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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by a volunteer from CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ London on behalf of Mr George Waller and has been added to the side with his permission. Mr Waller fully understands the Site’s terms and conditions.

Whilst in action in North Italy, we were laying a road on the river bed between two wooded hills, with the British on one side and Germans on the other. The firing was going on over our heads. Every now and again the Germans would drop shells on us and on what we were doing. We almost finished the job, when a shell burst on my side. The next thing I knew, I was sailing through the air, hitting my head on the bank. When I tried to get up, I found that I was unable to do so. I didn’t feel anything except a warm flow round my buttocks. Only later I found out exactly what it was: I had been injured in the hip and was paralysed (fortunately, not permanently, as it later turned out). After about ten minutes, one of my colleagues came from out of the woods to ask me if he could help me. I said ‘Yes, please help me find my glasses.’ He put his hands on my forehead and simply moved the glasses down my nose. He then had to leave me, because the firing had started again. Some while afterwards, two medics ran out from the woods with the stretcher. They put me on it and carried me back to the woods. The road inside the woods was packed densely with all sorts of vehicles and we couldn’t pass, so they had to lift me up and pass me over the tops of the vehicles. Having reached the end of the mass of the vehicles, I was placed on the bonnet of the Jeep. The driver held me on one end and I lay the length of the Jeep on the bonnet. The road was pitted with potholes, making the journey very difficult. As we rode, the driver asked if he could do anything for me. I said I would love a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t smoke’, he said. But he stopped the Jeep and called out to the troops that were laying in the ditch on the side of the road. ‘This lad would like a cigarette. Can anybody help?’. At this particular time cigarettes were at a premium. One of the chaps jumped up from the ditch and gave me one. This, I thought, was a wonderful gesture and an expression of comradeship on his part. I cannot describe what his gift meant to me and how grateful I was.

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