大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Frank Greensitt and added to the site with his permission.

I was about eighteen when the War started and I was called up in 1940 and joined the Royal Army Service Corps. I did my initial training and then my Driver training and was then based on the South Coast for quite a while. It was all go. We had to pick up ammunition from depots and drive it to London docks. It was destined for Mulberry Harbour - the big concrete barges which were later towed to Normandy so that everything didn't need to be landed on the beach. Each of the barges had an ack ack gun and underneath it was a magazine and it was our job to fill the magazines with ammunition. We were always in danger of being bombed as we drove through London.

We were trained for the Invasion - we had to waterproof the lorries and drive them into lakes to simulate landing conditions. The engines were all petrol engines and they needed waterproofing because we didn't know the depth of the water into which we'd have to drive. The exhausts had to be raised and the distributors and electrics all had to be sealed with stuff like plasticine. We couldn't seal everything up too soon - It all had to left till the last minute and they were finally sealed up on the landing craft on the way over the Channel.

I didn't actually go over to Europe until D 12 - some days after the beginning of the Invasion. We embarked at Tilbury and had to stand by in the English Channel before we went in. We saw the tugs pulling over Mulberry Harbour. Eventally we landed at Gold Beach and the water only came up to our hub caps. This was the worst part of the War for me because there was still bombing - the Germans were shelling us from Caen where they were still in control.

I was attached to an artillery company with field guns and driving a truck full of shells. From Gold Beach we went up to Bayeux and then to Caen. Sometimes I was ferrying ammuniton and sometimes food and petrol. I had a second mate and we would sleep in the back of the covered wagon - sometimes on top of the ammunition! There was nowhere else and it was better than the Infantry lads - they had to sleep in slit trenches.

We ended up in Antwerp for several months. We were the first RASC company in to the city. It was a major port and from there we'd drive out into Belgium and Holland. We had proper billets and a proper cookhouse.

Antwerp was a Leave centre for troops from the Front Line. Of course the Germans knew this and they used to lob over V2 rockets. One of them hit the big Ritz cinema and three hundred people (including civilians) were killed when the balcony came down. I was out of town, up the line at the time - but it was a bit frightening.

It was quite exciting being abroad. The furthest I'd ever been before the War was to Blackpool. But you just got on with the job - it wasn't that different from England.

After Antwerp we went through to Hamburg - some of the Germans were all right - they knew they were beaten. We were in Germany on VE day - but I don't remember any celebrations. Afterwards I was trained on amphibious vehicles - ducks and amphibious tanks - we were preparing for the War in the Far East but the Yanks dropped the atom bomb and stopped all that. I would have hated going over there.

Once the War was over I was sent to Italy with tropical kit for the summertime. I was posted to Naples to relieve older soldiers who were being demobbed. I eventually came out myself in 1946 - I was pleased to be out.

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