大象传媒

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 3rd
Left Constantine in TCVs at midday. Arrived Phillipville 3.15 pm. Went straight aboard 10,000 ton 'Ville d'Oran'. Usual vile conditions and food. 56 of us mounted guard at 9 pm.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5th
Seasick and wretched. Reached Naples at 11 am. Vesuvius smoking above its cowl of snow.Disembarked in afternoon, marched up Via Garibaldi to railway station. Climbed into cattle-trucks for journey to unknown destination then TCVs met us and dropped us off at Cascano - guides took us into civilian houses for night.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 7th
Lecture by Major Way on forthcoming operation on Gargliano front - plan to cut off beaten force of Germans. Assembled in street carrying 4 days rations, ammo. and tools. Rode in overcrowded trucks for about 4 miles - guns now all around us. Marched in single file for 7 or 8 miles along mule track over mountains. Arrived at concentration area at 11 pm. in rocky gorge, 4 miles from front. Full moon and freezing. Collected second blanket (brought up by mules) and half a mug of heavenly tea.

When we found ourselves in Italy it was as though destiny was taking a morbid interest in our affairs again. After a marvellous summer that seemed to have been spent splashing about in the warm Mediterranean and sleeping under the stars, here we were stuck on a rocky hillside, freezing to death, with shells whirring over our heads and crumping dangerously close. Just like old times. And when we were moving up the mule track and had to keep stepping aside to let the stretcher parties get past with the wounded we had a sinking feeling in our guts. This was no adventure - we knew what we were in for.

It was the most God-forsaken terrain you could imagine; all you could see was mountain peaks - dozens of them - all streaming wet and thrusting up into the interminable rain-clouds. You couldn't imagine anybody ever having been there before; it was a place that had just been waiting for a visitation from half-men hell-bent on killing each other for no good reason other than that they'd been told to get on with it. There we were on our mountain. Jerry was on his mountain. Every so often he'd lob a salvo of mortar bombs at us from behind his peak - you'd hear a sort of multiple cough in the distance and the next thing would be a whistling glissando of sound that screwed your nerves up against the blast. You felt yourself shrivelling up inside your skin just waiting for the explosion. Every near- miss destroyed something in your brain, so you were less prepared for the next stonk when it came. One poor bloke got up from his shelter and walked among the falling shells as if he were looking for something.

You didn't have to get your flesh ripped apart to become a casualty of war.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 12th
Awoke aching in every muscle from night-long shivering. A party of us set off to 'Cheshire' dump for rations. On return journey, carrying boxes of compo rations, mortaring started again and caught us in the open. Threw myself behind some stones as shell landed not more than a yard away. Found myself bleeding from wound in left hand. Bert Gill and Wimpey bandaged me up. Found my way to RAP (Regimental Aid Post) and joined dismal queue of British and German wounded waiting for treatment. With arm in sling, said goodbye to my wretched friends and half-ran past spot where earth was churned up by succesive mortar barrages along track to 'Cheshire' dump and forward ADS (Advance Dressing Station).

The ADS was just a stone hut with half a roof. A tarpaulin partly covered the entrance and kept some of the rain off the wounded who'd been left outside by the stretcher bearers. One man was breathing pink froth through a hole in his chest, a flap of skin lifting and falling in time with his breathing.
Inside the hut, the MO had a petrol fire going, boiling a pan of sooty water for sterilizing his instruments. His hands and face were as black as a coal-miner's from the petrol smoke that hadn't escaped through the roof. When my turn came he gave me an injection and some 'sulfa' tablets, tied a label on to me and sent me off to the next ADS at 'Skipton'.

As I staggered along I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't a stretcher case. I wasn't relying on thirty relays of bearers to get me safely to the nearest ambulance, as those poor buggers lying out in the rain were.

When the noise of the mortars got fainter I began to feel exhileration and remorse both at the same time. I was sobbing with relief but at the same time I'd have given anything to be back there with my mates. I'd let them down just when things were bad.

At the second ADS I was given a cup of tea and sent on my way again down the mule track another few miles to yet another ADS where our regiment's ex-MO, Capt. deEpps was in charge. He told me about other Grenadiers who'd been through before me. I fell asleep in my wet clothes and woke up vomiting then joined a line of dejected blokes who were going in my direction. I imagined that I saw, way up in front, a grey-faced Fred Catley, then I decided it must be the drugs playing tricks with my mind. The next thing I knew, Fred was walking along beside me. At the final ADS we were given supper and a bed in a farmhouse. Fred didn't seem to know how he came to be where he was.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 13th
Left our comfortable farmhouse at 2 pm. Owing to recent rains, river bridge gone - wounded being ferried across in boats. Met Maj Needham rejoining his company. Continued on to 8th Casualty Clearing Centre at Cessa where I was undressed and taken into operating theatre. Injection in arm "Only a litle prick" the surgeon said. Before I could make witty rejoinder passed out. Awoke some time later to find myself being carried to my bed minus my left ring finger and a week's growth of beard.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 14th
After breakfast, climbed back into mud-encrusted clothes for journey by truck to Canadian General Hospital at Casserta. Left hospital at 2 pm. for Air Evacuation Centre at Pomeglanio Airport. Centre run by Americans - tents with coal-burning stoves - meal of huge steak, potatoes and spinach, tomato juice and coffee. Read American magazines until bedtime.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 16th
Roused early by American nurses with breakfast of porridge, pancakes with syrup and coffee. Boarded Douglas Dakota for flight to Sicily. Took off 9.25 am. - circled round Vesuvius and made for open sea. Three volcanoes in one day - Vesuvius, Stromboli and Etna. Landed at Catania Airport 11.05 am. 5 miles by ambulance to 11th General Hospital. Terribly overcrowded. Discarded filthy clothing and climbed into uncomfortable stretcher-bed. Began reading a Bulldog Drummond story.

The wound in my hand turned out to be more serious than I'd thought. When the amputation began to heal it was discovered I hadn't much strength in my other fingers. The physiotherapist thought it would be at least three months before my hand was any good again. That was when I realised I might never see my pals again.

Still Catania was a fine town to be laid up in, especially if you'd got a few lire in your pocket. The magnificent European Forces Club had everything - smashing grub, a NAAFI shop, and even a resident orchestra. In front of the EFC a choice selection of pimps and black-market racketeers gathered every day, randy for British cigarettes. Being a pipe-smoker, I was on velvet, flogging my daily ration of fags to these bandits who stood in the sunshine waving fistsfull of hundred-lire notes. They'd have bought anything we had to offer, from penicillin to a Sherman tank.

There were three cinemas in Catania, the San Giorgio, Teatro Lopo, and the Odeon, all showing English-speaking films, and the Teatro Massimo Bellini was a real opera house. The San Giorgio occasionally put on stage shows for our benefit. I went twice to see Emelyn Williams in a Drury Lane production of 'Blythe Spirit'.

One morning we were taken by truck to see a double feature film show at the Odeon. It turned out to be Sexual Hygiene and Lice. There were so many servicemen exposed to the lures of attractive Sicilian girls that the authorities were starting to get worried.

I was at Catania for three months - the physiotherapist had been right - and somehow it wasn't like being in the army at all. I didn't even look like a soldier in my shapeless suit of 'army blues'. I had my four square meals a day in the hospital and apart from an hours therapy on my hand I was a free agent for the rest of the day. If it hadn't been for the letters that I got from my mates i'd hardly have known that there was a war going on in Italy. I wouldn't even have known about the battle for Cassino if we hadn't suddenly had an influx of 4th Indian Division wounded. we were turned out of our beds to make room for them all. They told us all about it. They told us how the American Air Force had been called to deal with the monastery at Monte Cassino that was supposed to be a Jerry stronghold. They sent so many planes to do the job that after the first waves had dropped their bombs the hundreds more that came later couldn't see anything for dust. They finished up flattening the town and clobbering the 4th Indian Div who were waiting to go in when the bombers had done their job.

I was still in touch with half a dozen of my friends in the mob and it was their letters more than anything else that kept me going from one day to the next. Most days you'd find me in the EFC writing page after page on canteen notepaper - God knows what I found to write about, but every letter I posted brought a reply sooner or later.

One task I didn't mind a bit was sending the lads copies of the photographs I'd taken when we were still together in Africa. I'd had to send the films to Alexandria to be developed, and now I'd finally got them back. One of the photos was Dannie Houghton and Nobby Clarke who'd stuck together ever since they'd joined up. They'd asked me to take a picture of the two of them standing together in their tropical kit. Well a couple of days after I'd posted the snapshot to Dannie I got a letter from him telling me that Nobby had been killed in Cassino.

Dannies letter was a longish one, written on decent paper, so I guessed they were out of the fighting when he wrote it. He said how sorry he was about my getting wounded and all that and he thanked me for some photo's I'd sent to his wife, and right at the end, almost like a postscript, he told me about Nobby.

These are Dannies own words. I couldn't hope to Paraphrase them if I tried. The practise of putting sandbags on the feet was for creeping up on the enemy when they were too close for comfort. The town of course is Cassino.

"Well Len, we put two sand bags on each foot and started off when it was dark on our two mile journey. The first mile was down lanes, but it was pouring with rain and the sandbags were flapping and making a hell of a noise so they came off. Then we came to what is known as the mad mile, it is a straight run into the town and he has fixed lines of mortar and spandau on it, we reached our positions on the left of the town without a casualty, what a place Len, what devastation, never have I seen anything like it, everything is flat, only a few skeleton walls standing, which seemed to tower for miles into the darkness, and the smell ofthe dead which was left lying there was awful, and this was to be our homes for twelve days.
Our plat was on the left of the Brig and a bit to the rear of one and two platoons, well everything went OK for the first four days then No1 wanted relieving as the strain was getting them down, also every morning about an hour after stand down a Jerry flag used to appear, and either a couple of stretcher cases used to be carried out and down the road or a string of walking wounded used to file past, we never bothered them.
We relieved No1 anyway and spent five days and nights up there before we started crying for a change, it was all as they had said about it, bad off, there was only ten of us to do stags, and it was two on and two off through the night and one stag of two hours during the day looking through a periscope at Jerries positions a hundred yards in front. The day time was OK but the night was nerve racking, from just before dusk our arty was putting a smoke screen down and some of them used to land on our house, also the big cannister used to drop amongst us. We were one hundred yards from the Hotel ded Roses which he occupied, seperated by the Rapido, he used to come and fill his water tins every night, and he had a working party going all night long, we used to ring up the arty and they would put a stonk down (stonk is a new work for barrage) and clear him for a while.
Well we went back to our former positions and everything was alright until the Saturday morning before we got relieved on Sunday. Nobby and myself were on stag, we did our stags outside the house in a, abri built alongside the wall. It was just five minutes before we were due to go inside as it was coming light, when our arti atarted off with HE, about four just skimmed the building then it happened, a terrific explosion, and flying stones and dust. I was sitting alongside of Nobby and I got hold of his shoulder and said Nobby, Nobby, are you alright? He was still sat in the same position, but he never answered, so I dashed into the house and told them to go to him, but it was no use as he was dead, killed outright. It was the biggest shaking up I have ever had Len and I cannot realise it yet. I think it will take me a long time to get over it for I thought a lot of him........

I you would like to read more of Lens wartime memories you can contact him at [personal details removed]

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