大象传媒

This is Fred Harris鈥� story: it was dictated to Kathy Collard-Berry at the Fernhurst Centre at its D-Day Celebrations on 5 June 2004. The story has been added by Pauline Colcutt (on behalf of the Fernhurst Centre) with permission from the author who understands the terms and conditions of adding his story to the website.

I joined the Royal Air Force on 7 June 1940, I was living in Reading at the time and I got sent to Cardigan for training. I was posted to St Eval in Cornwall, Coastal Command. Later that year I got posted overseas to Egypt, first to Kirkham to be kitted up and then to Scotland to join ship the Georgic. There were 3,000 other men on board. I was posted as an individual not as part of a unit which was unusual at that time.

We went out to the ship in a launch and on boarding I thought they were bound to give me a berth. When they gave me a ticket it was for the hold, the amount of people packed into that hold was daunting, there wasn鈥檛 space to pack anymore in. However, someone from New Zealand who was in the Medical Corps took pity on me and allowed me to sleep underneath the bunks for a total of six weeks, the time it took to get to Egypt.

When we arrived at Suez we were allocated to a unit, and I was sent to Aboukir under General Wavell. We advanced up the desert fighting the Italians. We got as far as Benghazi and we then got posted to Greece, so had to come back to Alexandria and got on a boat to Greece. We landed at Piraeus and formed a unit at Lamia. All was going well in Greece until the Germans came to help the Italians, from that day onwards it was retreat. In retreating the Greek army capitulated and we had to get out the best way we could. We went back down to Piraeus, but found all the ships were on fire. We went down the Corinth canal to Argos and again the ships were on fire, we ended up at Kalamata. We gave all our money to a boatman (there were 50 of us) and asked him to take us to Crete. On this journey the boatman ran out of petrol, we managed to get to an island called Kythira where we were able to wade ashore. A Stuka then came over and sunk the boat we had been on. The island was completely deserted and we spent the days in the olive trees and went to the beach at night to see if anyone could help us. After seven days with not much to eat and drink some boys came up the beach to see if there was anybody there. It was HMS Auckland checking to see if they could find any survivors, they took us to Crete.

It was chaos on Crete with Germans landing by parachute and nobody knew what to do with us. Eventually they put us on a coal ship to Alexandria and we had to sleep on the coal. When we arrived at Alexandria we were so scruffy that they would not let us off the ship until we had been spruced up. We were then put on cattle trucks and taken to Aboukir. We were there sprayed with DDT and given a week鈥檚 holiday in Alexandria.

We were posted to another unit and we were sent to Gaza where we were then part of the invasion of Syria. After the Syrian campaign we went across the Jordan valley to Iraq to Mosul. The reason for this was the fear that the Germans would invade the Middle East via Turkey. At the end of that we went up the western desert taking 10-14 days to travel up and across the Suez Canal where we then came under General Auchinlech (鈥楾he Auk鈥�). We were then moved up to Mersa Matruh, in the western desert. At that stage General Richie lost a lot of tanks and we were evacuated to Alamein. (This was the shortest bridgehead, all the land was salt marsh, and the Germans were using this to transport their supplies.)

We went to Ismalia where we formed another unit under General Montgomery. He did not want to advance until he had enough Sherman tanks so when he had enough we went up to Tobruk and on to Benghazi. While we were there we had a locust attack which effectively grounded all the aircraft which had been bombing Italy.

When Montgomery went to Italy we were posted to India. This mean going back to Suez to get on a transport ship, this time a cargo ship, to Bombay, and a train to Calcutta. The famine was on in Calcutta at that time, it was a terrible sight to see all these starving people. We used to go round in the morning picking up those who had died overnight.

We were then moved to Chittagong, set up a camp at a place called Cox鈥� Bazaar and were there during the monsoon. The army moved out but the airforce stayed in place during the monsoon because they were not a mobile as the army.

I had then spent four years overseas for the Royal Air Force and a friend and myself were posted home from Chittagong. We then had to do the reverse journey via the Suez canal to get home arriving at Liverpool. When we arrived at Liverpool there was a gale force wind blowing, the ship was tilting at an alarming angle and we were asked to stand on the other side so we could not see or hear the welcoming party. I then caught a train to Cosford and was given two weeks leave. After that I was posted to Melksham. I then developed Malaria but after two weeks in hospital it cleared up.

I then spent some time in charge of supplies at Melksham camp where Jamaicans were being trained and was demobbed from Melksham on 10 April 1946

My reference from the Camp Commander says 鈥淪erved in RAF for almost 6 years as equipment Assistant and attaining senior NCO rank of Sergeant. Of superior all round ability, keen and efficient he has always carried out high duties in a most satisfactory manner. Trustworthy and reliable he is strongly recommended for re-employment in civil life as a thoroughly dependable worker.鈥�

Decorations 1939-45 Burma Stars, Africa Star and Clasp.

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