大象传媒

I was still at Cirencester Grammar School when war broke out. By rights I should have finished but agreed to stay on an extra year as I was too young to be taken on as an apprentice at the place I had applied to, the school was in Birmingham and it was thought that I was too young to stay away from home by myself.
Not long after the war had broken out, my brother came home and said that they were looking for apprentices where he was an apprentice electrician so I quickly applied and was accepted.
When I was 18 and a half we were working on the aerodrome at Chedworth when I received my call up papers. I was sent to basic training and then after a brief embarkation leave was shipped off to North Africa, on Christmas Eve, I spent the whole of Christmas being very seasick. We were sent out in units trained to support and look after the vehicles. I served in North Africa until the war ended and then went to Italy, we went to Bari, Brindisi, Roma and then finally we were based in Milan, in the Lambretta Factory, putting together vehicles out of the wrecks that were brought into us. They were then given to the newly reformed Italian Police Force. One day, we got a call asking whther we could go and move a submarine. The Germans had been prefabricating them in one of the factories and at the end of the war it had just been left, the soldiers needed it to be moved as it was taking up the whole of the factory. Well, when we got there we couldn't believe our eyes, it was massive, we thought that the call had been put through as a joke! Needless to sayy, despite trying very hard our little truck couldn't move the submarine and it wsa left as it was and the soldiers had to work around it.
From Italy, the unit was split and my section moved to Greece, where I ended my overseas services, 9 years 10 months after having left home. I was sent back to complete my service here before being demobbed.

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