大象传媒

PEACE IN OUR TIME
Memories of Service with 154 Infantry Bde.Coy.RASC (Highland Div.) in WW2
I was 18 years old when Neville Chamberlain, then Prime Minister, returned from a
.meeting in Germany with the German dictator Hitler in 1938, waving a piece of
paper and declaring --
鈥淭his is Peace in Our Time
I think most people were aware then that what he had won was a respite, and not a reprieve, so I, with many others, determined that day to prepare for the war which now seemed inevitable,
When the Highland Division held a recruiting drive in our Perth-shire village soon after that, it was not surprising that some eighteen or twenty lads of about my age joined the Territorial Army.
Our parents were obviously unhappy about the prospect of losing sons in a new war, when they remembered very well losing friends and relations in the 1914/18 war, but most accepted that it had to come. My father had been a sergeant in the Black Watch in 1916 and was transferred to the Gordon Highlanders in France, where he was badly wounded, so he knew what was facing us. His opposition to our joining up was tempered only by his awareness that in the event of war we would be conscripted in any case, so he conceded we were better to be with friends than drafted without a choice. Perhaps as a good Highlander, he was remembering the old Gaelic saying -
鈥� La a bhlair's, math na cairdean ' = On the day of battle, friends are good!
which is now inscribed on many Highland War Memorials of both World Wars.
After a very brief medical examination in Perth we were sworn in and started our training. This was limited to a couple of hours a week, most of it designed to teach us how to stand, and how to do rifle drill. We had some six or seven weeks of this, plus occasional weekends at Buddon camp near Carnoustie in Angus.
The annual two weeks in camp in 1939 were at Gailes in Ayrshire, giving us our first brief taste of Army life. We learned to recognise the bugle calls which marked the day's progress, from Reveille, through 'Fall In', 'Mail Call` 'Cookhouse` ,'Defaulters` and others till 'Lights Out` signalled the end of a day.
As a Highland company, many of these calls were replaced by well-known bagpipe
tunes. Reveille, for instance, was "Hey Johnny Cope, are ye waukened yet",
Defaulters answered to "A Man's a Man for a' that", while Officers Dinner call became "The Drunken Piper". Lights Out was the haunting old highland melody "Mo Dhachaidh",(My Home).
By the end of our fortnight we had become familiar with the routines. We returned home, not believing we would be required to put our knowledge to use quite so soon.
Barely two months later we were assembled again, having been notified of the place and time of assembly for our contingent, so for us, the beginning was in the Square in Aberfeldy, where a bus was waiting to take us to a temporary base in Perth.
We disembarked at Pullars old dye-works, largely cleared of it's laundering and dyeing machinery, to find that our first military task as full-time soldiers preparing for war was clearing up all the remaining rubble and transporting it elsewhere.
Two days later the Prime Minister made his solemn statement informing the waiting nation that
"This country is now at war with Germany".
This was when we realized that from now on we had to take our training seriously, but during our few weeks in Perth we were occupied in cleaning and clearing up, and wishing the Army dished up some reasonably well-cooked food for a change. As a treat we were marched to the Perth swimming baths once a week, where we could splash around for a while before being marched back for more labouring.
Our move from Perth to the now familiar Buddon Camp in Angus a week or two later left us still within easy travelling distance of home. 24hr.passes from Saturday 'after duties' till 23.59 hrs Sunday could reduce the camp population to those on duty over the weekend.
Weapon training, route marches, driving instruction and vehicle maintenance with non-optional extras such as guard duty, fire picket, in-lying picket occasional spells of 'confined to barracks' in punishment for a crime such as "appearing unshaven on parade". Not, you will note, actually unshaven but `appearing to be'; this interpretation allowed platoon Sgts. to fulfil their assigned quota of men for 'fatigues', i.e. any unpopular and dirty jobs around the camp. Being 'CB' was normally no hardship as except at weekends, we seldom had money to go out with anyway.
However these halcyon days could not go on forever and soon we were on the move.
Rumours of 'straight up the line in France' proved false when we found ourselves in barracks in Woking. For most of us this was our first visit to the South of England, and the landscapes, with long vistas to a tree-lined horizon were attractive to we who were accustomed to being encircled by hills.
More training, inoculations and vaccinations, medical and dental inspections but, coming up to Christmas, home leave was started so that all would have two weeks at home over the festive season. There were still rumours around that the war would be over within weeks but I don't think anyone really believed that, nor did we much care. We were going on leave and until then nothing else mattered.
We were not to know then that for some it was to be their last home leave ever, while for a great many others it was to be the last until the POW camps released them, more than five years later.
In early January we set sail for 'The War', and very soon regretted it. The journey on an aged troopship took only a few hours, which we spent packed together below decks to get out of the bitterly cold wind in the Channel..
We landed at Le Havre, spotting the wrecked French liner 'Normandie' on our way in. If we had looked forward to some comfortable billet for the night we were to be bitterly disappointed for we were deposited in an open-fronted warehouse in the docks, where we spent the first of many bitterly cold nights during that unbelievably cold winter. We were apparently awaiting the unloading of our vehicles or something. As mere private soldiers no one bothered to tell us anything. We got orders, such as 'Wait here'-' Go there'--- and we did, patient as any oxen ever were.
I bought a very hard crusty roll from a vendor in the docks and broke a front tooth at first bite, which only confirmed my earlier opinion that War is Hell! A few of us wandered into town that evening and ignoring the bright lights advertising the attractions of various under dressed ladies, settled for egg, chips and coffee. We had a whip-round for a tip for the accordionist who had lingered around our table, but when we offered him what we could raise between us he refused with a gesture which was easily interpreted as 'if that's all you've got you know what you can do with it'.
French gestures, it seems, are very eloquent. One of our number replied with a Scottish gesture, but not until we were at the door and ready to run. Perhaps fortunately for international relations, we moved out next day heading for the Belgian border area. This took a few days I think, probably due to the fearful state of the roads. Linklater said of the weather "Trees were sheathed in ice, the weight of it broke their branches ....the roads were armoured with thick sheets of it ;transport drivers lived dangerously". Inevitably, there were accidents, few were serious. Despatch riders found their job almost impossible, and hoisted their motorcycles up onto a truck.
Our platoon Sgt. who was much older than most of us, had been an A.A. man, and in those days they had patrolled on motorcycle and sidecar, but even he found it impossible. He was later carted off to hospital with pneumonia.
One overnight stop was memorable, as it could have had serious consequences. The billet was, as we by now expected, in a barn or outhouse of some sort, with some hay piled up in one end. Surprisingly the hay was dry, because it had been placed in the only part of the building that still had a roof.
Before lying down in the hay, to get such rest as was possible in the intense cold, we put on all the spare clothing we could dig out of our packs. Some time later someone decided to warm himself by setting fire to a small bundle of hay. Unfortunately he failed to take into account the fact that there were wisps of hay all over the floor, setting the whole place alight.
An officer, presumably the orderly officer, was shouting something like "Everybody outside here now at the double". A classic example of unnecessary advice, which he followed up by adding " and don't forget your rifles".
That morning, I collected breakfast from the tailboard of the cook's truck; laid my half-mess-tin full of hot tea on the tailboard while I picked up two slices of bread and placed a few chunks of solid margarine on them and made a sandwich of the (tinned) fried ham. When I picked up my tea only a few minutes later it already had a skin of ice on it. It was unbelievably cold even for us hardy Highlanders.
The weather was reflecting the vague impression we were receiving that the French were not enthusiastic about the British, but this was dispelled to some extent, for me anyway, in Bethune. We had been distributing paraffin from a vehicle parked in the square, to all those units who had their own transport and, of course, the necessary 'chit' without which nothing could change hands in the Army.
This was not normally our job and should have been done by POL , but it was not for us to question it. The main snag was that the vehicle could not be left unguarded at any time, and the engine had to be run for at least a few minutes every hour during this extreme frost. Consequently a guard had to be mounted and it was part of the sentry's job to ensure that this was done. On this particular day I had drawn the 4 to 6 a.m. shift. The cold was intense and I was standing in the wholly inadequate shelter of one of our parked vehicles when a light went on at about 5.30 a.m. in an estaminet on the corner of the square. I was about to stir my frozen stumps into some semblance of activity in order to march over there and shout " Oy, put that **** light out" when Madame la patronne appeared bearing a steaming cup of cafe au rhum . I protested in my best schoolboy French "Merci madame, mais je n'ai pas d'argent' ". She answered in very good English, 鈥� It is for you from my husband who was an English soldier in 1918.鈥�
I've never enjoyed coffee more than I did that morning. I thought of that coffee many times after that in cold, miserable pre-dawns, but never again did the miracle happen.
As we were to be there at least over one more day I took the opportunity of going to the cafe in the afternoon to ask about her husband but there was just a younger woman there, perhaps a sister, who could only tell me that he was at work. It was probable that he worked for the War Graves Commission as there were many British war cemeteries all around that area.
We were moving around in the Lens/Lille area at that time, having passed through many places whose names were familiar to our fathers. Most of us at that time had this sort of family connection with the HD in WW1.
. The weather had improved by March, having moved through the usual phases of thaw from snow and ice to mud and slush and eventually to brighter, warmer and drier. It was around this time that I had first-hand experience of the most advanced technology available to the French Army. I was allowed to sit in a contraption that looked not unlike a pre-war farm tractor to which two huge gramophone horns had been attached. This was the early-warning-of-approaching-aircraft device. The operator sat there with a headset listening to the sounds amplified by the 'horns', and tracking them by winding a big wheel. Had there not been a war in which air power played a significant part, would we ever have had the resources to develop radar and its attendant and subsequent technology ?
But the war moved on, and so did we; East toward the Alsace/German border and a spell in the Maginot line, somewhere east of Metz. The weather was fine and much of the countryside we now moved through was hilly and thickly afforested, not unlike our own hills and fir forests but with a better climate. We seemed to have more free time here, and some leave was granted to allow us to visit Metz. Metz, being a more or less permanent garrison town was geared to catering for soldiers; shops were offering souvenirs and I for one, looking forward to some home leave, bought presents for the family. We returned to our billets in some village whose name I can`t remember, absolutely flat broke. By the time we got there we were all very hungry again, but with no money we had to stay that way. However, back at the ranch, one of them remembered a tin of Ovaltine he had been sent; he dug it out from the kit bag, water was put on to make hot drinks, then the chap with the tin had a fit of giggles. "We can't have this, lads. Sorry" he said. It seemed that on reading the instructions, he found "prise open lid with a coin" and knowing we didn't have a single coin between us, this struck him as being extremely funny!
I heard the next day that Duncan Grant had been killed during some routine patrol with the Cameron Highlanders just a mile or two up the road. His elder brother, Allan, had been on home leave at the time I was told. These two were old friends, whose parents were neighbours of my Uncle Peter in the row of railway cottages halfway between Dalwhinnie and Newtonmore.
That was probably the last day of the 'phoney war' as we were on the fringe of some fairly heavy shellfire next morning. This, I now know, was Monday 13th May but we had not been keeping track of dates at the time. We had heard all the radio news of the German attack on Belgium on the 10th of May, but as no one in our area seemed concerned we adopted the old soldier's attitude- 'None of our business, mate' and forgot about it. But by this time apparently, the French High Command was in a state of complete confusion; orders were countermanded, even before they were received by the commanders on the spot.
J.B.Salmond's "History of the 51st Highland Division" tells of the Colonel of the Royal Scots Fusiliers who anxiously enquired of the Colonel commanding 7th Argylls whether he had received any orders or had any information. The Argyll solemnly assured him that, according to the Corporal in command of the Divisional concert party, we were to remain here.
I noted earlier that the strafe started on the 13th May. The speed with which events moved is illustrated by the fact that exactly 30 days later the last remnants (us!) of the B.E.F. were evacuating Le Havre.
Again I'm ahead of the story. There was a lot more experience to pack in before we were that far. On 15th May the Division was under orders to retire to a 'prepared position in accordance with the French plan'. That was the beginning of the end for the HD. We moved from one withdrawal to another till it was found that the Germans had broken through the French defences and there was now a mass of German armour between us and the rest of the B.E.F. Linklater records that 'The Guards had been driven out of Boulogne, the Riflemen of Calais were fighting against time and two Panzer divisions. In the north the B.E.F and the Belgian Army were steadily withdrawing: the area of battle was shrinking westward to the coast. There was confused and furious fighting between Valenciennes and Cambrai and Arras." He drew this picture long after the events and with advantage of having had access to reports and records.
It was obviously much more difficult for the officers in the field to assess the situation, not having had such an overall view, so I suppose it's not surprising that mistakes were made. It appeared to be the intention of the French top brass to use the HD in defence of Paris, but then it seemed we were needed at Varrennes, passing another great name in 1st.World War history, Verdun, on the way. We were no time at all at Varennes when the orders changed again. The Division was divided into two parties, one to go by road, the other, since there was not enough road transport, going by rail. The rail parties were diverted to Rouen, while the road parties went west toward the coast. Before leaving here we were required to dump all kitbags and any other unnecessary baggage in the forest, where they were set fire to. Farewell to all our family presents!
We were driving non-stop, and over roads which were frequently crowded with civilian refugees, most of whom no more knew where they were going than we did. I remember very little of the journey from Varennes to Neufchatel although one night, we saw a road sign showed we were only a few kilometres from Paris.
We eventually arrived at Neufchatel, or somewhere near it. This was another place my father had known more than twenty years before. The only memorable thing here was that while parked under cover, we heard the familiar chatter of airborne machine-guns and the whisper of stray rounds. This was quickly followed by three aircraft in line flying so close they were almost touching and so near to the treetops they were almost clipping them. The middle machine was RAF and firing on the enemy in front, while the third was another German firing at the RAF. Even allowing for the slow speeds of aircraft then as compared with the later jets, they disappeared from view in seconds, and only seconds later we heard one of them crash.
There may have been other RAF machines in France but that was the only one we ever saw. Of the Luftwaffe we saw more than enough. Indeed even I, whose aircraft recognition was a joke in the Company, learned to recognise the German Stukas from the frequency with which they visited us.
It was probably just as well that we were not then fully aware of the complete chaos reigning at High Command, though we suspected it. This was 'situation normal' in the ranks, so we grumbled a bit, but didn't worry unduly.
I remember very little of our short stay here. Our infantry were engaged in trying to drive the Germans out of the Abbeville area, so we must have been supplying them, at least until we ran out of ammunition.
No supplies of any kind had reached us for some time; petrol was being taken from wherever it could be found, and not much remained. We were now required to make an attempt to get through to Le Havre to find the ammunition, food and medical supplies needed to keep the Brigade in business.
All the available transport set off with a few spare bodies as riflemen in case of attack from ground forces. As we were almost out of ammunition it's hard to see what we could really do to defend ourselves. Although suggestions were offered, none of them were very practical; e.g. `urinating on the enemy 'was rejected as this was probably a serious breach of the Geneva convention or something and we might well have found ourselves in trouble. Again I find memory failing me, as I have little recollection of the actual journey in to Le Havre, except that it took some time, and I believe that at least a large part of it may have been at night. This may have been because of the enormous pall of dense black smoke which rolled over the whole area, much of the it coming from the huge oil storage tanks on the docks, which had been set alight. We thought this was probably done by our own base depot troops who had obviously long since fled. Not only the oil tanks had been set alight but all the storage sheds on the docks. This was no doubt designed to deny the accumulated supplies to the Germans but the job hadn't been very well done as we were able to get into several sheds which were not fully ablaze, in search of supplies._
We loaded up some of our 15cwt trucks with oddments of ammunition, food and medical supplies though all the ammunition I specifically recall was a lot of .303 Mk7Z, which for the uninitiated was a steel-jacketed round for heavy machine guns. It could be, and was, used in our rifles because there was no choice, but it bruised the shoulder and did the rifle barrel no good. By way of food we had canned peaches and 'hardtack' (the iron-hard biscuit used as emergency rations) and some jars of undiluted rum .
So, as they say in American war films ,`mission accomplished', we set off back to find the Brigade. Our motor transport officer, with our platoon Sgt., had done an extremely difficult job here, guiding our small convoy through a route which had to be tortuous to avoid probable enemy patrols or infiltration, and finding the warehouses despite the almost impenetrable smoke-induced darkness. Now they had to get us out again if the supplies we had gathered at some cost, were to reach the battalions who needed them. But finding the Brigade again proved almost impossible. Everywhere we went was either already in enemy hands or had been abandoned by our own troops, excusably as we found later, since most of them had been taken prisoner. So we wandered around trying to find some of our people; directed from time to time by some solitary Military Police Cpl. courageously doing a very lonely job, trying to direct stragglers such as ourselves to find their units. We were directed and re-directed ;
"Try Fecamp", said one, so we did, only to find the troops there were from the opposition.
Eventually we were told, or our O.C. decided, to get back to Le Havre in the hope of finding some friendly faces there, as they were distinctly thin on the ground elsewhere. As we neared the pall of smoke hiding the town we were ordered, correctly this time, to report to the C.O. of a force which had been assembled in some woods above the town, and were holding the road open for as long as possible in order to gather up as many strays as they could find. This turned out to be the HQ of our own 154 Bde., with remnants of the two Argyll and Sutherland battalions, 4th Black Watch, 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers with some attached troops and "A" Bde. Shortly after this we had to abandon and destroy what was left of our transport, siphoning off whatever dregs of petrol remained in their tanks before dropping a hand grenade in to set them alight. We were now foot soldiers but looking more like the Mexican bandits in old Western films, with bandoliers of ammunition draped over our shoulders. We had no other transport but needed the ammo and anything else we could carry. So we took our places in the ditch, alongside the remnants of the Black Watch, Argylls, Seaforths, Borderers, and isolated members of various other regiments. I don鈥檛 think any of us felt more than slightly apprehensive about the future, and the mood was cheerful. We had, after all, survived a journey over the past few days that at times had seemed impossible, so we settled down optimistically, to await whatever orders were to be given us. There were few; man the ditches, form patrols, dig slit trenches where required and generally maintain order and discipline, so we did.
We had regular visits from the Luftwaffe, who seemed to time their visits to coincide with what, in normal circumstances, would be breakfast, dinner and tea-time. Most of us fired a few shots at them more to relieve our feelings than in any hope of hitting them, but surprisingly, in view of the amount of ammunition they expended on the forest they did very little serious harm., although I was twice lifted bodily off my feet by bomb blast, and on one occasion was partially covered by the soft earth and leaf-mould of the ditch when a bomb landed on the road within a few feet of where I was cowering.
That was on one particularly bad day when our small section seemed to be the specific target. The sergeant was moving around with a couple of water bottles, checking for casualties. Fortunately my mate and I had both escaped unhurt, but were glad of the water-bottles offered by Sgt. Angus. It wasn't till I'd swigged about half-a-pint to get rid of the dust that I realized we were drinking undiluted rum. Oddly enough, it had no noticeable effect on either of us, probably because we had been badly shaken up. I was quite deaf for a large part of that day and had a very sore head (the rum?) and my face, like my companion's, was almost black with the clinging rich mud from the ditch. On the other side of the road from us was one of my section, who burst out laughing when I went to walk across for a chat.
"Look at this, lads" he yelled" Old Bill and his pal looking for 'a better 'ole' ". This was a reference to the Bruce Bairnsfather's characters in his series of WW1 cartoons; in particular to the one in which Old Bill, peeved by his mate's complaints about the shell-hole they were sheltering in, advised 鈥斺�� If you knows a better 'ole, go to it".
It was about this time that two of our ex-D.R's, missing their motor-bikes, found two old bicycles and a supply of rum so next time the Stukas came over to harass us, these two were seen pedalling furiously up and down our stretch of road, blasting off at the aircraft with their revolvers. They added considerably to the occasion by shouting "-and another Redskin bites the dust !" until having emptied the chambers, they tried to reload without dismounting. A hard enough task when sober.
Inevitably, they fell off and perhaps having had some sense knocked into them by the fall, crawled cheerfully back into their ditch. I'm reasonably sure one of these was an Aberfeldy lad while the other may have been from Ballinluig. Talking of things being 'found', someone had an old portable gramophone in working order but with only one record, or at any rate only one record they wanted to play. It was not an inspired choice in view of our circumstances to endlessly play "Home, Sweet Home", no matter how beautifully sung by a very popular soprano, Deanna Durbin.
Perhaps there was a prophetic element there, as very shortly after that we became aware that some parties from this little force were moving out, and we were told that we were to be ready to move later that night, into the town where a ship would be waiting to take us off. Despite the gloomy forebodings of the pessimists, it proved to be true. We moved out, and made our way into the black smoke which was Le Havre. As we approached the docks, we passed through a line of armed sailors who were sensibly nervous at being turned out into this dark and dangerous place, and as one of them asked, "Many more to come?" it was clear they were not enjoying themselves. However, it was cruel to reply, as someone did- "the next lot through are the Jerries, mate". There had been some spasmodic rifle fire as we were going through the town, so there may have been some truth in that. Certainly I was glad to see a naval vessel waiting for us, and even more glad that I had a steel deck above my head when the Luftwaffe came through again, and the machine gun fire rattled on the deck above our heads like hailstones in a violent storm. We slept more soundly than we had for quite a long time, but any dreams of a quiet and comfortable trip back to England were shattered when we awoke next morning, to find ourselves disembarking in Cherbourg.
We had been given Field Service Postcards ( Army Form A2022) on which we were allowed to write only the date and our signature. Everything else was in the form of multiple choice sentences ; e.g. 鈥� I am well/I am ill/I am wounded, etc.鈥� and those that did not apply were to be stroked out. On the card I sent, dated 13 June 1940 which was kept carefully, and which I now have, I note that I had 'received your /telegram/letter/parcel dated`. I have no recollection of any parcel but I'm told that mail probably arrived with one of the, vessels which had docked at Le Havre to pick up troops and someone found time to deliver it.
I suppose the postcards we duly handed to whoever was detailed to collect them were put on the destroyer we had just left, and which was already moving on its way, while we waited on the quayside, clutching our few belongings. Eventually we were lined up and marched off in that brilliant sunshine, in 'column of route' to God knows where. Two or three hours later we were in the grounds of a large and obviously deserted chateau. Food had arrived from somewhere and was being prepared, but anyone expecting cordon bleu would be disappointed. I can't remember what we had at any time during the few days we were there but it was probably 'bully'. Orders were given for the usual sentry and stand-to positions; air sentries as before had whistles to blow as a warning of approaching aircraft, but all troops on the ground were ordered, in the event of aircraft being seen everyone was to remain under the cover of the trees, with no peering up ,as white faces could easily be seen. We were there apparently only to wait in the hope of being found a ship to take us off. We were no longer equipped for battle but would prefer not to be required to meekly surrender if it could be avoided. To the best of my recollection we saw no aircraft, nor any other sign of an enemy during those days.
We had been there for about five days when we were once again lined up, looking just a little more ragged than before, to march back into Cherbourg, where it was believed, a vessel would be waiting to pick us up. "Where to this time" we wondered. The possibility that it may have been a German ship taking us POW didn`t occur to us.
Just as well, for if it had, some of us would almost certainly have skipped off, thereby missing a lovely experience. It was a particularly hot spell of weather that week and as we marched, or straggled, along we were accosted by a flock of nuns offering large white jugs full of their homemade cider. It was delicious, but very alcoholic, and we hadn't had much to eat for the past two weeks so it wasn't long before the reasonably disciplined and ordered column disintegrated. The rhythm of the march became ragged and although officers and senior NCO's did their best they soon gave up and accepted that so long as we kept moving it didn't matter. Keep moving we did; if anyone fell out they would have been helped on by people at the rear.
In view of the fact that we had been helped so generously by the friendly nuns it is not surprising that I don't remember actually arriving back in Cherbourg. A ship was waiting, by her name, which I can't now remember, she was Dutch, but the 'meal' we had been queuing for since boarding the waiting ship was provided and served by the "Sally Ann" (Salvation Army). I don't remember exactly what it comprised, but I know the sandwiches were made with good thick slices of bread and we given big mugs of hot sweet tea. Nectar and ambrosia! I should think we slept for the remainder of the trip which took us to Poole in Dorset where we lay off in brilliant sunshine, while the crew laid `scrambling nets overside , as the ship was too big to get in any closer to the shore. We scrambled down these nets into small boats which took us ashore, where we piled into 鈥榖uses waiting to take us to Bournemouth. We were billeted in King Edward School until arrangements could be made to sort us out.
We were a mixed bunch, as by the time we got this far we had acquired elements of almost every unit in the British Army, so it would take some sorting.
Before we settled down we had more tea and sandwiches, this time from the good ladies of the W.V.S. The sandwiches here, in direct contrast to the Sally Ann's, were so thinly cut that it took two handfuls to make a good bite, and the tea was in china cups with saucers.
While this was going on other local people were inviting groups of three or four soldiers to their homes for a bath and yet another meal. Baths were acceptable, but beds which were offered for the night had to be refused as we had been told we could be moving out at any time, which proved to be the case. The authorities had been prepared for this and although we had a quiet and peaceful night in the school we were given travel warrants in the morning and told to go home till we were sent for. I was astonished when I got to the station at Aberfeldy to find my father there, along with it seemed, half the population of the village.
Word had reached them that some of the missing men were on their way home. Although we had not been aware of it, we had been officially reported 'missing in action' some time before this, which must have caused considerable anxiety in our homes. Sadly some of the parents there had to go home alone, still hoping that some news of their sons would reach them soon. In my own case, anxious though I was to get home to a good meal, my father marched me straight over to the Station Hotel bar where he bought me a drink
On my way home at last, still wearing the 'tin hat 鈥渟ince the bonnet was lost 'DBEA' (Destroyed By Enemy Action) as the Army had it鈥�, carrying the rifle and all the trimmings and trying hard to look like a seasoned warrior rather than a kid home from school, as I walked the half-mile or so to the house where my mother and sister waited with the kettle 'on the boil'.
During those few days at home I was astonished to find the great majority of people calmly accepting that Britain was in a very vulnerable situation, but firmly believing that all would somehow be put right again.

I became accustomed to being questioned by people at home who wanted to know how it had
felt to be on the retreat and under fire for days on end. I usually answered along the lines of "Well, it wasn't too bad really " and was disbelieved. In fact the truth was probably that we had been too tired to care. When we survived an attack in one place and moved back to another we had no energy left to worry about the possibility of the next attack.
Our job was to make sure that if we had ammunition or rations or whatever on the truck, it was delivered to where it was needed if that was at all possible. If we were to pick up some of our infantry, then we picked them up, delivered them, and stayed with them till ordered elsewhere. For this we were paid 2/6d (12陆 p) a day.
My younger brother, Allan, who had joined with me, but at just 18 was too young for active service, had been posted to Liverpool to serve with a unit carrying ammunition for the Anti Aircraft batteries there. My older brother, Bill, had rushed back from London to join the Black Watch only to find he had an unsuspected heart condition, was stationed in Perth as a Cpl.in the Royal Army Pay Corps, so I was able to see them both when they came on week-end leave.
We were soon recalled from our leave and told to report to a small town near Glasgow where the scattered remnants of our old company were being brought together. We were delighted to find that some more of our old mates had turned up, having reached home before we did. They had been cut off from the escape route we had been trying to hold open for them at Le Havre, but were evacuated from St.Valery-en-Caux, further north.
This `re-union' billeted us in a small school, and reduced us once more, for a week or two, to casual labourers. We were set to clearing a derelict site with pick and shovel. We had to be kept busy, I suppose, but only until our next move, about a couple of weeks later.
I can't after this long time remember all the places we went to over the next eighteen months or more, or perhaps it would be truer to say that I can remember the places but not the order in which we visited them. We were in Aberdeenshire for a time, near Inverurie, a detachment was in one of Lord Lovat's lodges in Ross-shire and later billeted in a school in Alness, also in Ross-shire. I was on another detachment for a time in Thurso, and earlier in time, I think this was directly after our first leave in June/July 1940, we were in Dulnain Bridge, near Grantown-on-Spey. The weather that summer of 1940 was glorious, and although we had cursed it during that long dusty trek into Cherbourg in the middle of June, we were now fully appreciative of it in late August and early September.
We were camped alongside the unhurried little river Dulnain, just short of where it joins the River Spey; surrounded by fir trees from which the sun was drawing the full rich scent of the resin. The bees were harvesting the heather, the river gurgled gently and we were warm and well fed. It was heaven. I couldn鈥檛 believe my luck; this was home territory to me. As a boy living almost in the foothills of the Cairngorms I had wandered around this district quite a lot. My mother's family had been in this region for generations and the place abounded with 'family' in different degrees of relationship.
It was to this camp that a full complement of reinforcements was sent, most of them appeared to be English, many Londoners, some Scousers, some Geordies and a few Taffies. They were a mixed bag form a Division which had been in training, mostly conscripts but with some volunteers among them. They simply had to change their Divisional badges for ours, and they were accepted as Highlanders. They had a quick initiation into the uncertainty of life in the HD. Barely recovered from the shock of being forced to accept a false identity (as one of them had complained to me earlier), when they were being hauled out of pubs and cinemas in Grantown-on-Spey on a Friday night, rushed back to camp, paraded, armed and sent off in small parties to scour the local hills from then till late next morning, following a report that German paratroops may have landed as a preliminary to full-scale invasion. I don't know where this report came from but I`m sure the local people must have been a bit worried as the cinemas were cleared by a notice on the screen requiring all troops to report immediately to the nearest military camp.
_ When we returned to camp after spending a night prowling the hills we just collapsed into our blankets, fully clothed. I was going on leave that day and had drawn the vast sum of 拢9.00. When I wakened after a couple of hours sound sleep, I discovered my wallet was missing and all my money and leave pass with it. It had been in my tunic pocket the previous evening. As I had slept with the tunic on, the obvious conclusion was that at some point in my scrambling around on the hills, I had lost it.
It never turned up, but I was given a travel warrant and a 'sub' to get me home. Incidentally, there were no Germans on the hills and the nearest thing to a foreigner we could find was a Welshman who had somehow strayed from his his proper section. We wished him good luck and pointed him in what we hoped was the right direction, though I have sometimes wondered whether he may not still be wandering around up there, muttering to himself in Welsh or telling the sheep " The Lord knows I shouldn`t be yere, boyo" , which was all we got from him when we first met.
I got my leave, went home to Aberfeldy, ate a lot, slept a lot and I'm glad to say my younger brother arrived home on leave from Liverpool before I had to go back. He was in for a rough time there for a while, as Liverpool was to be heavily attacked from the air over many nights, though of course we didn't know that at the time. Leave time was up, so back to camp only to find we were to move again. In the months that followed we moved many times and camped or billeted for short spells in most of the Highland Counties. This probably arose from the need to maintain a force in the Highlands to counter any possible attack from Norway or the Norwegian islands, while allowing the Highland Division to carry on with much-needed training , because at this time more than three-quarters of the troops now in the division were recent reinforcements. I applied for posting to other units from time to time, only to be reminded by the C.O. that as one of the few left of the original company, I was too valuable to lose. I think senior officers must have special training in "bull", as he gave the same answer to others of the old soldiers and was equally successful in persuading them to stay. One of the things that did come of it was the setting up of a 'Defence section', and about a dozen of us trained with the Commandos for four or five weeks in Moray and Wester Ross.
The officer training with us was known to us as 'Chunky'; a small but wiry man from Dundee, a city man, but he proved to be the equal of any of us country- bred lads, as he showed on an occasion when an exercise went badly wrong after our return to our company.
It was decided that this ' defence section ' should be taken on a testing exercise which involved climbing a hill of 3000 ft., going down the other side and meeting transport late that evening to return us to camp. No rations were taken, but we each carried some dry oatmeal, raisins, some hard biscuits and a small amount of dry tea mixed with sugar and milk powder. To supplement this diet we could catch or shoot hares or rabbits. We had been transported to a start point at about 6.30 a.m. and with our route pointed out to us, we set off uphill in extended order. It was January or February, so it was still dark, and would be again by probably 3`o`clock that afternoon.
Less than an hour after we started we were facing flurries of snow and by midday the snow was really heavy. We were somewhere near the summit when we were faced with what is now known as 'whiteout`. Visibility was less than a yard, and shortly even those who had been brought up in the hills were completely disoriented, unable even to be certain whether we going up, down or sideways.
I had been taught as a boy that if I was ever caught on the hill in conditions like that, I was to find as sheltered a spot as possible and stay there till visibility improved.
But the officer was in charge and we were trained to obey. He led, we followed. There are those who criticize this blind obedience, but there is no doubt that in most military situations an undisputed leader is essential. Long before darkness fell it was obvious that we were completely lost. We had eaten our supply of raisins and sugar, and although it seemed likely that we were heading downhill most of the time, the natural formation of those hills meant that we were as often climbing as descending. Fit though we were, those long hours of cold winds and heavy snow, of slipping and slithering in darkness found us all thoroughly exhausted. The snow ceased eventually, and a fitful moonlight allowed us to see that away down below us there was the gleam of a fairly large stretch of water. A large loch, obviously, and from the distance we thought we could make out a road or a track along the far shore. We fired the distress signal of three spaced shots at intervals, with every third round being a tracer.
Feeling a little more cheerful we then made our way downhill, knowing at last that we had a visible target, and the prospect of rescue. On the last few hundred yards my legs both cramped. We were making our way down through a scattered birch wood, and as we were already having to help a number of the men whose legs had given way, I had no choice but to toboggan down what was left of the hill, sitting down and using the butt of my rifle like the paddle of a canoe to propel me.
By now, a couple of our trucks had turned up, having been called by the police, and were sitting on the road below waiting for us. Mercifully they had hot food in the Army`s famous ' hay-boxes `.
I later heard that the police had been alerted by a man whose cottage was at the end of the loch. He heard the shots and assumed that the Germans were about to descend on him and his poor sleeping bairns, so he 'got on his bike`, anticipating by some fifty years the advice of a Tory Government minister, and pedalled furiously for about four miles to the nearest telephone.
Safely back in camp, we had a couple of hours sleep, but any hopes we had of being excused duties for the rest of the day were firmly squashed. Not only that, but I and one other were on guard duty that night. The Army way of reminding us that life was not all fun, I suppose.
During those 'idle' years I was sent on various courses. One I remember quite well was 'Water Duties`, at the Army School of Hygiene at Mytchett, in the Aldershot area, and was due to start on January 1st. This meant leaving on the evening of the 30th December, as trains at that time were subject to long delays and diversions due to air raids. We had just recently moved from Inverurie, where I had a few friends, but as my rail travel warrant took me via Aberdeen, I decided to stop over at Inverurie on the way. It was the New Year holiday time after all, and to be required to leave Scotland on the 31st December was too much for me, and as I had no chance of getting home, Inverurie was a good place to see in the New Year in traditional fashion. I was made so welcome by these hospitable folk that it was the 2nd of January before I finally took train south.
By great good fortune the trains had been delayed for many hours due to heavy air raids over the holiday period, and on arrival in London, soldiers who were by then probably overdue to report for duty, queued at the Rail Transport Officer's to get a 'chit' guaranteeing the delays were caused by enemy action. I presented this when I reported, a day late, at Mytchett and was relieved that it was accepted without question. The course was basically devoted to stressing the need to ensure that all drinking water was sterilized properly, especially in tropical climates.
On my return I was required to lecture the assembled company on the subject, and to face questions from the irreverent mob, like " What does water taste like-have ye ever tried it" ,and " is that the stuff ye`re suppose tae wash in" with the answer from the back row " Na, it's whit the cooks gie us instead of tea or soup" which brought a response from our young officer "In the officer's mess they call it coffee". Much more fun than the Mytchett RAMC lectures on the subject.
Mention of Inverurie reminds me of yet another of the many odd jobs I seemed to attract. I had a spell there with the Regimental police that mostly involved standing at the camp gate, saluting passing officers and chatting to the girls who always seem to congregate outside Army camps everywhere in the world. Such girls were the theme of the popular German Army song` Lilli Marlene' which was translated into many languages and sung by probably every army in the world at that time.
I then went with a small detachment to Thurso, where we were billeted in the Congregational Church. I slept under the organ, because there was a strip of carpet there presumably to keep the organist's feet off the bare stone flags. On Sundays, we had to transport our worldly goods to the Church Hall which we couldn't use on weekdays because many local organisations booked evening sessions, including the local Home Guard, most of whom had served in WW1 and knew a great deal more about warfare than we did.
Our job was apparently to guard the 20 miles or so of north-east coast from Thurso to a bit north of Wick. This included the most northerly point of Scotland at John'o'Groats. In many ways this was a favourite detachment even although it was mid-winter. Being a fishing port, fresh fish was often available, making a change from the 'cardboard cod' we usually got on our more inland camps. This was dried salt cod, and could be very good if properly cooked after long soaking in fresh water. Only too often, however, the soaking and de-salting had to be skipped as the fish was usually required for the day on which it was delivered.
In that most northerly corner, the winter skies were a kaleidoscope of changing colours and patterns as the 'Northern Lights' danced their way across the clouds. I had seen this as a boy in Aberdeen, but here on the edge of the world it was easy to understand the awe which this manifestation induced in the early wanderers in these wild northern seas.
But all good things must come to an end, and we were on the move again very soon.
We had spent some time before coming here, driving up and down from the North of Scotland to Slough, taking old vehicles to the Slough Vehicle Reserve Depot in exchange for new or Re-conditioned Army Vehicles, so we were fully equipped with new or fairly new vehicles when in April 1942 the whole Highland Division left Scotland once again for barracks in the Aldershot Command. I was driving the workshops truck for this move, with the Corporal fitter for company, so we were at the tail-end of this huge convoy for one of the most tedious journeys ever. We were stationary for long periods then, once re-started, racing to catch up. The whole division was on the move, and it took over an hour for the convoy to pass a given point, so the reason for our long delays at the tail was simply the sum of the reaction times of all the drivers ahead. We reached the various staging camps usually two hours after the first vehicle as we had to wait out the delays of parking the earlier arrivals. It took five long days to reach our destination at a barracks near Farnham. Once there, the routine was fairly standard for troops scheduled to go overseas. Medical inspections, inoculations and vaccinations resulted in a number of unfit men being 'posted out`, most for medical reasons but a few for being below standard in training. Then came the issuing of newer weapons and tropical clothing, complete with the long-discredited pith helmet. We carried these helmets all the way to our destination before being ordered to hand them back to stores. More than four years later when I was on a troopship returning from a spell in Malaya, fresh troops on their way out were wearing them on the deck of their outgoing ship. The same ones ?. May well have been! Malaya, however, was not our destination on this occasion, although it was among the popularly suggested, as the Japanese had over-run the Peninsula. We knew that troops in India were preparing for an offensive and reasoned that HD, having spent almost two years training, must be the obvious choice. We were wrong, I'm glad to say, just as we were wrong about the possible invasion to retake Norway. That the move, to wherever, was to be soon became clear when we had a visit from King George VI, with Queen Elizabeth, some civilian hangers-on and the GOC Aldershot. This was the continuance of an old tradition which started with the Caesars at the circus-
"Hail Caesar, we who are about to die...etc." Within days of that visit we were on our way...this time to Bristol, where another ancient ship lay in wait for us.

Return to War !
The HD embarked in three parts; from Liverpool, Bristol and the Clyde, I suppose the idea was that as the enemy usually seemed to be well-informed of our troop movements, the splitting of the convoy made it more difficult for them to guess destinations, which is what we too, were still doing.
We sailed from Bristol, attached to the H.Q. of 154 Bde. in an old French cargo ship. Judging by the state of our below-decks accommodation the previous cargo had been livestock of the four-footed kind.
Still, our journey was free, and in happier days people would have paid a great deal of money to cruise halfway across the Atlantic, then all the way round the South Africa and through the Red Sea on our way to Egypt, a route which was forced on our shipping by the enemy's control of the Mediterranean, where his aircraft and submarines now operated from bases in Italy and Sicily. This great cruise could have been much more fun if the accommodation and catering had been less primitive. Our smallish company was allotted an area on one of the lower decks, which contained mess-tables and benches, firmly bolted to prevent them sliding around in rough seas. For sleeping accommodation we had a choice of sleeping on the mess-room tables, on the floor under them, or even in hammocks slung above them from the hooks fixed on the deckhead for that purpose. The hammocks had to be un-slung, rolled up neatly and stowed away each morning before breakfast. Sleeping in hammocks resulted in a stooping posture for the rest of the day, so most of us preferred the floor, even at the risk of being stepped on by a table-sleeper getting up for whatever reason. We still had to stand guard at various locations on the ship, a duty which fell to us about once a week, but at least there were no weekly 20-mile route marches. Our morning routine after breakfast was a two-or-three times trot round the deck in PT kit, with perhaps a lecture to attend on some riveting subject like `care of the feet in tropical zone'.
Lectures like this were often given by a medical orderly who would read it out from notes compiled by the M.O. who was probably still in bed. Officers accommodation may have been slightly better than ours, certainly for the more senior, but none of it could have been classed as luxury. Still we were on our way again at last.
The convoy had to sail some way West before turning South, passing the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. Conditions aboard were uncomfortable, as was to be expected with so many men aboard a comparatively small vessel. Fresh water was strictly limited, and although shower baths were available they supplied only sea water, with which a special soap had to be used.
I was fortunate in not suffering from sea-sickness and it was as well that those who did had found their sea-legs by the time we hit the warmer weather. Near the tropics the meals deteriorated, due largely to the ship鈥檚 inadequate storage for fresh vegetables, which rotted quickly in the heat. This improved somewhat after our first port of call at Freetown in West Africa. The ships re-fuelled here and took on some fresh stores, though no troops were permitted to land. It was swelteringly hot and very malarial, and the odours of the sheltered harbour were quite overpowering.
We were now grateful for the canvas awnings, which had been erected over the decks when the ship entered the warmer seas. The ship's rails became too hot to touch, and the decks hot enough to be uncomfortable to bare feet. While it may have been possible to fry an egg on the boards of the deck, as some of the old seamen claimed, we couldn't put it to the test as if there were any eggs aboard we never saw one.
In that heat many of us slept on deck at night, as the temperature below decks made a restful night impossible. I found it very peaceful lying there, with the stars overhead seeming to sway in the sky with the motion of the ship, and sleep came quickly.
So too did the awakening as the sailors turned the hoses on the decks at dawn and swabbed down regardless of the sleeping 'pongo's` Soon after leaving Freetown we were at the equator, and the usual ceremonies were performed on deck in the presence of King Neptune and his acolytes. All those crossing the 'Line` for the first time were presented with certificates registering us as `Loyal Subjects of Neptune.' Unfortunately mine failed to survive, lost with most of my kit when my truck was hit in the early days in the desert.
Somewhere around this time the French crew celebrated Bastille Day very noisily. We hoped the driver was still sober as we had a long way to go to our next landfall at Cape Town, which we reached on the 18th July. Our first sight of land was the famous Table Mountain, which was just three feet higher than Schiehallion in Perthshire and topped by a shroud of early morning mist. Cape Town was not in any way restricted by wartime regulations. There was no blackout nor did there appear to be rationing of any commodity. Only our money was scarce. Fruit of course there was in abundance. Oranges were large and juicy, and fresh orange juice was pressed while you wait. The cinema we visited was unusual to us, as instead of paying an entrance fee, patrons were required to buy any of a great variety of refreshments for consumption on the spot. The public were very hospitable, and guided groups of soldiers to show them the sights-the Zoo and the new Post Office were high on their list ! Only a few days here, then on to rejoin the convoy at Durban, from where General.Wimberley and his senior Staff Officer, Roy Urquhart, had to fly to Cairo to consult with the C. in C. As they would be crossing neutral territory they were required to wear civilian clothes, and adopt a civilian identity. Wimberley travelled as a Scotch whisky representative, while Urquhart posed as a piano tuner. Urquhart later distinguished himself as the General in command of 1st.Airborne Division, which may seem odd in view of the fact that he had not enjoyed the flight to Cairo, but Wimberley stayed with HD through to the end of the campaign in Sicily. We left Durban on 26th.July, the whole Division now together and heading north. There was no doubt now that we were bound for Egypt as daily bulletins were posted, summarising the 大象传媒 news broadcasts, and the news from North Africa was all bad. Tobruk had fallen and our troops had been forced to retreat all the way back to a speck on the map only a few miles from Cairo. Alexandria was now abandoned as a Naval Base, and preparations were being made to evacuate General Headquarters from Cairo if necessary.
Not very encouraging for those of us who remembered France in 1940.
On August 3rd. our convoy passed Aden, and sailed on into the Red Sea where we were kept waiting till Suez Canal was free. We finally disembarked at Port Tewfik on 11th August, having been at sea for over nine weeks. We boarded a train here, and were taken to somewhere near Cairo, where we got off into the most total darkness I had ever seen. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere and we stepped down from the carriage laden with full kitbag, haversack, backpack, weapons and everything else we could carry , into a black void.
Surprisingly no omne was seriously hurt as the expcted platform was not there, just a
sandy bank which tumbled us down still further in a tangle of weapons and heavy kit.
We were to spend a few days here, in little two-man tents and it was here I saw a large troopship apparently sailing on the desert sands. This optical illusion was caused by the fact that our camp, while close to the Suez canal was slightly below the level of the low sand-hills which hid the canal from our sight.
The Division then moved into the Nile Delta area to defend the approaches to Cairo from west and southwest, although we could not yet be regarded as desert-trained, but there was no one else.
General Montgomery had taken command of the 8th.Army from the 13th of August, and on his orders all troops and vehicles were to re-instate the wearing of divisional and regimental badges, thus repealing an earlier GHQ order condemning all units to faceless anonymity. The HD were delighted and none more so than our General, 'Tartan Tam` Wimberley. Large HD signs were planted all over the desert, and soon earned the Division the nickname of the `Highway Decorators'. So we were no longer just a British division, we were again the Highlanders and we were here because in the event of the expected German attack on the night of 30/31st August succeeding, we were blocking the approach to Cairo. The German General Rommel told his troops that their next attack would finally drive the British out of Africa. He attacked as expected, but the Indian, Australian and New Zealand troops facing him held on doggedly, and the attack finally petered out. A Cpl. and I, with another driver accompanied a radio truck to the fringe of the Quattara depression. I'm still not too sure why this was required, but I believe it may have been to report any possible enemy movement round the edge of this long area of soft and shifting sand, an almost impassable, but not impossible barrier. Only the Long Range Desert Group penetrated this desolate area in which all the flies in Egypt had gathered in this one spot. In the comparative chill of early morning the canvas canopy of my truck was a heaving, buzzing mass, which came swarming to life as the sun warmed up. Of all the plagues of Egypt, flies were the worst.
Firewood was a very scarce commodity and we became accustomed to seeing nomadic Arab families with a small bundle of scrub on their camels, though the bulk of their fuel was the dried dung of their many animals, sheep and goats as well as camels. We, who had petrol to hand, made our fire in a can containing some sand on which a little petrol had been poured. This could boil a brew-can quite quickly. We already knew that the cordite which was packed in different coloured canvas bags and formed the charges in the field gun cartridges, was an excellent and very fast-burning fuel when removed from the little bags. These were found all over the place after the guns had been in action . When the correct charge for a particular `task ' was arrived at, the gunners dumped the unwanted bags of cordite from the cartridge. All this was part of becoming `desert-wise', as was for us, the driving through the night without lights, over routes marked only by the tracks of other vehicles.
It was possibly the difficulties this could cause which prompted the 'marked track` idea. Most units had their company or regimental HQ marked at night by a small oil lamp concealed under an old petrol can which had the unit's I.D. number cut out on the side away from the enemy. These, at ground level, were often the only indication a driver might have to show whether he was, literally, on the right track. Anxious enquiries were quite often made by people descending from their vehicles, and going on foot to find someone who could answer a question like "Where the hell are the 'n'th Black Watch?"
A certain amount of tension could arise on a really dark night, when a stumbling approach to a slit trench might just bring a shot instead of the correct challenge.
The planning for the 2nd battle of Alamein included the clear marking of three separate tracks into the forward areas. These were designated "Sun","Moon","Star". We cut empty 4-gallon'flimsy' petrol cans using the prepared stencils, cutting the 'Star' sign on two opposite sides. Similar cans were prepared with our `Ammunition Point' identity for placing outside our Company HQ. Divisional sign-writers (there was indeed such a section- part of the Military Police), came up with a six-foot square sign beautifully done in full colour, showing a very large HD, followed by our Brigade code number, and to ensure that our regular visitors in the German aircraft knew exactly what they were shooting at, they had reserved their largest writing for the words-`AMMUNITION POINT'!.
The German pilots showed their appreciation by regularly using the sign for shooting practice.
It was all part of Gen.Wimberleys belief that" We must let the Hun know who he's up against", a classic piece of WW1 phraseology.
Somewhere my mate had acquired what had probably been part of a ship's hatch cover, washed ashore from some unfortunate vessel. Good solid wood, with a covering of 1/4 inch steel plate 6ft long by 4ft wide. and we carried it with us wherever we went, one of the perks of having our own personal transport. It was just the right size to provide a fairly bulletproof cover to our slit- trenches. I say slit-trenches, plural, as everywhere we went if we were to be there even for only one night, we had to dig or occasionally, find, a trench which served as sleeping accommodation and/or a defensive position.
I think we finally left this useful thing in Algiers, before going to Sicily.
However during the buildup to the Alamein battle on 23rd.October our nights were mostly spent driving up and down Star track taking 25pdr.ammo. to the guns. In the three days immediately preceding the opening battle I had less than eight hours sleep altogether, and that was snatched in half-hours or so at the wheel while waiting in the queue at the base depot.
On the second night I found I was driving along a road lined with leafy trees , beech and oak, with here and there a birch, although I knew very well that there was nothing on either side of the track but sand for miles. This sort of illusion is apparently quite usual when over-tired.
At about 21.30 on the night of the opening barrage my mate and I delivered our last load and were told to `push off out of it'. Nobody in the forward areas liked having our noisy 3-tonners growling their way through their positions. We needed very little persuasion to `push off' in search of a comparatively sheltered spot where we could at last get out to lie down to sleep. We stretched out under the truck, and though I heard the single shot which was the signal for the starting of the barrage I was asleep within seconds. This was one of many occasions I was thankful not to be PBI , many of whom were now facing their last few minutes of life.
We were wakened in the early hours, with all the noises of battle going on, and found that a squadron of tanks had pulled in overnight to share our laager. It may sound unbelievable that anyone could sleep for three or four hours with all that row going on, but most people could if they had not slept lying down, for something like seventy hours. However, having now reluctantly returned to the real world, the continuing noises made us realize that we were in a hazardous location, and the sooner we were out of it the better, so with no more ado we drove off back to our Company and loaded up for another day. I've read that our Artillery were firing at the rate of 15,000 rounds every 4陆 hours during the several days of the Alamein battle. We had quickly learned that the careful handling and neat stacking of the boxes of shell and cartridge taught us in our training days were not needed here. The gunners wanted the ammo. quickly, so the boxes of shells were thrown from the back of the truck onto one heap the cartridges onto another. A 3-ton load disposed of in no time, and we went back for more. This was the routine for the whole five or six days of the battle, although the pace did ease off a bit after the opening barrage. At one point during the next three or four days, one of our number was delivering to one of the infantry battalions but overshot them in the dark, and unluckily got caught up in our own barrage. He could only lie still and wait till it eased off, which according to him, was hours later. He was so pale and shaken it seemed heartless to tell him it had been only a 30 minute 'task, and it was his own fault for getting lost. On 3/4 November HD, plus a brigade of 4th Indian Div. launched what was to be the last attack of the Alamein battles. This attack, led by 7th Argylls of 154 Bde., was supported by seven regiments of artillery firing throughout from 5.30 a.m. A very hectic time for us, with the guns again using ammo. as fast as we could supply it. Fortunately we were able to make most of our journeys in darkness, as for most of the way we were in full view of the enemy. Quite exciting for those who like that sort of thing.
The Argylls objective was a former German divisional Headquarters, and yielded much valuable equipment; store of fine wines and a large number of Iron Crosses and Afrika Korps badges, which is why so many Jocks, judging by their badges and decorations that day, were highly decorated members of the German Army.!
With the Germans in full flight we began the great chase. It was hoped that we could keep hard on the heels of the retreating Afrika Korps, but this was made difficult by two factors.
One, the transport could not be got forward at speed, because while the enemy were retreating over relatively clear ground, they left in their wake a maze of minefields and tracks made impassable by demolitions. There was one anti-tank ditch with nothing to bridge the gaps but soft sand, while on firmer going, caltrops had been scattered. These were small metal devices with four sharp spikes, so arranged that no matter how they fell one spike was always upright. Originally designed to dissuade cavalry, they were equally inhibiting to motor transport. This was the only time we ever saw these, and a theory was offered that they may have been used against raiding Bedouins many years before, and had lain undisturbed ever since.
Two, the rains came on 6th and 7th November, further delaying the pursuit and giving Rommel time to prepare very strong defensive positions westward at El Agheila. When the coast road was cleared, the pursuit was taken over by the armoured brigades and their motorised infantry. We were halted at Mersa Matruh, some 120 miles west of Alamein, having passed the wreckage left behind by the retreat. The airfield at Fuka was littered with wrecked German aircraft. I believe this was due to an attack by LRDG or possibly by one of the other Special Forces. Much of the other damage was caused by air attacks, as the Desert Air Force had been very active in support of the ground forces throughout. Those of us who had been in France in 1940 were particularly appreciative of this. At Mersa Matruh, or somewhere in that vicinity, we lounged on the Mediterranean beaches;
Swam in the warm water, did a bit of laundry and the sun was still hot enough to dry our clothes, and certainly warm enough warm enough to make lazing around on the beach enjoyable. German aircraft were obviously busy elsewhere, so our 'holiday' was undisturbed until, inevitably, we were on the move once more. This move, involving the whole Division, had some very unpleasant moments, particularly the stage where we were driving on desert tracks through clouds of sand thrown up by the leading vehicles. With handkerchief or any old scrap of cloth tied over the nose and mouth, we tried not to breathe too deeply, while the very fine particles clogged the eyes.
However, as we approached the Egyptian border we again had the coast road to use, and ahead of us was the escarpment. This great geological fault has long been the recognised border between Egypt and Libya. It appears, on approach from Egypt, as though all the land east of that point had simply sunk by several hundred feet. This had left a sheer cliff , which had to be scaled to reach the higher level to the west. The coast road here led through the notorious Halfayia Pass ('Hellfire naturally, to the troops) over which many battles had been fought in the past. There was a large gun, called 'Bardia Bill` by the troops, one of the Germans mobile field guns, which lobbed it's heavy missiles from Bardia over the pass onto approaching troops. Luckily for us it was not in evidence as we crawled painfully up the track which zig-zagged dizzily . From almost any point on the way up it was possible to look down directly onto the vehicles creeping sluggishly below.
I was driving an old New Zealand Div.truck which had been abandoned, but made good by our fitters, who cannibalized any old vehicles which were unrepairable, to supply parts for those vehicles which could be repaired. We were constantly short of really serviceable vehicles at this stage as apart from occasional losses due to enemy action, our vehicles were being driven in conditions which were very hard on them. Fine sand penetrated everywhere, acting abrasively on all moving parts. I was dubious about the brakes, and had made up my mind that if all else failed I would have to abandon ship. To facilitate this I tied both doors fully open, as I may have to use either if I was to avoid chucking myself out on a 'zig', which would have landed me some hundred feet down the hill. Once on top of the escarpment, having managed to keep the engines running, we made good time to our evening laager.
We were not in action here, as the armoured division and their lorried infantry were 'on the chase', and our worn-out vehicles were gradually being replaced in readiness for our next share of the action. On this plateau the sand was constantly in movement. Even on a day when almost no wind was detectable the top surface of the fine sand was drifting, and invading everything. A mug of tea invariably had a layer of sand in the bottom in the bottom, and food suffered likewise. Possibly the worst aspect was the effect this had on any cuts, scratches or even insect bites which quickly became infected, causing painful 'desert sores'. Fortunately the new 'M and B' powder, which was dusted onto any open wound, was very effective. Washing and shaving was made difficult by the limited water ration, and when shaving could no longer be put off, it was usually done by leaving a very tiny amount of the morning tea in the mug.
Shaving in tea dregs is not to be recommended, especially when the razor blade was long past its best, but I found the lengthening stubble so unbearably itchy that even a coarse shave was better than none. The quality, as well as the quantity, of available water varied considerably from place to place. At times the water was so full of minerals that the tinned milk curdled in our tea. This water, brackish and foul-tasting, was no good even for shaving with but it was all there was and we drank it. The bitter water and the permanently 'flying sand' made our next move almost welcome, even although we were well aware that there would be a great deal of nastiness still to come. Benghazi had been taken by 20th November but we had not been involved in that. Our next move was south-west, cutting off the great bend formed by the Gulf of Sidra, heading toward Mersa Brega.
If my memory of this trip is correct, we were traversing the notorious salt-flats, where in many places the surface was only a thin crust. We were able to avoid much of the potential trouble, but I remember very well the worst day of the journey when I estimated we covered less than ten miles in about fourteen very hard hours. Loaded vehicles had to be unloaded; driven empty over a suspect patch and the load had to be carried over and the vehicle re-loaded. It was desperately hard work and in the full heat of high summer would have been crippling, but we eventually got into position, establishing the ammunition point for the attack. The target for HD then was Mersa Brega, on the coast road to Tripoli.
The speed of the advance since the breakthrough at Alamein was now obviously causing problems of supply. Everything had to be fetched huge distances mostly by land, although the Navy and Merchant Navy were doing good work but were seriously hampered by the lack of proper port facilities.
The order from the top was that only the absolutely essential supplies would be delivered. Food was reduced to the bare minimum; a typical issue for a day per man at that time was something like a single packet of 'hardtack鈥� biscuit (usually 8 biscuits), about two ounces of cheese, half of a tin of sardines, quarter of a tin of 'bully' and a pint of water.
Any vehicle going down the line to pick up a load of anything was given enough fuel to get there, and had to pick up the fuel for the return journey from a POL point. Water was another problem!
Our little water bowser was driven by MacAulay, a barber in civilian life, who recounted some of the adventures of his solitary forays in search of a water-point. I often thought if he could take those hair-raising tales home with him they would be a considerable asset to his barbering, saving the use of a comb. _
However there was an occasion not much later when I was exceedingly glad to see him. This was the time when the old New Zealand truck I was driving had been hit in the radiator by a splinter and although patched up as best as possible at the time, it started to leak again just when the whole brigade was on the move through one of the stretches of desert where we were dependant on what water the small water truck had aboard. This was only enough to allow a pint per man per day for all purposes so the leaking radiator was a serious matter, as I had a full load of reserve ammunition, which could be needed any time. When I first pulled up steaming like a railway train, an officer, driving a Jeep, who had been at the rear of the column, came racing forward, to see what was holding up the advance. Pulling off the track when stopping could be fatal as the Germans distributed mines lavishly around when they were retreating. It wasn`t long since two of our mates had been killed by wandering off to check an abandoned vehicle which was mined.
I suspect when the officer saw me, that he first remembered the occasion much earlier when I had held up the whole 8th Army because I was getting cold, and stopped to hunt out my greatcoat. This time though, the reason was obvious, so he dashed ahead to advise the C.O., and to see whether any water could be spared. There was none, but it was suggested that we all pee into an empty 4-gallon petrol can. We all stood round solemnly doing our best but even with the Colonel's addition, there wasn't nearly enough. There was no option but to offload the ammo, sharing it out between other already overloaded trucks, while I was given a week鈥檚 rations, a gallon of water and a promise that the Div.workshop 鈥渟hould be along one of these days!" The broken down truck was moved off the track after some probing for mines and I was then abandoned. The workshop trucks came up two or three days later and took me on tow, as they had no water to spare either. I was on tow for a couple of days, then having caught up with the Brigade and a supply of the most awful water yet, they repaired the radiator and sent me on my way.
"Where is the my lot now?" I asked, reasonably. "Somewhere out there", said the workshops Cpl., pointing west. "Thank you "I replied politely ( I might need him again sometime). So having scrounged some more rations and an extra gallon of water in case the repair didn't work, I drove off, following as best as possible the tracks the wind had not yet quite obliterated. At the end of a very long day's driving I had not sighted a single moving object, nor was there any indication that a large mobile force had passed this way. I stopped and brewed up, opened a tin of pilchards (two meals according to the then prevailing ration scale) and `meditated', but when I woke a couple of hours later, there was a bright moon, and I must confess I was a little anxious now. At the back of my mind there was a story of those who wandered in deserts forever, like a very dusty 'Flying Dutchman'.
There was also a picture of the very de-hydrated dead RAF man we found a hundred miles from anywhere, on our way down toward Khufra Oasis a couple of months back. The sky was clear, and the stars twinkled merrily, probably laughing at my indecision, so I found the Pole star, and worked out that by keeping North on my right hand I could go in a roughly westerly direction. So at about 2 a.m. I set off. By 06.00 with dawn about to come up I was considering the possibility that I could have strayed into enemy territory. That was slightly more welcome than the thought that I'd wandered off the map, but even so I'd prefer to believe that I was still on the right track, figuratively speaking since I hadn't seen anything resembling a track for hours
I parked the truck in the shade of a small sand dune, got out the brew-can and started to breakfast on a couple of hardtack biscuits and an almost equally hard piece of cheese. I had thought, when I started the brew, that I had heard some faint sound, but listening for a few minutes to almost total silence persuaded me I had been mistaken. Suddenly and loudly, from startlingly close at hand, came the whirr of a starter motor and the splutter of a reluctant engine. I reached my rifle out of the cab of my old truck, glad that I'd long ago removed both doors, so no need to risk making creaky door noises, and crawled up the little sand-hill to peer over the top.
My relief was almost heart-stopping-this was no panzerwagen- it was old MacAulay. I made myself known to him before I stood up, as I knew he modelled himself on some of his Wild West heroes, wore an illicit revolver 'liberated` from some officer who would never need it again anyway, and he was very quick on the draw. It was hardly a touching re-union. His first words were "Where the bloody hell are we?" "How the hell should I know", I answered, "I'm lost". He vigorously expressed his disappointment! However, I told him I had a brew on, so we shared it. He had about two hundred gallons of water in the tanker so that was one worry less. He had asked where our unit was before he left the water-point, and was told "Somewhere over there". That had been 24 hours earlier, and like me, he was wondering where he had gone wrong. However, in company it wasn't so bad and by late afternoon we had caught up with our unit. I celebrated my arrival by ramming the backend of the office truck (an Army can't work without clerks). My suspect brakes had finally failed. Our Company mechanic took it out to check the brakes, and the gearbox seized up, leaving him to trudge a mile back to the laager, where he advised the Major to leave the multiple adjectival thing where it was. So as the vehicle was actually the property of the New Zealand Army it was decided to let them have it back if they happened to be passing the place where we left it.
I got a mate to give me a lift to the old truck to collect my spare rations, water and personal gear, which I transferred to another truck which needed a spare driver.
In the few days I had been away the division had moved forward some 150 miles or more and was preparing to attack straight up the coast road to Mersa Brega and on to ElAgheila, in order to clear yet one more obstacle on the way to Tripoli. Again, the weather caused a delay. A violent sandstorm raised a wall of dust, which was officially said to be over 100 feet high. My recollection of this is of lying naked in the back of the truck with all the covers lashed securely down, not from modesty, but in an attempt to keep the invasive sand out. King Cnut had more luck at keeping out the waves of the sea. We sweated profusely for two days and nights, moving as little as possible, since the humidity made even breathing difficult.
Driving was impossible. One of our trucks was trying to find his way back to us when the sandstorm struck, and in a very short time his engine stopped when the air-filters became choked with sand. All this, and Christmas only a few days away, with our hills at home snow-covered. I had never been fond of the cold, and hated snow, but that day I'd have given almost anything to be halfway up Cairngorm in a blizzard.
However the storm blew itself out and we dug ourselves out, shook dust out of everything, and carried on. The dust was very soon laid by torrential rain, which lasted unabated for 24 hours. What made it so bad was the sudden and remarkable change of temperature. The day before, we had sweated profusely wearing no clothing at all, then suddenly it was bitterly cold and we were muffled up in battledress and greatcoats.
We arrived at Mersa Brega eventually, and the leading battalion, the 7th Argylls had found it held "by dead men only" as the history puts it. But these dead men had almost all been booby-trapped, and in moving them for burial the Argylls suffered many casualties.
We had devised our own 'safety-first measures when such a job fell to us .We very carefully attached one tow-rope to the body and another to a truck. Joining the two ropes made a reasonable safety gap for the driver. If nothing went "BANG" after it had been towed a few yards it was safe. Fortunately, it was rarely our job, as we seldom stayed longer in the line than it took to make our delivery. We usually laagered two or three miles back. This, it must be said, was for the safety of the ammunition, not the driver, though we never objected to that. So with the Division鈥檚 objective secured we now moved on about a hundred miles, passing Mussolini's famous and expensive 'folly', the 鈥楳arble Arch,鈥檞ith the two bronze figures representing the Phileni brothers from Carthage.
About 350 BC, a dispute over the boundary between Carthage and Cyrenica was to be settled by a foot race; two runners from Carthage running west while two from the Cyreneans ran east. The point at which they met was to be the boundary. The Phileni from Carthage were very much faster than the Cyrenean pair, and reached the point where, more than 2,000 years later, Musolini built his arch.
The Cyreneans objected that the new border had lost them too much of their land, and wanted men from Carthage to go back a bit. They refused. The Cyreneans finally agreed the border, but buried the Phileni brothers alive, and erected two altars to mark the graves. These became first, the agreed border, and much later, the site of Mussolini's Folly.
When we drove past it for the first time we we couldn't believe that anyone would build anything at all in this wilderness. Discussion later that evening round the section brew-can concluded that whoever put it there "was a right daftie, needed his heid looking, so he did!" That was MacIlgan's contribution, which he added to when told it was Mussolini . "Och, him". he said, dismissing one of the Great Dictators with withering scorn.
We were out of the line for a time at Wadi Matratin, a dot too small for any but the largest scale maps, and with little ammunition being called for we were fairly idle, filling in time with some maintenance tasks on the vehicles, which were again showing the effects of over-work .
New Year's Day there was memorable, as the first sight in the morning was a mass of sweet-smelling flowers. I'm told that one keen botanist gathered forty different varieties in that one Wadi. It was an extraordinary sight. Those seeds may have lain dormant for years till the lashing rainstorm provided the necessary impetus. I particularly recall the hundreds of little red poppies clustered round the edges of my slit-trench. This was our first sighting of fresh green vegetation for months, and the desert seemed a more homely place because of it. The Western desert, away from the coastline, was a dreary, empty place where there were few signs of human life. The occasional wandering Arab family with their animals, sheep, goats and camels, might pass within sighting distance. They mostly avoided us, and we them. Any time we met a wandering tribe, we bartered what we could in exchange for eggs. What the Bedouin wanted most was tea, which we could sometimes offer, but only because, of necessity we used the same tea several times, drying it between brews, although by the third brew it was barely strong enough to colour the already murky water from our water bottles.
One thing I learned about survival from watching the Arabs was that the thistle, which grew almost everywhere, was a good source of clean water. Holding the stem with one hand and slashing it with a sharp knife, enough clean, sweet juice dripped from the stem to give a mouthful of good water. Where the plant sucked it from was a mystery. It's a pity they`re not edible, as we were permanently hungry at this stage. I had recently passed an Australian transport mob whose cooks were busy, and on the off-chance of scrounging at least a mug of tea, I pulled up and sauntered casually across. They offered a packet of hardtack, a half-mug of the bacon fat and a mug of tea in exchange for fifty cigarettes. I only had about twenty left of the weeks ration, so they had to be content with that. I happy with my side of the bargain too, and drove away dipping biscuits into the congealing fat and enjoying it! That was an indication of how sparse our rations were at this stage. We were now less than two hundred miles from Tripoli and Montgomery was well aware that if we failed to capture Tripoli we would have no option but to retreat, as the supply position would make it impossible for us to continue. This was made clear to the officers, but at our level we were content to jog on as before, just doing what we were told to do and if it all went wrong it wasn't our fault. Not perhaps a very responsible attitude, but how else could an Army operate?
There was a lot of hard fighting ahead for the infantry, and they had some horrifying casualties, mainly from the nasty little anti-personnel mines which had been sown liberally by the retreating enemy. We had been roused in the early hours of one morning to find that the aircraft which was attacking our small ammo. dump was dropping the nasty little 'butterfly` bombs from a low level. They lay thick on the ground, needing just a touch to set them off.
This effectively grounded us, as the trucks could not safely be moved, although again the concern was less for the drivers than for the vehicles and the ammunition. With the supply situation as difficult as it then was, we were not to risk losing vehicles and ammunition unnecessarily, which suited us very well.
We were ordered to await a bomb disposal squad, and meantime to move very cautiously on foot. The bombs were duly dealt with that day, and work went on.
Just west of Homs I was attacked by what appeared to be a friendly 'plane. I had quite often been in the line when the area was attacked in error by our own planes, but this time mine was the only vehicle on the coast road when a 'plane of American make, with American markings, swooped down with cannons firing and dropped a small bomb. I slammed the gear lever into neutral and abandoned ship very rapidly, dropping into a disused trench. With my load on this occasion being mainly of explosives for demolition work, I was taking no chances. However it was still climbing out of the original dive and most of his cannon-fire went wildly off into the blue, though a couple of shots hit the truck somewhere, fortunately not into the load. I had only about a mile to go to get back to the platoon and I didn't quite make it. The petrol tank had been punctured. I reported the incident with the American aircraft, and heard that others had had the same problem that day. Meantime, the company fitter had looked at the petrol tank- not a problem as we had one on each side, but the gearbox sump was cracked and the oil leaking out, so some of his shots had hit. "Wait for Div. Workshops, I was told". I was getting used to this by now, and having ensured that I had adequate food and water for a few days, waved to the lads as they drove off. This was how I came to be two days too late to be made to take part in the big triumphal parade in Tripoli, for which I was very glad.
The orders for this included the instruction that "although no boot polish is available, boots can be blackened by mixing the soot from brew-cans with a little water".
This instruction was necessary,as the continual scuffing in the sand had made the boots a dirty grey, almost white in colour, and very rough in texture. I know that the kilted regiments had managed to supply enough kilts for their parading detail, and looking at the photographs now it is hard to believe that only a few days earlier, these men were clad in slightly ragged shirts, shorts and bonnets which had faded to almost white with long exposure to sun and sand.
We who were not parading, were free to decide for ourselves whether we could watch the parade or lie around camp idle, which last is what most of us did. I went into town with three mates next day. It was a very disappointing place but pretty, with palm trees lining the roads and offers of 'sisters' from scruffy kids. We were indebted to an Italian POW for translating the offer into English. He was with a working party clearing rubble under guard and he approached all the British soldiers asking if any of them came from Blackburn, where he had a business before he returned to Italy "to see his Mamma".
There was little to do in Tripoli-even the cafes which we might have been prepared to visit were either closed or too incredibly dirty, but while Tripoli may not have been a jewel of East, it was by far the most pleasant place we had seen for many months. Even so, we were not sorry to leave it, believing as we then did, that before too long we would be on our way home. We had travelled over 1400 miles in those last three months, and we were quite sure the Germans were now beaten. They must have felt equally sure of victory when they reached El Alamein not much more than three months before.
They were wrong about that, and although we were right, it was to prove much harder than we expected. With every mile we had travelled, the vital lines of communication had become longer. German and Italian submarines and warships, operating from bases in Sicily and Italy, harassed the supply convoys at sea, while from the same bases their aircraft attacked the land routes. With the British 1st.Army from the west only fifty miles from Tunis, and the Americans in the south within some sixty miles of the coast, the Germans were facing certain defeat in Africa, but only if the supply lines could be kept open.
While we were lying around at Tripoli, being reinforced and at least partly re-equipped, the 7th Armoured Div. had fought several strong rearguard actions against one of the best divisions of the German Afrika Korps, the 90th Light- old and respected enemies of the 51st. By the 4th February the last ot the Italian Empire in North Africa was now in our hands, and the first to cross the frontier into Tunisia were the 5/7th Gordons of 153 Bde. The frontier here was marked by a small white Customs post,on the wall of which the Pioneer Company had painted - - 鈥淔irst across, HD 92nd. Bydand鈥�

A film cameraman was filming the Gordons as they marched across, when he suddenly realized he had no film in the camera. When the Gordons were told they obligingly went back and did it all again !
Over the next ten days a German rearguard was strongly resisting all attempts to winkle them out of the village of Ben Gardane, which was held by the very good and experienced German 15th.Panzer Division. Their tenacious grip on that strongpoint was again aided by very heavy rain, making the passage for 7th. Armoured Division particularly difficult so it was 15th February before they finally cleared the way for a further advance. The next obstacle at Medenine was also overcome by the Armoured Division, and the HD were now moved to the north of the 8th Army line, preparatory to the attempt to break through the Mareth Line.
The first contact with the enemy outposts at Mareth was accidentally made by the C.R.E., Sugden, who was on reconnaissance in a jeep with General Wimberley and ran into a party of Italians who were laying mines in a wadi. Sugden and his party hurriedly turned tail, and escaped amid a hail of gunfire.
The Division was spread thinly over a very wide front and it was expected that the Germans would find and try to break through the weakest points. Defensive 'keeps 'were set up. Each 'keep' was a strongpoint, manned by infantry with supporting arms, while the gaps between the 'keeps', were covered by anti-tank and machine guns. Ahead of the infantry was a 'screen' of armoured carriers to mislead the enemy into believing them to be the main defensive position. To limit damage, the troops in each enclave were completely encircled by minefields, with gaps which could be opened to allow transport in and out during the night, as stocks of ammunition could quickly be expended if we were subjected to a series of heavy attacks. The ammunition vehicles held the reserve ammo, and it was our job as usual to deliver what we had to where it was needed, then back to the dump for more.
No time to waste when this had to be done, as we had to out and in again through the minefield gap before it was closed or there would be very little ammo. left to fend off the next attack. Fortunately we were very little troubled for the first few days, apart from the stand-to at sunset for half-an-hour or so and the same again just before dawn, but a determined attack on 6th March gave some units a tough time. The main attack was in the south where the Guards Brigade 鈥� took all that was coming to them, destroyed fifty of Rommel's tanks, forcing him to withdraw into the hills behind Wadi Zigzaou.", to quote the Divisional history. The 50th Division then came back into the line, moving to the coastal area which had been held by our 153 Bde., while 7th Armoured took over from our 154 Bde.
We now moved north, where German strong-points were expected to resist stubbornly.
"The task was a comparatively easy one" says the history, but in fact the 1st Black Watch had a hard time, as the lorried infantry of the 7th Armoured Division were forced back, leaving the Black Watch left flank exposed, forcing 'A` Coy. to attack on that flank to allow 7th Armoured to re-group and regain the lost ground.
A Guards Bde. attacking a ring of low hills south-west of Mareth ran into thickly sown minefields and suffered so heavily they had to be withdrawn. This required a good deal of re-shuffling of regiments, and for us all this movement meant that at times we were having to hunt for the units we were supplying, navigating, as the Navy would have it ,'by guess and by God'. It was our purely selfish point of view, often expressed-"Why the bloody hell couldn't the Xth stay where they were for a day or two and save us all this trouble". That we managed to find our way was a mixture of luck and educated guesswork, plus the Divisional Information Posts manned by some lonely 'Redcap'. Although we termed them 'misinformation posts' they really did do a very good job. Posted, as they had to be, alongside the main tracks, they were often subjected to periods of heavy shellfire. Consequently they rapidly developed the basic 'slit-trench' into miniature strong-points, and stuck signs up on the tracks saying things like -
"Dust brings Death" or, one I admired more, "Go Slowly and Live Longer"
Another one" Go Slow! We're trying to Live here!" Great fun. I think the best example of this art form was one I saw much later in Normandy, which read" If YOU pass this point YOU are Surrendering !!" But back to the desert- a vehicle approaching the post, by night or day, was met by a disembodied head appearing from the sand. If you had a query, the head would answer, but you could never be quite sure the answer was correct. A cartoon in the 8th Army magazine "Crusader" showed a typical "Misinformation Post" with three occupants answering a driver by pointing in three different directions.
I noted earlier that 50th Div. had come back into the line, and their main task was to attempt to break the very strong German positions on the high ground, but before they could attack the entrenched positions the hill had to be climbed. If they had only had to face the mortars, machine guns and rifles there is no doubt they would have succeeded, but torrential rain had turned Wadi Zigzaou into a bog. The armour could not pass, transport was held up and the minefields destroyed so many officers and men before they got anywhere near the top that they had to withdraw. It is on record that forty-seven of their fifty officers were lost in that one day.
On the 21st of March, the 5th.Seaforth succeeded in gapping a minefield to reach the anti-tank ditch, where they relieved 7th Green Howards of 50 Div. Despite having both flanks in the air, and suffering heavy shelling, they held on and the following evening they were joined by 5th Camerons. They then advanced to the other side of the ditch in spite of very strong opposition, but were unable to hold, making a withdrawal by the 24th, after suffering heavy casualties. General Montgomery now called off the attack on the right, leaving the HD, the Guards Brigade and 23rd Armoured Brigade to mind the shop, while he sent all the other available troops to support the New Zealanders making the famous 'left hook'. The New Zealand Division and the British 1st Armoured Division and the HQ of 10th Corps had moved on 19th March, going south, deep into the 'blue'. Their objective was to bypass the Mareth line, coming from behind the Matmata hills, aiming directly for El Hamma. We knew that the unfortunate 50 Div.had taken a bashing. The evidence of that was before us. Everywhere we looked there were bodies scattered on the hillsides like clumps of camel scrub. Salmond's book says 鈥淭he movement of the Division through the Mareth defences was an unpleasant experience. The dead of the Northumbrian Div.were scattered all over the area.....(and) ... both in, and in front of, the anti-tank ditch lay many of our Seaforths and Camerons" .
The 7th Argylls were then sent in to relieve the East Yorks who had also
suffered heavily. There were indications that the Germans may be pulling some of their forces out to face the increasing threat to their rear, but their artillery was still actively engaged in keeping our heads down during daylight at least. By the 28th.March it seemed the enemy opposite HD were withdrawing. The Division then moved across Wadi Zigzaou and the leading units arrived in Gabes from the south at the same time as the New Zealanders entered from the west. Salmond's history says the the New Zealanders joked that if the Jocks had not stopped to don their kilts to make a ceremonial entry, the New Zealanders would have have been beaten into second place. That 'show-off' entry into Tripoli was going to take time to live down.
Ahead of us now was the Gabes gap, where the coast road took the only pass between the coast and the 1600 ft. hills of the Roumana Ridge. There was no room at all between the coast road and the sea, and very little room for manoeuvre elsewhere. Three Divisions, 50th, 51st and 4th Indian supplemented by the 210 Guards Brigade, were to carry out the assault on the strong and heavily defended German positions, which placed as they were on the high ground overlooked every movement on our side.
Our Brigade led by 7th Argylls, attacked on the 6th of April, my 23rd birthday. Because of the narrow front, the artillery fire, the demolitions required to blast a way across Wadi Akarit and the heavy machine-gun fire, the noise was heavy enough to drown the growling engines of our 3-tonners as we went about our deliveries. Infantry casualties were very heavy, as in some places the Germans were only some 40 yards uphill from the forward positions. Transport was parked in as sheltered a spot as possible and, except for emergencies had to stay there till dark. By next morning the Germans had pulled out, leaving well-placed tanks and artillery to dissuade pursuit.
It was during this battle that Lt-Col.Lorne Campbell of 7th Argylls won a well-deserved V.C. He was one of the officers who had led our mixed force at Le Havre in 1940.
The Divisional Intelligence Summary notes "the day marked the fiercest fighting the Division had experienced in this campaign. Our artillery and machine gunners were in constant support throughout the day..." The machine gunners were the heavy support battalion of the Middlesex Regt., the famous 'Diehards', who had been associated with the HD since the WW1,and were regarded with the greatest respect by all the Jocks. _
It was 1st Gordons with 23rd Armoured who finally broke through the German rearguard and opened the road to Sfax, which was entered by "A"Coy. on 8th April. Our Brigade was now placed in reserve, following the very heavy losses sustained by the brigade. We were no longer in barren desert country. Here there were groves of olives, lemons and oranges, unfortunately not yet ripe enough, and cultivated patches here and there with melons.
We were in the area of Sfax for about two very enjoyable weeks, doing almost nothing. This long break in an area where water was fresh and more plentiful was badly needed. One or two new faces had appeared and one or two older ones re-appeared after being hospitalised for wounds or illness.During our months in the desert we had suffered some 13 or 14 casualties, not many by infantry standards, but in our small unit, never more than about 30 strong, a single man was missed by everyone. It may say something about the mindlessness induced in the average soldier, that not once in those idle days did we concern ourselves with what the rest of the 8th.Army were doing. We rejoined them all too soon. On the night of 21st/22nd April, the HD relieved the 4th Indian and the New Zealanders in the Enfidaville area. Div history says" It was an area of hills, and they were given names from the children鈥檚 chant "Tinker, tailor' right on to 'thief' " .Again our infantry were faced with the evidence of the difficulty of attacking uphill against an entrenched and determined enemy.
Our job was complicated by the steepness of the hills in our sector, with the tracks into the line wholly unable to cope with the congestion caused by the fact that, being overlooked at almost every point by the enemy, all troop and vehicle movement had to be in darkness.
An Indian Army mule transport company were being used for some of the more difficult approaches, and I have no fond memories of one night when a mule apparently panicked, and caused havoc by running back down the narrow track, scattering its load as it went, and hotly pursued by the muleteer screaming what were probably obscenities in Urdu. A Bren-carrier (a small tracked vehicle) had to swerve suddenly, becoming wedged somehow on a large rock. My mate and I were already anxious that even at our best speed here, about five miles an hour, we would be delivering our explosive load in full daylight view of a delighted enemy. What fun they could have had then!
Some units from 8th Army had been 'lent' to the 1st Army, among them the 7th Armoured Div. who yet again covered themselves in glory by being the first to enter Tunis.
Before that however, I and one or two others had been lent to one of the Gordon Highlander battalions and were troop-carrying. I was with the Anti-tank section, with their small two-pounder guns, which their own 15cwt.trucks were towing. We were routed through Kairouan to Djidjelli more than 200 miles south into the Atlas mountains, taking the long way round to bypass the 1st.Army's continuing attack on the Tunis front.
The reason originally quoted for this trip was to aid the Americans who had become bogged down somewhere and had to withdraw. In the event, we were not required , though no one bothered to tell us why.
I enjoyed that journey because many of my passengers were from Aberdeen or thereabout. Having been to school there for five or six years the dialect brought back many memories. Then there was every chance of completing a journey without being shot at, while the scenery in places was quite magnificent. Our eventual arival at a base depot of the 1st Army in our battered looking desert-camouflaged trucks and wearing our tattered sun-bleached khaki drill shirts and shorts attracted a satisfactory amount of attention from the smartly battle-dressed and polished looking depot staff. It was soon our turn to be impressed. One of their polished 3-tonners arrived and was unloading at the cookhouse. The whole of our contingent crowded round to watch, looking for all the world like the famous Bisto Kids, sniffing the air as the driver and a mate unloaded tray after tray of fresh bread. It was more than a year since we had eaten bread, fresh or otherwise. We were watched by one of the depot's officers, whose expression couldn't have been bettered by the commissionaire at the Ritz watching tramps raiding the dustbins, but feeling too superior to interfere.
We were to spend some time here, and rumour told us to look out for the boats with the tartan funnels which were coming to take us home.
David Fraser's book says -"... .the 8th Army campaign was over. Its achievements from Alamein to Enfidaville,its succession of victories, its triumphant march from one end of North Africa to the other were by then renowned and will remain immortal"
But Montgomery`s message to the troops on 14th May clearly put an end to any speculation about a pleasant cruise back home. It was a clear indication that we were not yet finished in this arena. In his usual flamboyant style he ended this message with--
"Together, You and I, We will see this Thing through to the End."
We were ordered to rejoin our company, which was then at Bougie, some way back along the coast. Yet again we were re-equipped with new vehicles brought over with 1st.Army. We had now worn out at least two sets of trucks over the past year. While the advance from Egypt had covered some 2,000 miles, our continuous driving to and fro had totalled at least ten times that.
We now knew that 50th (Northumbrian ) and ourselves were the two Divisions from the Eighth Army earmarked for the invasion of Europe, and it was becoming clear that the first step was likely to be Sicily or perhaps southern Italy, or maybe somewhere else, perhaps even the south of France. We were preparing for another offensive, but all we knew as yet was that it involved naval landing craft, which is what sparked off the sometimes wild speculation. This was the first we had seen of these new landing craft, but it would not be the last.
The prospect of what sounded like a fairly hazardous business loomed ahead of us, but being a bit buoyed up by past successes we were actually looking forward to it. When the final orders came, our small section was to be left behind in Algeria, along with some elements from most other units of the Division. We would be available as reinforcements when needed, or if the invasion failed completely, we were once again to be the nucleus of a new Highland Division. It might not be strictly true to say that we were deeply disappointed but having been closely involved in almost every attack in the campaign so far we felt a little unhappy, and not entirely convinced when we were told that we had been selected because our section had been hardest worked and hardest hit during the past few months. It was not until much later that we found our section had been 'mentioned in despatches` and our section Corporal, Bill Kettles, was given the 'Mentioned in Despatches ` clasp when the campaign medals were eventually handed out. We had taken part in all the training excercises, and moved with the rest of the Division back to the old battlefields around Sousse, in Tunisia. But there we, and the other 'remainders' were to remain. We were lucky, of course, although so perverse is the mind of man, we did not see it that way. For one thing the invasion force went first to Malta, where they landed in Valetta and moved to camps outside the town, and we would have loved to be able to say we had once been to Malta. We might not have enjoyed the rough seas which marred the journey when it was resumed two days later, nor the extremely unpleasant reception which awaited them when they made the landing in Sicily, but we had to live for today and enjoy it best as possible. With no money and no use for it even we had it, we lounged, swam in the sea and took things as they came. The news filtering through from Sicily was at sometimes good and sometimes not so good. The invasion had succeeded, progress was made. Eventually the Germans evacuated the island, and despite efforts to contain them, large numbers escaped to Italy.
Now the danger was over it was safe for us 'left-backs` to rejoin those elements of the Brigade which were lying around Catania, actually camped on the slopes of Mount Etna, a live and smoking volcano. The lower slope where we were camped, had been terraced into little fields planted with grape vines, tomatoes and anything else that would grow. Catania,a large seaport, did not appear to have been greatly damaged. It was an ancient place, founded in 750 BC. and had been in many hands over the years. We latest invaders could look back to such famous predecessors as Dionysius and Belisarius; the Saracens sacked the town; the Normans restored it. It was Roger of Normandy who founded the great Cathedral in 1094 which shares the large town square with a University built about 1445.Yet the poverty of the ordinary people was such that in the informal market which had grown up in the square, all trading was all done by barter with the townspeople selling whatever they could. What they most needed in exchange was food. It was sad that these hardworking people should be brought to this sorry state by a war in which they had wanted no part. However the war was still on just a few miles away on mainland Italy and although our Division was not required there, our transport was. We moved north to Messina, which was reached by driving down an alarmingly steep and winding road, where many of the bends were too tight to allow our
3-tonners to get round in one, so we had to do 3-point turns and some very cautious reversing to get round the corners. It was rather like the road up the escarpment in North Africa, but much steeper and with farther to fall. Loaded as we were with our usual assortment of explosive things, it wasn't only the sun that streaked our faces with rivers of sweat.
We were to lie up till dusk, then make our way to the beach where we were to drive onto an LCT(Landing Craft Tank),to be transported the very short distance across the Straits to Italy. These small craft were just big enough to take one vehicle at a time, so there was a lot of waiting around on the Messina beach. That was no hardship, it was a lovely night, warm and with a full moon making it clear as day, so we could see the little vessels shuttling to and fro across the calm water like water-boatmen on a village pond.
Driving off in Italy we were in a different type of territory. The Reggio Calabria was arid, mountainous country with very poor roads over the hills. Our job there was very unadventurous, as all we were doing was driving stuff from where-ever it was landed by boat, to a base depot, from where it would be transported on to somewhere nearer the 'line` by somebody else, thence it would eventually be delivered to the men in the forward areas by some unit doing the job we normally did for our Brigade.
This sounds complicated, but it was along the lines of any manufacturer`s distribution- factory to warehouse-to wholesaler-to retailer -to user. So for us this job was safe but tedious, although I admit to having had some doubts about that when I was pulled in for the night on top of a fairly high hill. I had stretched out beside the truck, wrapped a blanket round me and went to sleep. Usually, with either ammo. or rations in the back I'd sleep in there on top of the load but the load this time was petrol, and the fumes were choking. In the early hours of the morning I had a rude awakening. A thunderstorm, fiercer than I had ever imagined, with rain in solid sheets. I scrambled into the cab dripping wet, and stretched as best as possible across the two seats. High on those hills as I was the thunder shook my heavy vehicle like a dog shaking a rat, while the lightning hissed past within feet. I consoled myself with the thought that I was insulated from the ground by the four heavy rubber tyres, so I went back to sleep.
I was glad when we moved on a bit making for the Adriatic coast, where we camped near Bari, and running loads from the base depot there to other dumps further up the coast to Foggia and district.
I was in the market-place in Bari one day, looking for a decent watch when I saw an old mate I`d last seen lying dead in the desert with a six-inch shell splinter which had entered under his cheekbone and down through the jaw to just protrude from his neck under the jawbone. It turned out that he wasn`t dead, just very nearly and had a long spell of being patched up, but found fit enough for store-keeping at a depot. I remembered his face, despite the long scar, but I still can`t recall his name. I had one good break here when I was without a vehicle. We had been driving in a small convoy, and came to a dried up river. The bridge had been blown. A track ran down the bank, across the river bed and took a steep and winding route among trees and shrubs up the other bank. There was a large, spreading fig tree on the far bank, and above it a very attractive modern bungalow with what had been a very well tended garden. I was travelling as second driver with one of our section and we were just about to follow the truck in front of us when we saw a huge American army lorry coming down the opposite bank at high speed. One of our trucks just approaching the blind bend below the fig tree was forced to pull a yard off the track to avoid a collision. The driver braked hard, but as he did so his front wheel hit a mine and flew through the air like a bird, leaving the truck to tip over onto the axle. The driver, Jock Kerr, was an old stager who was well aware of the hazards of driving onto he verge of any track, but his reaction was instinctive. Luckily he was alive, but in agony with a perforated eardrum. He was carried into another vehicle and taken to a field hospital, while his load was distributed among the other vehicles. As I was without my own vehicle I was 'spare', it was given to me to stay with the truck till a workshop vehicle turned up. So there I was once again left behind, but this time not on my own. It was felt that the local peasantry might turn nasty, or at the very least try to remove anything of value, so I was left with a young recent reinforcement to help beat off the marauding hordes. Thankfully, there were none. I very cautiously explored the area in the immediate vicinity and found no sign of life. The villa above on the bank was deserted but locked up, and knowing the Germans love of booby traps, made no attempt to even look inside. As far as we could see up and down the riverbed there was no sign of any other habitation.
Later that afternoon a civilian came strolling down the riverbed heading toward us. I shouted to him to try to alert him to possible danger from mines, but as I don`t speak Italian I was wasting my breath. This was more obvious when the man called to us "Hey, you guys O.K.?". He was an Italian who had spent most of his adult life in the USA. Thoughts of Mafia sprang to mind, but were not voiced. He was very pleasant, and told me that the villa above had belonged to a senior Italian Army officer, who had taken his family to some safer place.
We had to refuse his offer to go to his place for a good meal, as this would have left us open to a charge of desertion for leaving our post, as I pointed out to him. He did, however tell me that there was a good garden in the villa up there, from which we should take anything we wanted in ripe fruit or vegetables, as they would only go to waste. What we found when we had time to look around was that few vegetables of any use to us had survived the lack of watering but there was a magnificent vine, with grapes the size and shape of olives but very sweet and slightly spicy. With those and the ripe green figs from the tree under which we were camped, we supplemented our tinned herring or Irish stew and felt we were living like lords.
An Italian lad of perhaps 13 or 14 years of age regularly walked down from the direction of the villa and along the river bank. One he day he came carrying a mandolin, and sat strumming tunefully under the great fig tree. We had a few boiled sweets in one of the ration packs and gave him a couple. I asked him if he could get me a mandolin like his, and how much it would cost. This conversation was conducted largely in sign language, but it was successful, as he arrived next day with a new flat-backed instrument and a plectrum. I can't remember the price but it was very little so I supplemented it with a small tin of Spam, and it was still a good bargain. We were relieved eventually when a workshop vehicle came along and took over from us, giving us a lift to rejoin the rest of our company. Shortly after that we were ordered to hand over all our surviving vehicles to a newly arrived Company, while we set up little tents in a field somewhere near Foggia. As a parting gift, Italy gave us a torremtial downpour that night, which wakened us from a sound sleep to find ourselves floating in several inches of water. Nothing for it but to join in the building of a bonfire, which we sat round trying to dry some of our clothing and wet blankets. That was the start of a very severe storm, and our journey from Foggia to Sicily in a convoy of small landing craft was extremely hazardous. When a storm like this hit the Mediterranean, the normally calm and virtually tideless sea became a maelstrom of swirling waters, tossing the flat-bottomed craft like corks in a rushing river. For the first time in my life I was sea-sick, and it very nearly killed me, because in my rush to get up on deck to get some air, I headed straight for the rails to get something to hold onto on that heaving deck. Luckily someone on deck grabbed me, because in my blind rush I hadn't noticed the rail at that point had been damaged and what was left of it was dangling in space. Somebody, I never knew who, had not only saved my life, but the shock of having been on the point of tumbling into that erupting mass of water cured my sickness instantly. I stayed on deck, standing just at the entrance to the hatch, holding tightly onto the doorframe. Daylight came eventually and only two vessels of the eight or nine we started with were in sight. Rumours abounded, sinking every ship but ours and our two companions. Luckily they were false.
So after an extremely wet and uncomfortable journey we arrived back at Catania, where we rejoined the other platoons on the lower slopes of Mount Etna. Within days we were aboard ship on the way home, not knowing or caring what was next on our agenda. The one memorable thing about the trip was our first sight of Gibraltar.
This famous landmark, the harbour busy with little Naval motorboats buzzing to and fro on doubtless vitally important duties, was all we expected of it, although of course we didn鈥檛 get a chance to go ashore to look for the apes. However we were barely past Gibraltar when the cold weather struck, which had us donning scarves, gloves and greatcoat. As we had been some two years in hot a climate we shivered, but as we were getting closer to home, we bravely put up with it. I was still asleep when land was sighted early one morning, and by the time I'd shaved, dressed and breakfasted we were sailing up the Clyde.
One of my section was almost delirious as he pointed out landmarks as notable as" my Auntie Annie's house is just over there". For once, none of us needed any urging to gather our gear, and even the usual order to "leave your billets clean and tidy, you're not animals, you just look like them" was obeyed without demur.
On the dockside a military band played, and on being told the title of the piece, there was an immediate outbreak of jeering and mocking laughter which the band bore stoically, no doubt having heard it all before.
"Hail the conqering hero comes" may have been flatteringly meant, but all we wanted by then was to get off the ship and on our way home.
We did get off the ship, but only to a train taking us south to a hutted camp near Rickmansworth in Herts. As about fifty percent of our company were Scots, we could only reflect that, to paraphrase the Scriptures,' Our lords move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform'.
There was the usual queuing up for medical inspection, replacement of worn out uniforms, boots etc, all of which took up a few days before we were passed as fit enough to go home for
some leave. On our return to our billet in Chorley Wood we found a very relaxed regime, Further medical inspections weeded out a few more whose bouts of malaria or other physical weakness classed them as unfit for further overseas service. In their place we had reinforcements, most of whom settled in well. With Christmas being close, arrangements were made for the non-Scots to have Xmas leave, while most Scots were to get leave over New Year. Meantime, as my two pals were Londoners, I was invited to accompany them on weekend leave in 'the Smoke`. On these occasions I usually spent the nights with one of my father's brothers, both of whom had settled in London after the first war, visiting friends in the evenings.On one occasion we were treated to a night out, visiting two nightclubs and getting very drunk, which was not my idea of fun but difficult to avoid in that company. My old mate Bill and I were normally very abstemious, but we were both well over-loaded that evening.
We took the tube back to Chorley Wood the next morning, having snored on a friend's carpet for a few hours. It was our good fortune that in the compartment were a couple of our Div. Military Police who realizing in time that we were still hung-over, slung us out still in a semi-comatose condition, at our station. That was our brief taste of the `High Life'.
Now, with New Year leave over, we were back at our more familiar level and busy with the usual routine. There was very little work for our ammunition platoon, but some training courses were held. I was driving a staff car for a time, and taking my turn of night duty, doing the usual spells of guard duty, fire piquet, or whatever else was required. There was a very good canteen in the village, run very efficiently by the good ladies of the WVS, and we all spent some of our time there in the evenings.
We were aware that the invasion of Europe, the popularly named "Second Front", was to be soon, and that we were booked for front seats at the event. I don't know how the young recruits felt about the prospect. I suppose some were excited, while others were just nervous. Most of the old hands were just resigned to the fact that it had to be done. It had been talked about for long enough, and in a way we were looking forward to it as being the last lap of what had been a long hard journey. Meantime we were making the most of a very pleasant interlude. I had occasional jobs, driving an officer to one place or another, mostly on duties. I filled in a lot of time in public libraries, museums and art galleries. Being so close to London gave me time to spend in the National Gallery or to attend a lunch-hour recital by the best classical musicians. Dame Myra Hess regularly performed there. All this was free, and a snack of beans on toast with a mug of tea was well within even our limited means.
But eventually boredom prompted me to re-apply for transfer to the Black Watch as an M.T. driver. I was refused again. I went up to London to find my Uncle George. He had tried to join one of the services, despite having been wounded quite badly in 1917.He eventually enrolled as a `Special Constable', which he happily accepted. My father's other brother who had also been badly wounded in WW1,became a member of an ARP* heavy rescue squad, and I soon discovered the best way to find them was to make a tour of their local pubs, but always book a bed for myself at the Union Jack Club near Waterloo station. It only cost a few pence and as I was never sure of being able to track down either of the uncles, it was wise to have somewhere else to go. If there was nothing else to do there, it was usually possible to find a good film at one of the many cinemas, and it was seldom that a soldier in uniform was required to pay the full price. Looking back, I'm sure that the real pleasure of a weekend pass was the chance to spend time doing what I wanted to do not what I was ordered to do.
Sunday mornings in camp entailed a compulsory church service. Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'compulsory`, because it wasn't. To get out of it you only had to volunteer to spend the entire morning peeling potatoes or wandering all round the area picking up litter, filling and stacking fresh sandbags or doing something equally time-wasting, since a soldier in barracks must not be allowed to lie idle. 'Idling` was not encouraged in the Army, and the Army definition of the word was all-embracing. A man whose haircut did not meet with approval was 'idle` as was any soldier who unwittingly incurred the displeasure of a superior. This long spell of training awakened a desire in many NCO's to qualify as comedians. They all seemed to possess grandmothers who could do everything the soldiers could do and do it a great deal better. It was sometimes hard to believe that, especially when the task in hand was a section attack uphill in full battle order with fixed bayonets.
Fortunately for us, exercises of this nature were just occasional events designed to remind us that although we were a transport section, we were soldiers first and had to be trained as such. This comparatively peaceful life came to an abrupt end in March, when we were moved to Suffolk and instructed in "Waterproofing of Motor Transport Vehicles". We were to travel in the small flat-bottomed Landing Craft which we had used in the 'Med.`, but it seemed that here we were to have take a chance on being dropped into water several feet deep. This required the sealing off of all electrical equipment, starter motors, dynamos, distributor etc. and all the attendant wiring. The air intake to the carburettor was to be carried through a length of flexible metal tubing, which then protruded above the cab like a small chimney. All this plus some other odds and ends had to be practised and tested frequently, then dismantled and done again and again. Obviously most of this would have to be done at the very last minute, as the engine could not be run for long in a muffled state. It might have to be done and dismantled in the dark, so the practises were critically important.
We were 'somewhere in Suffolk` when the order came to move. We didn't know or care where to, setting off in convoy in the very early hours of the morning, seeing the dawn come up as we passed through sleeping villages and still empty countryside. General direction was south, and soon we were entering the wakening suburbs of London. Any hope our Cockney elements may have entertained of seeing family and friends again was dashed when we arrived at what seemed to be a cleared up bombed area in the dockland, where some tents had been set up. Barbed wire fences kept us in, and the public were kept well away from the troops by Military Police patrolling the perimeter. Officially known as Embarkation Assembly Areas, to us they were cages .
Looking at it as we did, from 'ground level`, it seemed chaotic. There was no apparent order discernable amongst the rubble. Vehicles were scattered around wherever the ground was reasonably level, and tents had been pitched without much regard to the state of the 'floor` on which we had to sleep if opportunity arose. Meals were being laid on from somewhere. All our money was taken from us and replaced with specially printed bank- notes bearing values in Francs. So the time had clearly come to once again start earning our few shillings a day. We were ushered into a marquee set up in the very centre of the cage, where there was no possibility of being overheard by any other than our fellow 'cagees`. There we learned officially what we had known, or strongly suspected for some time- we were to invade France! "When ", we asked ?.
"Soon" they said, "but don't tell anyone ..... !"
Presumably they meant 'don`t tell the Germans`, since surrounded as we were by high barbed wire fences and ferocious looking Military Police, there was no one else to tell, and anyway, even the dimmest person on those streets must have guessed the purpose of this display of 'armed might`. This was a phrase used in a daily paper just after D-Day. Armed might! They meant us ?
We were treated to a variety show that evening, compered by one of the leading comedians of the day, Tommy Trinder. We had been 'caged` for two or three days when we realized that we had not seen any movement from our neighbouring cage that evening, and we guessed that their absence probably indicated that the 'flap' was on. We already knew that our Brigade was marked for 'follow-up`, so we would not be the first to move. It was good to hear next morning that the landings in Normandy had succeeded, as no soldier can ever look forward to taking part in a desperate endeavour to dislodge a strongly entrenched enemy.
Bill wanted to see his sister before we left, and had an audacious plan which appealed to me and a couple of others, and it worked. Over the wire we went, at a spot where 'bomb-site rubble` had become heaped up against the fence, and across the road into the cinema directly opposite. The cashier at the desk accepted we were on leave but had no money, so we got in free only to exit rapidly by the 'emergency` doors at the rear.
The buses were not taking money from soldiers that day either, so we had a clear run to visit some of Bill's relations, where we were fed and feted generously.
Getting back was not so easy. The Elephant and Castle tube station was closed, we had no money for a cab, so we tried to hitch a lift. Fortunately the police car we thumbed didn't stop, but a small Army vehicle did. When the Sgt. who was driving realized we were urgently trying to rejoin our unit he very nicely drove us all the way back to Silvertown, where all we had to do was break back into our cage without being caught. What we hadn't thought about was that, as the French say, 'all cats look grey in the dark' and we were having difficulty in finding our own. We eventually climbed the wire, only to find we were in the wrong place. Getting out again was easier than we thought it would be, and we climbed out to find that we were directly opposite the very place we were looking for, but slightly anxious to see that everyone was getting ready to move. The gates were open, obviously preparatory to a move, so we walked in unchallenged and reached our section in time to save our sergeant's fragile sanity. We told him we had gone up to the West End to a cinema showing a film we particularly wanted to see. He almost believed it for about half-a-second; there's nothing beats telling the truth if you want to be disbelieved! So we collected our few belongings, boarded our trucks and were ready to move off. Life in the army was as easy that; 'home` was where you were at any one time, and moving only took a couple of minutes. We were travelling on the larger landing craft, which carried several of our 3-ton vehicles and one or two smaller ones. The storm, which had threatened to delay our much-needed cargoes, had died down and the coast of France appeared, distant, but clearly visible just before dawn by the flashes and flares marking the battlegrounds.
But the landing was established and we could see what appeared to be a sunken track between two sand dunes, leading from the beach. The outstanding landmark was the gable end of a ruined house, but as we were still in the line of long-range fire from some unseen machine guns I was not disposed to stick my head above the level of the deck for too long. This however did not dissuade a very young lad from peering over the side, as he had not realized the significance of the little 'plops` in the still water where we lay at anchor. This was obvious when he called to me, saying "Hey, Mac, come and see this. There's all these wee fish rising here. I wish I'd brought my rod."
I hope I've not given the impression that this was a pleasant summer's day cruise spoiled only by some noisy neighbours. The Navy had at least one battleship just out to sea behind us, blasting shells so big you could actually see them wobble as they went overhead.Destroyers were adding their penn'orth, as were some smaller vessels, including a strange little beast some way off on our port side which fired fusillades of rockets from a multi- barreled device.
They hissed over onto the enemy positions on the coast like a swarm of angry giant wasps, exploding with a series of crashes not all that far from where we expected to land when our turn came. We lay off there for quite some time before we got the order to "Start up". The ramp was lowered and we drove off. We all got a bit wet, some more than others, but we landed and were directed by a naval beachmaster to drive up the track we had seen earlier. We had to get into the shelter of the dunes before hastily removing the most urgent of the water-proofing devices to prevent overheating due to lack of ventilation, and then just follow our noses till told to stop.
My memory of that particular day is dulled by the flurry of activity which followed our landing. We were here, here and everywhere all at the same time with barely a chance to draw breath. Unlike the desert days we seemed to have no firm base. I refer here only to our small ammunition section, which, I suppose didn't really need a home. We parked where we could find some illusion of cover for the vehicle, in orchards, alongside hedges, or where none were to be found, parked in the open, drawing a 'scrim net' across to break up the rectangular shape of the truck.
Food during the first few days was in the form of individual 'K` packs, which I believe was an American innovation. A block of compressed sweetened rolled oats was a breakfast dish, which could be eaten as it was, or cooked to make porridge. Tea sugar and milk were all powdered together and needed only hot water to make an acceptable drink. Various other compressed foods provided other meals, and some boiled sweets were included, while presumably to cope with the after-effects of this banquet, each pack held three sheets of toilet paper. Our vehicles were rather under-worked for a time, as the distance between the beach-head and the forward battalions was probably less than two miles, and well within the range of the enemy's guns. Luckily, the RAF maintained frequent patrols to limit German air attacks.
One great benefit was being able to take advantage of the ready-dug trenches left us by the retreating Germans, but only after checking for booby-traps. Many of these trenches were beautifully engineered, roofed over with tree-trunks and covered with earth. Very de-luxe accommodation to return to when our nocturnal journeys were done, but the comparative comfort was almost my undoing. I'd returned tired after two late journeys to the guns when I was roused by cries of "Stand-to, Stand-to" , which was an order to man our defensive trenches. Nine-tenths asleep, I hauled myself out of the bunker and saw searchlights sweeping over a mass of descending parachutes.
A lovely sight on a clear night if you could forget the menace offered by enemy parachutists dangling in the harnesses. I was so busy admiring it that they were almost on the ground when I realized that in my sleep-dazed state I had come unarmed as my rifle was still snugly tucked away in the bunker, and the enemy was on the doorstep. I made my hundred yard run to fetch it and was back in record time, to find that the parachutes were a supply drop of food and ammo. to a German position which had been vacated 24 hrs. earlier. We went back to sleep, except of course for the sentries whose duty it was to guard against just this sort of surprise attack.
We had been supplementing our rather meagre rations by digging up potatoes and any other root vegetables growing in the fields. This was soon firmly stopped on orders from the highest level as the fields had already suffered severely from the bombing, shelling and mortaring. The local farmers were very quick to complain to the authorities in order to claim compensation. One local complained to us directly, and as I had some smattering of the language I was called on to interpret. It seemed one of our number had taken a piece of rope which he had found lying around, and the farmer was demanding the culprit be found and shot for looting.!! The villainous 'thief` was easily persuaded to return the rope, which proved to be a 4-foot piece of what we would have called heavy binder-twine. The farmer was marked down as a probable German collaborator. This was an unusual case. The locals were mostly only too pleased to be rid of their old enemies. A similar case is reported in Alexander McKee's book "Caen". This involved a battalion of Highland Light Infantry, of the 15th Scottish Div. They were occupying a small wood, where not only is it often difficult to dig to any great depth because of tangled root systems, but the shell and mortar fire in such an area is doubly dangerous because of the number of missiles which explode on hitting the tree-tops. In these positions it becomes important to have a some cover over the slit-trench, to hopefully stop some of the shrapnel which sprays down from these explosions. There was a shattered farmhouse and outbuildings nearby, so before long it had been cleared of all the timber, including the furniture that it had contained. This was then used to provide some illusion of overhead cover for the Jocks. Very soon an old lady arrived, and discovering that what was left of her home had been ransacked, she was seen waving her arms and screaming "Worse than the Boche, worse than the Boche" over and over again. The Jocks were quite sympathetic, but their replies were along the lines of -
"Och awa, ye bluidy auld hen" and " Allez, ye auld hag, afore ye gets shot" That last was obviously from an accomplished linguist, but they were no doubt imaging how much worse the old lady would have been if she'd been one of their own hard-case grannies from Glasgow. These small diversions helped to keep us amused, but the Germans were putting up a very determined resistance, keeping us more or less penned inside our beachhead area.
The RAF were doing a good job of keeping a large part of the German Luftwaffe out of the sky above the beach, but obviously a few still got through to harass us from time to time. The splutter of airborne cannons was a common sound and unless we were obviously the target we tended to ignore it. Nor was the enemy fire our only hazard. I was peacefully sitting in the cab of my truck, dutifully writing home, paying no attention to the 'dog-fight, going on overhead when I was alerted by the unmistakable sound of an aircraft diving. A damaged plane, with smoke streaming from it, was heading straight into my cab. As usual in the forward areas, I'd left the door open and almost before I had registered the sound, I was flat on my face seeking cover from two blades of grass. Fortunately, the plane was swinging and swerving a bit, and it actually crashed in a field about a hundred yards to my left. Unfortunately, it immediately caught fire and blew up, destroying any chance of acquiring 'findings' from the wreckage. More unfortunate was the fact that in my headlong dive out of the cab, I had retained my hold on my proudest possession, a Parker fountain pen, which broke when I hit the ground.
Here, when we were under attack from artillery or aircraft, the attack was a general attack on the area, rather than on a specific target, which was what we had become accustomed to in the desert. We had casualties, obviously. I admit to feeling very vulnerable, perched up in the cab of a 3-ton truck laden with various explosives, but there was nothing I could do about
In company it was easier, but most of the time we were on our own and a two-mile drive at night with occasional flashes from artillery fire to cheer us on, always seemed to take an hour or more, whereas it probably was no longer that twenty minutes. Twenty minutes may seem a long time to cover less than two miles; walking pace really, but bear in mind that this would be cross-country, with great holes filled and patched with rubble, and occasional short stretches of moving carefully along a narrow 'lane鈥� between two lengths of white tape which marked the edges of the minefields. No lights could be used, obviously; the units we were delivering to were unhappy enough at our noisy engines disturbing the peace. Had we gone in with as much as a dim sidelight showing it would probably have been shot out. Oddly, it could be very quiet in the forward areas at night, as if everyone and everything was holding it's breath and listening. An occasional Verey flare would show briefly; sometimes a single shot would ring out, and always in the distance a faint rumbling as a reminder that somewhere there was some activity. An artillery battery on one side or another might fire a few shots, or a rattle of machine-gun fire and some mortars or hand grenades would erupt suddenly and briefly as a small patrol was unlucky enough to be spotted in the open somewhere, then the night would settle to silence once more, until the pre-dawn signal was given for the precautionary "Stand to" .
The areas immediately behind the `line' were usually subjected to more shelling and bombing than the frontline trenches, in the hope of making it difficult to get supplies and reinforcements forward. Shell and mortar fire, landmines and enemy aircraft were the cause of most of our casualties. We accepted most of these losses philosophically, a nicer way of saying "thank God it wasn't me.鈥�
One casualty which deeply affected our small section was the death of a young reinforcement who had been with us for only a few weeks but whose unfailing good humour and cheerfulness had established him as a great character. Billy was from the Glasgow area, and was second driver to an older fellow Glaswegian, who regarded him as a young brother. They had been delivering to one of the infantry battalions when some heavy mortar fire fell on the orchard in which they were parked. They dived for the trenches, as shell or mortar fire amongst trees is very unpredictable. Billy was hit on the back by a large piece of casing, and died in seconds. Ironically, the vehicle which they had been unloading was untouched. The driver, Jock Laing came back unscathed, but badly shaken. However he had little time to brood. A new 2nd.driver was found for him and he was off again that afternoon to another battalion, keeping up with the unceasing demand for ammunition.
The whole combined British Army, Navy and Air Force attack was by now concentrated on the unfortunate old city of Caen. The Germans were defending stubbornly, despite the intensive air and artillery attacks, which were reducing that historic city to rubble. We can now see photographs of that damage but the photo's don't show the horrific number of dead who were buried under the debris, nor obviously can they reproduce the overpowering smell of dust, explosives and rotting flesh that was carried to us on every slightest breeze. On one of my trips back to the beachhead to reload and draw the permitted ration of petrol for that day, I gave a lift to a Black Watch officer who was returning after recovering from a wound.
He was cheerful and in good spirits, but as we approached our forward area, he suddenly said "My God, I'd forgotten the hellish smell", and his good humour vanished in a moment.
This was almost replicated some weeks later, when we were containing a German garrison trapped in Le Havre. The town had received the same sort of intensive bombing, and the same smell of smoke, explosives and rotting corpses pervaded the whole area around it. The 154 Bde. had been given the 'honour' of re-taking the town, as it was we who had made the last stand there against the German Army in 1940. I had again given a lift to a Black Watch officer returning from a Field Hospital. As we neared his battalion outside Le Havre, he sniffed the air. "I smell death" he said, portentously. I assured him I sincerely hoped it would not be either his or mine.
He didn't smile. I didn't blame him. It wasn`t really funny.
However that was still some days away. Caen was still holding out and we were becoming very familiar with our routine; into the line, unload and back to the beach-head to reload before returning to await the next call. Almost like going to a regular job in fact, if you could ignore the occasional bit of animosity from the neighbours. Caen did fall eventually, and we moved on, but not very far. Our section was pulled off the road into a small clearing, to allow the Canadian Division to go through ahead of us.
We parked our vehicles under the cover of the trees along the edges of the small field, and found to our delight that we had ready-made dugouts of the very best quality all round the area. We settled down, not knowing, or caring, how long we were to be there, and a card game started over by where one of the lads had a 'brew` going. Shells were passing overhead in both directions as some heavy battery was somewhere behind us, engaging in one of their periodical long-range duels with the German gunners, but as old soldiers we knew that any change in the note of the enemy guns would warn us of a change of target.
We looked sideways at the raw recruits who were 'casually` lurking on the lip of their trench, poised to disappear if anything sounded too dangerous. As it turned out, they were wise; we, the old men were caught napping when the Germans played the old trick of keeping the range and line unchanged, but re-setting the fuse. The next shells exploded directly overhead, spraying the area with shrapnel. I swear my hundred yards dash to my own corner had me under cover before the first shards hit the ground.
On the road, the Canadian Division rumbled past, while in the air, so high as to be almost invisible, we could see an enormous fleet of the huge American bombers. The shelling had stopped, but there was a sound like the approach of an express train, getting louder as it approached. I looked up and dived back into the dugout where I once again resigned myself to the end of my involvment in the world. The American 'carpet-bombing` method, which had demolished so many of Germany's cities was now directed at me. I know we had often been rude about the Yanks but this was carrying retaliation too far! Yet again our little gang escaped unscathed, apart from a bit of nervous twitching, but the unfortunate Canadians on the road had copped the lot. I've no idea how many casualties they suffered there, but the dead were being carried off the road and laid in a corner of our field. We helped where we could, clearing a rough passage for the remainder of the Canucks who still had to make their way forward regardless. We surrendered our blankets to cover the bodies, as so much of the Canadian transport had been destroyed, and we were on the road again within minutes, following the depleted Canadians to Falaise, where entrapped Germans were being ruthlessly destroyed. For this engagement HD had acquired its own armour, by the attachment of 33rd Armoured Brigade, one of whose three tank regiments was allocated to each of the three Highland brigades. To 154 Bde came the Northamptonshire Yeomanry which like ourselves, had originally been a Territorial unit, and a very good one. So it was in this fashion we set off to close the "Falaise Gap"; the killing ground. Our brigade leading on one side of the Caen-Falaise road, and one of the Canadian brigades on the other, with 33rd Armoured brigade in support and our ammunition wagons trailing along behind in case we were needed.
The infantry achieved their objectives, but holding them was the next problem, which was not made easier by the American Air Force dropping their bombs on the 1st.Black Watch, killing two of "B" Company's signallers, and doing much damage in the area, which was already suffering heavy German artillery and mortar attacks.. I believe some improved air/ground recognition signals and systems were eventually worked out, but having seen the 'friendly` attacks in the desert, and cowered under the hail of the attack on the Canadians convoy at Caen, I doubted if yet another system would work.
The attack down the main Caen-Falaise Road was scheduled for August 7th. Our 154 Bde was to advance down the left, with a Canadian Bde on the right. Supporting 154 was 33rd Armoured Bde., which comprised Northants Yeomanry and two Royal Armoured Corps regiments. The countryside, which must have been very lovely in a normal year, to our eyes was highly dangerous. Snipers lurked in cornfields, mines lay hidden on roadsides, trees concealed hidden armour, and above and all around us was the stench of putrefaction and decay. Not only people had suffered in the numerous air and artillery attacks over many days, but domestic animals of all sorts lay rotting over the whole terrain.
Those of us who had served in France in 1940 were powerfully reminded of the slaughter by the Stukas. Although here, we saw no evidence of civilian refugees, and we hoped it was because the civilians had learned they were probably safer keeping under cover, rather than running aimlessly around, as happened in 1940.
That individual snipers could hold up a whole army was adequately shown in this, where we advanced through woodland and cornfields, along sunken tracks. At one stage my mate and I were following close up to the main line of advance but having been back to reload, we were now intent on catching up with our unit, so we were overtaking at every opportunity. We had already passed quite a lot of assorted traffic, including a couple of Bren carriers, and some lorried infantry, but now we came to a traffic jam. Tanks were halted and their crews had brew-cans on and motor transport from one of our infantry battalions had pulled in on the left verge. As we made to cut round ahead of a stationary tank blocking the track we were halted by a 'Redcap` and ordered to leave the vehicle, and walk back down the lane keeping under the cover of the halted traffic as snipers were active. As if to order, two shots spat past our ears. "They`re aiming high" said the ducking policeman "probably just kids". Kids or adults, they had killed some of the patrolling infantry, and succeeded in holding up the entire advance on our sector for over two hours, until they were finally dispatched by a flamethrower tank, which had to destroy much woodland and growing corn before locating them.
This phase, from Caen on to Falaise and Lisieux, seemed to be dogged by misfortune. One Canadian regiment lost its C.O., all its squadron commanders and 53 of its 65 tanks . Then the much vaunted ground-air liaison system was blown to bits when our forward troops were being bombed by our own aircraft "time and again" as the div. history puts it. Our (154 Bde.) 25-pndr.guns were bombed, although at that point they were actually behind Bde H.Q. Len (a mate) and I were there to drop some reserve ammo. so we had front seats at the event. The 1st.Gordon Highlanders lost thirteen of their sixteen "A" echelon trucks in that attack and inevitably, as we were handy, we were 'volunteered` to fill some of the transport gap until such time as other vehicles could be brought forward. We were later attacked by Typhoons who were also apparently under the impression we were Germans. Our Divisional Commander had a narrow escape there, but 152 Bde HQ.was hit, the Brigade Major was killed and a number were wounded.
A story was going around now that the Germans were joking that" when the Luftwaffe come over the British hide; when the RAF comes over the Germans hide, but when the Yanks come over everybody hides."
1st.Gordons captured a German observation post with the telephone still intact. A Captain Jamieson used it to inform the German at the other end that it was time to surrender as "the English Swine are here". He should of course have said "Scottish swine". No reply is recorded. It was with a great feeling of relief that we heard the Brigade were now ordered to capture Le Havre, the port from which the remnants of the original 154 Bde made our escape in 1940, and we were keen to get away from the very unpleasant, foul-smelling shambles which this otherwise lovely countryside had become.
We moved to more pleasant surroundings, just a few miles outside Le Havre . Here we were able to rest in comparative peace since the job here was to wait for the beleagured enemy to come out with their hands up; the main fighting having moved on through Belgium and into Holland. The German Garrison Commander and his staff, dressed in ceremonial style and accompanied by servants and all their baggage, were obviously expecting a formal handing over of the keys of the city to some sort of British delegation.
What they got, according to Bernard Fergusson's book, was "... a small Jock with a fixed bayonet which he seemed to be itching to use". 154 Bde. was again detached from the Division to do a similar job at Dunkirk where we arrived during the night of 26th/27th September. No major assaults were required of the infantry here, so with little ammunition being used our transport might have enjoyed another restful spell.
Unfortunately this had been anticipated by somebody, and we found ourselves doing a similar 3rd line transport job to the one we had in Italy, carrying bulk supplies of anything from 'railhead` to a supply depot-the `wholesaler to retailer` bit. Luckily, after only about ten days of this, the Brigade came together again and we moved on to Holland where we finally caught up with the war at Nijmegen , or just outside it. Everywhere between Eindhoven and Nijmegen was littered with the debris of the airborne forces attacks.
Crashed gliders lay where they had fallen; tattered parachutes swinging from trees; hastily dug graves marked with dangling helmets and the general litter of a recent battle was all the testimony we needed of the ferocity of the fighting which had now moved on a few hundred yards toward the line of the River Maas. Our first camp here was in a village, where the Dutch insisted having the soldiers being billeted in their homes, putting three or four soldiers in their best bedroom, and looking after us better than any seaside landladies. Regrettably the division was soon back in the line and we had to get closer to the action, so it was back to the holes in the ground, and in this case the holes were in a wood which was still littered with crashed gliders. It was also right at the point where the 'road` took a sharp bend across a Bailey bridge, with the Germans entrenched about 1500 yards away.
This was a bit of a hot spot, regularly coming under fire and occasionally finding a German patrol actively harassing passing traffic at night. About this time I was attached to one of the Seaforth battalions, the 5th I think, for troop-carrying along with one other driver from another company. We arrived at the section of the line the Bn. was to occupy just at dusk. Bn.HQ was sited by an old black barn, in which HQ Coy. were billeted.
The CO, his aides and the Signal section were nearby, with a large ex-German dugout from which to operate. The other attached driver and I were to bunk in the barn, and the rifle companies having been allotted their defensive positions nearby, we "stood to" ,in case a sneaky enemy might try a surprise attack. They didn`t, so the common soldiery settled down to do what every British soldier has done since the battle of Hastings and earlier; we lit our little fires and "brewed up" a meal.
From where I was standing, the whole landscape seemed to be covered with little twinkling lights, as the fires went on to heat cans of stew or boil water for tea. The Germans were either too surprised to react, or were debating whether this was some cunning ploy to distract them while another force was sneaking up on them from the rear. It was more than ten minutes later before the expected hail of shell and mortar fire was launched. It was over in another ten minutes, having done no serious damage except to put another hole in the roof of the black barn, which seriously alarmed the pipe-major, who had left his precious bagpipes in there marking his chosen prime position for his bedding. Fortunately all the rest of HQ Coy had leapt into their defense trenches and were safe. Later that night, I was standing just outside the barn door, watering the dry grass (there were no public toilets in the vicinity ) and enjoying the complete silence of a lovely clear night, when I was approached by a shape which turned out to be a German soldier anxious to surrender. I called the nearest squaddie and we escorted this wise man to HQ. It wasn`t till we got there, at least a hundred yards away, that I realised that neither the Seaforth nor I had a weapon of any kind between us, nor had we heard any sentry challenge us; indeed we had to call loudly to rouse somebody in the HQ bunker who could take responsibility for the only prisoner I ever took during all those years. I wish I'd got his autograph!
Back at the barn we suddenly felt very insecure- if one German could make his way past the forward companies without being stopped, was it quite safe for us to go back to sleep? My temporary mate and I debated for perhaps half-a-minute before falling asleep again.
That morning was a replica of the night before- Stand to- fires lit- brewcans on- shell and mortar fire for a few minutes, then peace settled once more.
The other co-opted driver and I were told we could now leave if we wished. It wasn`t expressed in exactly those terms but we got the gist, so off we went. I saw this man, his name was Stewart, after the war when he was driving a tractor on a local farm in Perthshire. Having recalled the last time we met he agreed that he`d never been so glad as to get away from these "daft b-------rs" who would light fires after dark "no more than a spit away from Jerry". He seemed to have forgotten that we, too, had been guilty of that. I didn`t remind him.
Winter had come. The Dutch expected, even looked forward to, snow and ice at this time, so that they could lay aside their bicycles for their favoured form of winter transport, the skates.
We who had spent the previous two years in the sunshine of the Mediterranean were less happy, and even less so when we were roused to make a fast overnight move to assist the Americans who had found trouble in the Ardennes where the German general von Runstedt had made a determined attack in an attempt to break round the rear of the Allied armies. In the early hours of that morning a despatch brought the news that I was posted to the Queens Royal Regt. and required to report to a depot in Ostend For years I had been making application to be posted as a driver to an infantry regiment simply because I was tired of being shot at with seldom an opportunity to hit back. Now it seemed I was destined to be retrained as an infantryman along with a number of others from various units. As the training progressed it seemed that were being prepared to reinforce the troops making the Rhine crossing, but the casualties had apparently been lighter than forecast. For a short time I had been a L/Corporal (`local-acting-unpaid`), but the spell of comparative inactivity was boring, and I took an un-authorised night off, and was caught when a night exercise was called and I was absent. I accepted my loss of authority cheerfully and less cheerfully served my 7-day C.B.. Shortly after this I went on leave, and on my return found I had been posted to 1st.Bn.Cameronians(Scottish Rifles) who were then returning to India after serving with a Chindit column in Burma. This was good news to me;I was going to travel yet farther East and in all my reading as a boy India,. Burma and Malaya were magical places. Kipling's stories of Army life in India; the fabulous North-West frontier; Rangoon and the 'dawn coming up like thunder' was to become a reality. In fact, I never got nearer to the Frontier than Poona, the regiment`s permanent base some fifty miles south of Bombay and a thousand miles from the Himalayas. Still it was India, and Burma or Malaya were not far off.
At our Yorkshire camp it was snowing again, and another good reason, to me at any rate, for getting back to warmer climes. A draft of seventeen or eighteen young soldiers who had completed their training at the battle school were earmarked for this trip, and as a senior soldier I was theoretically in charge. We were taken to Leeds on an Army truck, but one reluctant young lad tried to desert en route. The Military Police grabbed him, and gave him back to us in handcuffs in which he had to stay. At Leeds we boarded a train taking us from Yorkshire to Clydebank, where we boarded a troop-ship, co-incidentally named the Cameronian, en route to India. Once aboard we removed his 鈥榗uffs鈥�. If he was still determined to desert, he would have a long swim. Now, as the war in Europe was virtually over, we sailed boldly past Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, stopping to refuel at Port Said, where the 'bum-boats' were now making a killing from the increased trade. That they had the hoses turned on them from the deck didn't abate their enthusiastic offers of "great bargains Johnny".
The ship having stopped only long enough to re-fuel, we were very soon on our way again in perfect weather, and even the rawest of the recruits making their first long sea journey were by now able to enjoy it, quite unperturbed by a couple of days of turbulence as we left the Gulf of Aden for the Indian Ocean. We made our landfall at Bombay a few days later and
travelled by train to Poona, where our small body of eighteen men was divided up amongst the rifle companies, and my official army trade of 'driver` was only of use if I was prepared to handle the mules, an offer which I hastily declined. I`m not sure it was a serious suggestion as I never saw any mules all the time I was there. However I did have to take extra drill, as a Rifle regiment not only marched very much faster than the rest of the army, but the handling of the rifle and the way in which commands were obeyed differed considerably. It didn't take long to learn, and we were soon assimilated into our various sections. Many of the original Cameronians were from within fifty or sixty miles of Glasgow, as the regimental depot was in Hamilton.
Despite the occasional spell of training, life in the Army in India was good. Poona had been a home to the British Army for over a hundred years and all the facilities of a regular barracks were established in the area. Excellent canteens, run by NAAFI (Naval, Army and Air Force Institutes) and by some voluntary organisations, no doubt headed by the dreaded 鈥楳emsahibs鈥�
(the wives of senior British Civil Service officials and senior Military Officers.)
Apart from the early morning P.T. ,which was usually just a gentle run around the area, and an occasional march to "show the Flag", as it was called, we had very little to do.
Lectures on this and that were attended or not, depending on how good the soldier was at ducking out.
While the war in Europe was now over, in Malaya the Japanese were still very strongly holding out, and we were being prepared for a proposed assault on some part of that coastline in order to finish them off. We were all trained soldiers, and apart from a few of the recent reinforcements, we all had previous active service experience, so life was quiet and the only real excitement I can remember was our discovery that some ATS, the women's branch of the Army, had arrived in the district. We found this out when our section was being marched to the compulsory weekly shower bath. The fact we usually had a shower at least once a day didn't excuse anyone from obeying Regimental Standing Orders.
So we marched, as was then our custom, clad only in a towel, which was slung over the shoulder. We lived in tented lines there, the tents being arranged in precise rows between two roads either of which led to what might now be called the shopping mall where the canteen, recreation huts, shower and bath units were laid out. It was only some eight hundred yards from our lines, but to get there we had to cross another 'main road`, and as we approached this junction, we became aware that the party approaching the crossing from our right was obviously not from our neighbours, the Devonshires. At about the same time some very audible giggling alerted the smart young woman commanding the gigglers to an emergency situation for which she could not have been trained, but her response was immediate, and worthy of Wellington himself. As we were approaching from her left, in a loud clear voice she ordered "ATS - Eyes Right " while she herself replied to the salute our dead-pan corporal, wearing only his bonnet, offered with considerable aplomb. We never saw any of these girls again. It may have been decided that we were not their most desirable neighbours, and they were camped elsewhere. Pity!
Some local leave was allocated and I was one of those nominated for seven days at a leave camp on a beach not far from Bombay. It was comfortable, the food was good, swimming was good, but one day everyone in the camp at the time was called to "action in aid of the civil power". This was to help the Bombay police to control one of the periodical ill-tempered confrontations between Muslim and Hindu which could disrupt the city for days. We were armed of course, but under orders not to fire, or fix swords, unless given a clear command to do so. So we just lined up two deep across this road and told to look menacing. An English Superintendent of the Bombay police examined us and informed us he had seen more menacing looks at a vicarage tea-party," but carry on anyway" he said. "If I need any help I can always send for a few memsahibs from the English Club". We stood around for a couple of hours, Hindu to the right of us, Muslims to the left, or perhaps vice versa. The menacing memsahibs from the English Club were not needed, because the huge Sikhs who seem to make up most of the Bombay Police arrived, whacked any number of demonstrators with their long bamboo canes which dispersed such of the crowd as were still able to run unaided. The police made no distinction between Hindu or Muslin, nor indeed did it matter if a few casual spectators took a smack as well. Our leave camp contingent were bussed back, with one wee Cameronian moaning" It's no' right so it's no'. Wir on wir ain time here !". A Cpl. from a Military Police Coy. advised him to take it up with the Union. The Jock's reply to this is fondly remembered, but is not printable.

That day was actually the high point of the week's leave, and few of the returning 'holiday-makers` were really sorry to get back to their units and to a normal way of life, or at least to what we had come to look on as 'normal`.
We hadn`t been back long when the medals for service in various areas were delivered, and my active service having started in 1939 and saw France in 1940,North Africa , Sicily and Italy with the Eighth Army from 1942-`44,then Normandy till January `45, I had a total of six, with a Territorial Medal still to come. This was not in any way an indication of high courage - only a record of survival. We heard on the radio that some devastating air attacks had been made on the Japanese mainland, using a new type of bomb, and it was hoped that the Japs would be forced to surrender very soon. I think we guessed by now, that something had gone wrong with the intention to make a landing on the Malayan coast. We had been geared up for it and ready to go for some weeks, yet not only had we apparently ceased training for, or lectured about it, but it was no longer even being mentioned. However we were sure a move of some sort was in the offing, and we were proved right about that when we were taken to Bombay and embarked on an Australian Naval Aircraft carrier. All the aircraft had been taken off, leaving the huge hangar deck to house the Battalion. We set sail, but we were still well short of our destination when the ship stopped and lay at anchor. We were soon told that Japan had sued for peace, so we would disembark in Singapore like respectable tourists, and by the time we gor there things had been organised in the docks. Royal Engineers were working on cranes and other machinery, and we were soon unloaded and lined up on the dockside, doing what soldiers had been doing for thousands of years - waiting for something to happen! We were eventually ordered aboard a fleet of Army lorries and driven to a place somewhere in Johore State. Here we had to erect a tented prison camp for the Japanese army, which would descend upon us shortly. Tents of all sizes were put up, aligned with geometric precision. Barbed wire fences surrounded the prison camp area, then we settled down to wait once more for something to happen. The camp was on what had been a jungle airstrip- a cleared and approximately level area, a few hundred yards long and two or three hundred yards wide with a thick wall of jungle on three sides.
Experienced in the art of passing the time, we lazed around, playing cards, talking or just sleeping in the sun, and that is what we were doing when out of the surrounding jungle some three hundred yards away came a whole Japanese army, complete with weapons.
A couple of little fat Generals, a horde of sword-carrying officers and hundreds of other ranks with rifles, long menacing bayonets fixed on the end of them. Half-asleep as we were it looked as though we were in dire trouble, especially as few of us had weapons to hand.
A wild rush to collect our rifles and we were back in short order to disarm the surrendering Japanese and escort them to an assembly area, where they were to be searched before being allowed to their cages. This was routine over the next days, as more Jap. units found their way into the 'bag`. The searches we did by putting them in single file, through narrow 'pens`, rather like the shepherds at home putting sheep through their annual dipping to rid them of parasites. What we rid the Japanese of was their accumulated loot, which we then put in front of an interpreter, who questioned the prisoner before letting him go through into the camp. We confiscated many hundreds of watches, most of them of European origin, and many of them British. A great number of them, sadly, were engraved with names or initials which in many cases identified them as nurses or medical staff, and we didn't want to dwell on the poor womens' fate, having had evidence of the appalling treatment of prisoners in Japanese hands.
The private soldiers of the Japanese armies were mostly resigned to their fate, but the NCO's and officers were usually aggressive, with the officers in some cases being extremely arrogant, which gave the Jocks every excuse for giving them a harder time than was strictly necessary. Ordering particularly obnoxious characters to strip to the skin was a very effective way of taking the 'bounce` out of them, particularly when they could be kept waiting with legs apart, while their searcher took time off to have a smoke.
After the search pens, the prisoners were herded to the compound and given what was probably the most substantial meal they had had for many days.
British interrogating officers, with interpreters, were gathering evidence of the many atrocities committed on British and Allied prisoners, whether Service or civilian. Those Japanese against whom evidence was found were segregated from the others, into a separate area, which had to be further guarded despite being inside the main compound.
Our lazy days were over; those not on 24hr.guard duty were shepherding working parties of the prisoners, all of whom had to be kept busy. But gradually the number of prisoners decreased as the 'vetting` process sorted the sheep from the wolves and drafted them separately to more permanent camps, while we were returned to more soldierly duties. We patrolled the local countryside searching for armed bands which were raiding the villages. When not on a patrol we had a couple of large ammunition dumps to guard. These were in deep jungle, with explosives, weapons and ammunition of all sorts and covered a large area, which was patrolled by the sentries in pairs. During the night the pairs on duty were understandably nervous, as it was known that a guerrilla band was targetting these dumps. However, despite a few alarms we saw no serious action during our time there.
At some point three or four other old sweats, of whom I was one, were detailed to report to a Police post in Singapore where we were to augment the Military Police detachment at the docks, by taking shifts at the dock gates. During the hours of darkness the two-hour spell was to be used in patrolling the dock area. This was a lonely job, and with so much stuff in the warehouses it was necessary to keep alert, especially in the dark, shadowy corners which I explored with my finger never far from the trigger of the Sten.
I had been detailed to escort a military police officer of the Special Investigation Branch, who spent a couple of weeks prowling around the shadier quarters of the town and needed some-one to watch his back. I never found out what he was looking for, and to this day I don't believe he knew either. Still, it was a pleasant job and I got to know the town quite well as a result. Our off-duty time could be spent as we pleased, and my favourite place was the NAAFI, which had been named the Shackles Club, on the corner of Raffles Square.
Here was peace and quiet; books to read; tea, ice cream, and good, affordable meals. The staff was mainly local girls of all races, as Singapore must have been the most cosmopolitan city in the world then. I was now almost time-served, and although very tempted to sign on for a further year, I rejected it as it would have had to be served here in the East and I had spent far too long away from home over the past seven years. The expected order came, requiring me to report to a camp where close to the docks, where I was to wait for the boat home.
So this is where these seven years was to end. In that time I had traveled many thousands of miles and had survived where too many of my friends had not. Now, with a few hundred other survivors, I was lounging on a tropical beach, waiting for a ship to take us home.
It came, sailed, and fifteen days later we disembarked in Liverpool.
It was snowing in Scotland, and it was some years before I got used to the cold again, but it was good to be able to say with reasonable confidence --
" tomorrow I'm going to do this and next Sunday we can do that".

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