大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by J. Hopkins of Congleton Museum on behalf of Mr. Frank Skerratt and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

On enlistment, at age 22, I went to Gourock and saw the Queen Mary offshore. We embarked on the Queen Mary by tender -- there were 35 ships in our convoy, the Queen Mary was the fastest. Aboard the Queen Mary, it was obvious we wouldn't need our greatcoats, and so we abandoned them by pushing them out through the portholes.

The convoy travelled in a zig-zag, heading for South Africa. We arrived and disembarked at Capetown where we were met with a very kind reception. We then went to Trincomaler (a two months' trip), then got on a banana boat and headed for the Suez Canal (South).

From there we travelled by lorry to Palestine and were met with a very hostile reception.

As we travelled to Haifa, we had to beware of booby traps (set by locals). In the late summer of 1940, 35 of the group were to go to Eritrea (Southern Sudan). In the camp there was a compound full of lorries (10 ton Fiats) -- we were told to "help yourself to a lorry" -- they were lorries which had been captured. The lorries were very slow, with a maximum speed of 18MPH.

The Italians had been captured and sent onto India, leaving their equipment and arms behind and I was in charge of rounding up the abandoned supplies and loading them onto a lorry.

The Company base (Company 285) was at Asmara, which was 4000 feet above sea level. It was very pleasant there, compared to how horrible it was everywhere else. I brought the abandoned supplies from Abysinnia and took them to the docks at Massawa. Round trip was 5 days with rations, but sometimes rations were fiddled.

This went on for 4 years, with about 40 to 50 trucks. We were allowed no leave, but given some rest periods.

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