大象传媒

I grew up in West Bromwich in the Black Country. My mother died when I was just 13 years old, and my only family was an aged father. After leaving school at the age of 14, I worked in one of the Maypole Grocers鈥� shops. In 1939, at the age of 20, I was called up into the army, having never been more than 20 miles from home in my entire life! On the strength of previous membership of the St John鈥檚 Ambulance Brigade Cadets, I found myself in the Medical Corps and was posted to Dalkeith, Scotland, for preliminary training in medical skills and qualifications , followed by training in England at military hospitals.
For the first time in any war, parachutists were being used and it was decided to drop Medical Corps soldiers behind enemy lines to set up field hospitals in advance of attacks on the enemy by allied forces. This could be very dangerous, so volunteers were asked to step forward and I did so, thinking that it would be a little more adventurous, rather than hazardous. I was then posted to Tatton Park in Cheshire for parachute training where I qualified and was posted as a member of the 127th Parachute Field Ambulance Corps. We eventually moved to Pembroke in South Wales to await our journey abroad, and then to St. Gourouk on the Clyde to board a troopship.
At this point my elderly father died and, as the only close relative, I was given one week鈥檚 compassionate leave added on to my embarkation leave. This extra leave would eventually save my life, as I had to transfer to the 133th Parachute Field Ambulance Corps. I eventually landed by ship in Oran, North Africa, for strenuous training prior to the invasion of Italy. This was sometime around late 1942. My previous unit had sailed on the 鈥淎bdiel鈥� minesweeper for Tarranto on the heel of Italy, but the ship and many on board, was blown up in the harbour entrance. This included friends in my old unit. My new unit sailed to the same port a week later. My extended leave had saved me from a similar fate. I shall never forget Tarranto: there were bodies everywhere.

The allied forces ; British (including our unit), Americans and many Commonwealth troops moved through Italy north to Rome. We continued training and medical work into 1944.
In August 1944 our group became part of 'Operation Anvil', an allied invasion of Southern France. This was a diversionary tactic, only lasting a few days, to keep German troops from moving north after the D Day Normandy landings. We jumped at Fr茅jus, being taken there in an American aircraft from Rome. There were US troops there as well, brought in by troop carrying gliders.When one of these gliders landed, the door jammed and my friend went forward to help get the door open. Parachutists have a different helmet from ordinary soldiers;it was more rounded to protect your head in a bad landing. When my friend went forward, the US troops mistook him for the enemy and shot him dead. We had all been dropped in the wrong place and become scattered. I and another comrade hid in a barn when the Germans came round. Medical troops normally do not carry guns but we had all been given a pistol and a modicum of bullets for self-defence only. Eventually the group formed up and embarked to be taken back to Italy.

In October 1944 we were flown from Brindisi in Southern Italy to Greece,parachuting into a small airfield on the outskirts of Athens, then marching a few miles into the Greek capital. This activity was nothing to do with the proper war, but because the Germans were evacuating from Greece and there was civil war in the streets;fighting between E.L.A.S. revolutionaries and nationalists. The situation was so serious that Winston Churchill and General Alexander came on a visit. We set up a mini-hospital in the Athens Museum and it was mostly children, injured in the fighting, that we treated. In February 1945 we were returned to Italy and I was not called to parachute again.

At the end of the war I returned to England and was eventually demobbed, although how I returned to this country is confused and lost to memory.
Of course I had no home to go to and nowhere to live. The people at West Bromwich Town Hall sent me to a very squalid doss house and I returned to my old job with Maypole Grocers. They asked me to manage one of their shops after a while, and found me accommodation in Sutton Coldfield. In time, I went to work for Barrows Stores, a large grocers in the centre of Birmingham, taking orders from the big houses in the countryside around. I was Mr Church and my fellow representatives were Messrs Chapell, Priest and Monk!
In the late 1940's I enquired and was accepted for the Birmingham Fire Service. I eventually became a Station Officer and served twenty five and a half years to retirement, before joining G.K.N.(Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds) as a Fire Safety Officer. I remained there until my final retirement.

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