salerno,as we found out later.
The seven of us were put aboard another L.S.T. and told to join this unit ,if we could ever find them!
Soon we set sail with dreams of going to the holiday paradise of Italy we had heard so much about,especially now that Italy had withdrawn from the war.
The following day we sailed into the Bay of Salerno and my first sight in Italy was one of the famous Greek temples at Paestum,a wonderful sight!
No sooner had I seen that than enemy aircraft dived on our convoy,bombing and firing their guns. This was a pretty rude awakening from our dreams of lying about in sunny Italy! Of course we had forgotten that the Germans hadn't given up the fight and were still in Italy and far from friendly.
Our first instinct was to dive under the nearest truck where we stayed till things quietened down.Our soldier friends were delighted to tell us that our sheltering truck was full of boxes of ammunition and jerry cans full of petrol.
"What a place to hide!" they jeered as we crawled out and tried to look nonchalent.
The ships hung about in the bay until night fell then slowly made their way to the beaches and just after midnight on September 14th our L.S.T.slid onto the beach ,dropped its ramp and began to unload.
As we walked off the ship with all our gear plus a tea chest full of useless cooking ingredients provided by the caring catering unit at Bizerta, all hell was breaking out around us and though we did not know it at the time,the landings were going badly and the Germans were making determined efforts to drive
us back into the sea.No wonder the ships waited till nightfall to unload.By day it was asking for trouble as the whole of the beachhead was in the range of German artillery Even at this time there were explosions all over the place and it seemed that we had arrived at a seriously dangerous place.Thinking it would be a good idea to get off the beach we asked a passing soldier if we could report to somebody to ask about our still elusive radar unit.
"Go to the transit camp",he said,"It's in that field just off the beach".
The transit camp turned out to be just an empty field so we decided to try to bed down and get some sleep in spite of the noise and uncertainty. I think we did manage to sleep for a while and in the morning we ate some of our hard biscuits and drank from our water bottles,then walked down to the beach which we found out was Green Beach.When the Germans were shelling Red Beach it seemed fairly safe to venture on to Green Beach but when the shelling stopped on Red Beach it was advisable to clear off Green Beach! One poor chap who couldn't clear off the beach was the Beachmaster whom we found down a big hole with a telephone and the responsibility for directing all movements on and off the beach.We asked him for any information he might have about our unit and he said he would make inquiries and told us to come and see him again after a day or two.
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Aswe walked off the beach we spotted a jeep with someone sitting in the back. taking achance that we might get some information there we approached the jeep and found a captured G erman officer glaring at us and looking anything but happy as he waited for his escort to come back and load him onto a ship. At least he was going out of the German shooting gallery to somewhere quieter.
We were still seven airmen of no fixed abode and later in the day we decided to settle on a small patch of ground just off the beach and beside a narrow walled lane near a deserted house where we found that we could get water from a pump in the yard. This was in the area of Magazzeno on the outskirts of Salerno town. Here we stayed for about four days, sleeping in the open and scrounging food from soldiers on Green Beach from time to time. In the meantime the Beachmaster finally had some news for us. It appeared that our unit had been on a L.S.T. which had been shelled and it had gone back to North Africa for repairs.
We also learned from a passing soldier that the lane we were camped beside was the site of a massacre by the Germans of a battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, who were caught in a massive counter attack. Fom that time it was always known as Hampshire Lane.
About this time the navy was called in to shell the enemy in a bid to stop the German attacks and one of the ships involved was the Warspite with its large calibre guns. It was quite an experience to hear them fire and then hear the explosions as they hit their targets.
Another day a F.W.190 dived out of the sun and headed our way. We did a quick burst of speed and hopped over a wall as he fired his guns and dropped a bomb which landed in a garden somewhere behind us. Whether or not he was after us personally we never knew but we gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Still feeling stranded and having had enough of life by the beach we decided to move and try to find any signs of a R.A.F.unit as we knew that there was an airfield at Montecorvino. We found an old Italian army handcart,piled all our gear on it and headed inland . Amazingly after walking for some time we saw, parked in a field, the familiar sight of a radar aerial belonging to a mobile G.C.I. unit. This turned out to be 871AMES and we told our story to the C.O. who said we could join them.
At last we had a home we could call our own and from then on the situation began to improve. Soon the beachhead was secure and the push towards Naples began.

871 AMES went on to take part in the Anzio landings and later on the landings in the South of France so we could truly call ourselves, along with all the other forces in Italy, the D-Day Dodgers!

H.D.Pilkington
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