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My name is Carol Shepherd.
In 1984 my dad, Eric Pole, wrote a letter to his grandchildren outlining his life.
He died in 1995

I have copied the part of the letter that covers his war service.

In 1937 I was a student at Willesden Technical School, my father had ambitions of me becoming an engineer. I was not too keen on any of the trades and spent much of my time trying to become a plumber. By April it was clear to my father and teachers that I was not going to make a very good plumber so I left. I wanted to join the army but my father would not hear of it. He made me get a job with Zenith carburettors in Queensbury, I was not happy drilling holes all day long. I left that job and got other jobs in factories in the area. Later delivering for an off licence on a large tricycle with a box on the front, did the world of good for my leg muscles (this stood me in good stead when I finally joined the army).

In May of 1938 I went with a pal, Alf Pearce to the Territorial Drill Hall at Edgeware, we put our ages up a year, and joined the Royal Engineers, a territorial searchlight unit. My father didn’t object, well at least I had joined the engineers. We used to go to the drill hall twice a week for drill and at weekends went to camp to learn how to use the searchlight. In July we went to for a fortnights camp at Ely in Cambridgeshire, we camped on a farm. When not actually on duty we helped the farmer with the haymaking. Best two weeks I have ever spent.

This unsettled me and awakened my desire to join the regular army. In August the Munich Crisis happened and the Territorial Army was mobilised. We heard on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio that all territorials were to report at their drill halls. Alf and I were very excited, went home got into uniform and went to the drill hall. We were taken by bus to a small village called St. Mary’s near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire where we spent the night in the church hall. The following day we were allocated billets in the village, our searchlight and generator arrived, we set it up in the grounds of the Manor. Most of the day we practised, we were on duty from dusk to about midnight then two men were put on guard. A week later Chamberlain came back from Europe and the T.A. stood down. I went back to work, attending the drill hall twice a week, my desire to join the army grew stronger. I had always fancied the cavalry, probably because of their smart uniforms.
Then in April 1939 I plucked up courage to defy my father and went to the central recruiting office in Old Scotland Yard, I was told there were only two cavalry units left, and they were not recruiting, I settled for the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, a mechanised infantry regiment whose depot was at Winchester.
As I was already in the Territorials the recruiting sergeant did not bother to check my age so I was accepted. I was told to go home and would be called for.

I was on top of the world, needless to say my father was not very pleased, he told me I had made my own decision and that if I did not like it he would do nothing to get me out — even though I was under age. About two weeks later I received notification to go to the recruiting office, where I stayed for a few days. Then on 30th May 1939 with four other recruits I was given a train ticket to Winchester. We arrived at 3.30p.m. and were met by a very smart corporal in the KRRC whose name was ‘Dot’ Ellis, he turned out to be our drill squad instructor. He was very pleasant to us until we got inside the gates and then our army lives began!

Our first visit after arrival at the depot was to the barbers shop where we were given a regimental short back and sides, the bathhouse and then the cookhouse for tea. I found the food was sufficient, not of good quality and sometimes not too well cooked. However, after a days drill and physical training, any food tasted good. I soon settled down to the life and even found that the housekeeping jobs that we did were not too bad. Every day we had to sweep and polish the barrack room floor, clean the insides of the windows and clean our part of the central staircase. We took turns in peeling potatoes, cleaning the cookhouse and dining room, and carrying coal to the officers mess and married quarters. In between times we were taught the basics of soldiering.

In July we went to out 2nd Battalion barracks at Tidworth on the Salisbury Plain, other regiments there and plenty of opportunity for sports. We were still recruit training and not allowed out of barracks very often.

Towards the end of August, 1939 it seemed very likely that there would be a war and the army reservists were recalled. We helped kitting them out and in the evenings went to the NAFFI with them and listened to their tales of life in the army in India, Burma and Egypt, which were the main overseas stations for our regiment. They weren’t too happy about being recalled but all regular soldiers signed on for so many years with the regulars and then so many on reserve.

The week after war was declared most of us were sent to the Army Vocational Training Centre at Chisedon in Wiltshire where we started a new training battalion for men who had been called up and conscripted into the forces.
Most of the officers and NCO’s were reservists or territorials who had been out of the army for some time and were not as fit as those of us who had come from the depot, we found it much easier. My special pals at this time were George Clayton who had joined at the same time as me and ‘Tich’ Insoll who was in the squad before us. Early in 1940 all three of us were promoted to Acting/Unpaid (and no doubt unwanted) Lance Corporals and became instructors in a rifle company. This became boring and we started volunteering for special duties, as we were all only just 18 were not allowed to go. Quite a few from our original squad had joined the 2nd Battalion in May 1940 and had gone to France to try to stop the Germans cutting off our troops at Dunkirk. They fought a long rear guard action at Calais only 16 managed to get back to England, the rest being killed or captured.

This meant a new battalion had to be formed and George was lucky enough to be chosen to help with this.

I went on a range finding instructors course at the Small Arms School at Netheravon in Wiltshire. Later returning to Chisledon for normal training.

In January 1941 Tich and I volunteered to transfer to the RAF as aircrew, but before we could go I was put on draft to our 1st Battalion in Egypt. This suited me down to the ground, so I withdrew my application for the RAF.

In February 1941, we sailed from Greenock, Glasgow on the Pasteur, a French luxury liner of 39,000 tons. This ship had been in Canada when France capitulated and so we took it over as a troopship and it was certainly the most luxurious at the time.
The Pasteur and half of the convoy stopped at Cape Town — the others went on to Durban — we stayed for four days at Cape Town. That was quite an experience as they had not been affected by the war, no blackout or rationing.
We then rejoined the rest of the convoy and sailed through the Indian Ocean and Red sea to Egypt where six weeks after leaving Scotland we arrived at Port Tewfick at the southern end of the Suez Canal.

We were then taken by lorry to the Infantry Base Depot just outside Ismalia. There we were introduced to the desert, which was not miles and miles of rolling sand dunes but miles and miles of flat hard sand, covered with large rocks and occasional dunes with treacherous areas of soft sand where a vehicle could sink up to the axles in seconds.
We spent a few weeks training there, getting used to the climate and conditions, then going into the desert proper to join our battalion.
We joined them at Merza Matruh, a rest area on the shore of the Mediterranean. A beautiful spot, miles and miles of white sand and warm sea.
I was posted to No.1 Section, 14 Platoon, ‘D’ Company and found myself second in command of the section which consisted of all conscripts, some of whom had come to Egypt the same time as me. After a couple of weeks we moved up into the desert and were attached to 7th Armoured Division, a fighting unit known as the Desert Rats as our divisional sign was a Jeboa, or desert rat, a small rat that hopped about like a kangaroo. A column consisted of a battery of field guns, a troop of anti tank guns, a troop of armoured cars and a company of infantry. Our job was to protect the guns and carry out patrols to locate the enemy.
Each section had its own 15cwt truck (15 cwt a British measure of weight —- properly 15 hundredweight - the carrying capacity of the vehicle - which is 1600 pounds — roughly equals 800 kilos) on which was carried all of our personal gear, weapons and rations.
Swanning about the desert in these was great fun as the desert was certainly the best place to fight a war as only those taking part got hurt. There were a few Bedouin Arabs further south from us but we rarely saw them.
During the middle of the day we would lay under the trucks and try to sleep, sometimes we would bump into an enemy patrol and have a bit of a battle, but usually the heat kept all of us quiet during the hottest part of the day.
I found the insect life of the desert fascinating, the ants attacking the larger insects, different spiders fighting each other. Whenever you moved a stone or rock you did so very carefully as there could always be scorpion under it, their bite could be very painful. If anyone was bitten , the other men would pour a ring of petrol around the scorpion, set fire to the petrol and watch the scorpion sting itself to death.
Looking back on it this was a terrible thing to do.

I liked going on patrol at night, the whole place seemed different. Sound carried a long way, we wore gym shoes and didn’t carry any equipment that would rattle or clink. We carried our personal weapons and a bandolier of ammunition. Sometimes we came across an enemy patrol but our job was really to locate them and not let them know we were there.

Water was scarce, I soon learned to wash and shave in a tin mug of water. Most of our food was tinned and we had very little in the way of fresh vegetables, except that occasionally we would get some sweet potatoes, which not many of us liked.

The port of Tobruk on the Mediterranean coast in Libya was held by our forces even though it was behind enemy lines. In November 1941 it was decided to try to relieve them. For two weeks we were training with the rest of the division, whose job it was going to be to cross the Libyan border south of the enemy positions and then come up behind their lines. Our battalion formed part of Support Group and we were in No.1 column together with artillery and armour. In the early morning of 18th November, our column, led by ‘D’ company, crossed the wire (this was a deep barbed wire fence which ran from the coast southwards into the desert on the border between Libya and Egypt) and then turned north towards the enemy. During the night our platoon provided a listening post out in front of the main body of the column, we could hear the sounds of tanks moving north. The following day we could hear the sound of a tank battle.
On 20th we were told our battalion was to take an enemy airfield at Sidi Rezegh,
Which was held by German and Italian infantry and artillery. During the morning our company moved up to the southern edge of the airfield and dug defensive positions, in the afternoon we were attacked by ten German Stuka dive bombers but they didn’t do much damage. From 4.30pm to 6pm we were shelled by artillery, again not much damage was done. That night we could hear the sounds of armour moving up around us. At 7.45am on the 21st the battalion lined up in extended order and at 8.30am we advanced across the mile of open desert towards the airfield, once we got into small arms range we had some casualties and the advance changed to small individual battles but we continued to gain ground and by midday we had taken the airfield and about 700 prisoners, most of whom were Italian. We also captured quite a lot of their stores, including crates of wine, some of our troops had more than was good for them.
The rest of that day we spent consolidating our positions at the top of the escarpment overlooking the coast road leading towards Tobruk. The following morning we saw that the Germans had brought up a number of tanks and lorried infantry. Under a heavy artillery baggage they got around behind us and by the afternoon had overrun our battalion positions. A number of our company and some of the Headquarter company made our way along the base of the escarpment to the wadi (valley), and from there we made our way to the top of the escarpment where we found ourselves in the middle of a tank battle. We were again cut off and my party of ten were captured. During my time in the desert I had often considered the possibility of being wounded or even killed, but the idea of being taken prisoner had never crossed my mind. When taken prisoner at first you think of all the things you could have done to have avoided capture, but there is no going back — no second chance - and the fact gradually sinks in.
The next day we were taken to Derna, a town on the coast where we spent two days in a barbed wire compound with the only water in an old 50 gallon oil drum which had not been cleaned out — there was a thick film of oil on the water — needless to say it was undrinkable and we spent two very thirsty days there.

From there we were taken to Benghazi and housed in an old warehouse, no bedding and only the clothes we stood up in, the nights were cold and it was impossible to sleep on the concrete floor

Our rations there consisted of two small bread rolls, made without salt or yeast, and one ladle of ‘skilly’ (macaroni in vegetable soup ) per day. There were no proper toilets or washing facilities and a small open exercise space, which was usually crowded during the day. When we complained the Italians told us things would improve when we got to Italy. This was a bit of a blow to us because we knew our troops were advancing towards Bengazi and we hoped they would soon release us.
This was not to be, about the middle of December we were taken by lorry to the docks and were each given, one Italian army biscuit, about 10cm x 10cm and about 2cm thick and was as hard as the concrete we had been sleeping on and a tin of some kind of meat, camel I think. We were told this had got to last us until we arrived in Italy, but most of us had eaten it before we got on the ship that was to take us.
That afternoon we boarded the ship, an Italian navy cruiser and were taken down to one of the lower decks of the crews quarters, where we just had about enough room to all sit down, we couldn’t all lay down at the same time, when we left port the crew had locked all of the portholes — the deck soon became like the Black Hole of Calcutta. The next day we managed to convince our guards that unless we got some fresh air a lot of our number would not make Italy, so during the day they allowed small parties to go on deck for a few minutes — we did not stay there long as there was quite a storm blowing. The nights on that ship were the worst I had ever spent.
The second night we had anchored in Brindisi harbour and were taken by small sailing boats into the port. There was a complete black out and the sailors in charge of our boat seemed to have got lost and we went around in circles for what seemed like hours. Eventually they had to light lanterns and were guided into the dock. We were marched to a small tented camp just outside of town
My time as a prisoner of war in Italy had begun.

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