´óÏó´«Ã½

ONE MAN’S WAR 1939 — 1945
6089761 CORPORAL FRANK SHEPHERD MM
1/5TH BATTALION, THE QUEENS ROYAL REGIMENT

In April 1939 I joined the Territorial Army at the request of my employer the Earl of Iveagh, for whom I worked as a gardener on his estate at Pyrford Court. Myself and several other gardeners from the Estate went along to the Drill Hall at Woking and signed on. We reported two evenings a week for training in the basics of Army life: drills, marching, rifle training etc. In July we went on a two-week camp for further training. On 27th August 1939 I returned to the bothy where I lived to find my call up papers waiting for me, I was to report to the Drill Hall next day. There we were kitted out and immediately posted to Farnborough to guard Royal Aircraft Establishment Headquarters, doing two hours on guard at the Main Gate and four hours off duty. This we did for seven days and nights. We were then moved to Sherbourne in Dorset where we continued our training until April 1940 when we were sent by train and by boat to France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). I remember little of our activities during the next months except that we did a march of a hundred miles in four days, twenty-five miles a day and being part of the Medical Section; I remember spending hours patching up the blistered feet of lots of my comrades. We were then, sometime in May, involved in the retreat to Dunkirk. We approached the town of Dunkirk early in the day, but were held back behind the town until late afternoon, then we were marched through the town and down to the beaches in groups of fifty and were loaded on to small boats which took us to the larger ships standing off shore. Luckily by that time the enemy shelling and bombing had abated somewhat but we passed many groups of bodies on the shore that had not been so lucky. Once on board the larger ship we settled into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning we were woken up and on getting to the upper deck we saw the white cliffs of Dover! What a welcome sight as we had no idea we were being brought back to England, we thought we would be landed further down the French Coast to continue the war from there. However we disembarked and were put on a train, which took us through the English countryside and at one point the train stopped at Guildford Station where quite a lot of our companions lived and who were tempted to jump off but were too weary to do so. Eventually later that day we ended up at Wickwar in Gloucestershire. We were welcomed and fed by the local people and stayed there for ten days or so. Then we were sorted out into our separate units and moved to Port Meadow camp near Oxford where our Battalion was back to being an organised unit. We were then posted to Lincolnshire to man the coastal defences. Our unit was stationed at Long Sutton, where we spent the summer months. In October we were sent to Castleford in Yorkshire for a fortnights rest, and then we were sent down to Kent to man the defences at places like Margate, Hythe and Hastings.

This continued until early in 1942 when we were then taken by train to Greenock in Scotland and we boarded the USS Cristobal for our long journey to the Middle East. We had to go out into the Atlantic and round the coast of Africa, and after a two and a half day stop in Durban we eventually arrived, via the Red Sea, in Egypt.

We were immediately taken up into the desert, and spent five weeks getting used to the heat and the sand! Then in September we were sent into action in the El-Quatara Depression at the southern end of the Alamein line where the Italians were positioned. We went into the attack at nightfall and soon found ourselves pinned down by machine gun fire and heavy shelling. Being a Stretcher Bearer I was kept busy helping the wounded and we realised we were in a minefield when several people were blown up by antipersonnel mines. I managed to patch up those I could and succeeded in getting two walking wounded back to the Regimental First Aid Post. The Battalion lost two companies that night, killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Subsequently I was mentioned in dispatches for my part in this action.

The Division was then regrouped and the 1/5th Queens became lorried infantry to the 7th Armoured Division (The Desert Rats) and were held in readiness for the breakthrough after Alamein which commenced on 22 October 1942. The barrage that preceded the attack was fired over our heads as we were dug in, and it was awe-inspiring. After the breakthrough we followed the armour to consolidate the ground they had taken and by mid December we were close to Benghazi. I remember helping the cooks prepare for Christmas, we were working under a big tarpaulin trying to make Christmas pudding, which consisted of soaked Army biscuits and some dried fruit. (Not like Mother used to make!) The tarpaulin was to maintain the blackout and the petrol stove made it like an oven!

We continued up the Desert in various stages until we took Tripoli and eventually Tunis where we joined up with the 1st Army Group and the Germans had been beaten in North Africa. The Battalion then moved back beyond Tripoli to a place in the Desert called Homs. Homs was just a place in the Desert to us and the only buildings were the ruins of a Roman Amphitheatre. We relaxed there while other forces were engaged in Sicily. We had nothing to do but bathe in the Mediterranean and during that time I learnt to swim.

I had heard from home that my sister’s boyfriend George Miles was in Tripoli so on a days leave to the town, I looked him up and never having met before we had a good day together reminiscing on our native Hertfordshire.
Our next move was to Salermo in Italy and we crossed the Mediterranean in landing craft on a beautiful sunny day and joked that in peacetime people paid a lot of money to do that! Once we had landed in Italy we progressed as far as Naples on the West Coast but the terrain made it difficult for the tanks so we were camped around Naples until December when we were embarked aboard a troopship on our way back to Britain in preparation for the Second Front. The troopship had been out in India and was very short of supplies so we spent Christmas in Oran Harbour on the North African coast on very meagre rations!

We eventually arrived back at Greenock in Scotland on 6th January and from there, we were taken by train to Hunstanton on the Norfolk Coast. Quite a contrast to the Bay of Naples! We went back to Kent during that Spring and eventually ended up in Thetford Forest where we prepared for the invasion of Normandy. We spent many nights there listening to the bombers droning overhead and eventually we were embarked at Brentwood where we then moved round to Portsmouth on D-Day +2. We landed on Arromanche beach in Normandy stepping off our landing craft into waist deep water. Eventually we moved inland and got to within three miles of Caen. Here we were held up for a time and we dug in to protect ourselves from the heavy shelling. Once again I was kept busy with casualties and was awarded the Military Medal for my part in this battle. At some stage, I forget just when, I had to attend a parade in Brussels to be presented with the ribbon of my Military Medal. A

photograph of the occasion was eventually posted to me signed by General Montgomery. I also had a letter from King George VI when I received the Medal by post after I was de-mobbed. I met my sister’s boyfriend George Miles during a short leave in Brussels and we had a photograph taken together.

We witnessed the first 1000 bomber daylight raid on Caen from about 5 miles away, a truly awesome sight. We went on to liberate the town of Ghent in Belgium where we were given a marvellous reception. We continued moving slowly onwards and eventually we were about 5 miles from Arnhem waiting to breakthrough when the bridge was taken. So we witnessed the massive airborne drop of gliders and paratroopers. Sadly the bridge was not taken and later we crossed the Rhine on a pontoon bridge near Nijmegen in Holland. During our journey through Holland I contracted Chickenpox and was sent to hospital, the Medical Officer who had spotted it said I had caught a cross infection from treating a case of shingles. During my stay in hospital I became a prize exhibit of spots. I spent 14 days in that hospital, which was an old Cavalry Barracks and it was the most uncomfortable fortnight of my six and a half years in the Army and I was glad to rejoin my unit.

The War was nearing its end and after the fighting stopped our units were posted to Berlin to occupy the British Sector in Spandau. Here we were treated, as liberators and I must record one incident. I had been detailed to take a group of soldiers to a new canteen that was to be opened by Sir Winston Churchill and as we watched him arrive in his car the Germans waved and cheered him as a hero.

We stayed in Berlin until I was due to be demobbed. We were treated very well and attended several concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and there were quite a lot of sporting events at the Olympic Stadium.

I was demobbed on the last day of 1945 after six and a half years of varied experiences. I am very conscious of how lucky I was to have survived without any injuries either to mind or body.

Frank had two sons, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren, with another great grandchild expected in October.

Written by Frank Shepherd Aged 88
Kettering, August 2005

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