- Contributed byÌý
- CSV Media NI
- People in story:Ìý
- George Prentice
- Location of story:Ìý
- Tunisia, Anzio
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A4476738
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 18 July 2005
This story is taken from an interview with George Prentice at the 2nd Batt RIR event, Campbell College, and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Bruce Logan.
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I joined just before the war, 1936 [aged 19]. Promotion once, and then dropped again. I was a guardsman in Egypt and Palestine before the war. When the war started we were sent to Norway, but it was a bit of a fiasco there ... We had no chance at all, so they got us home again.
We were in North Africa, but we went out later on. The 8th Army was still at El Alamein, and we came in the other side. Tunisia.
[Torch Invasion]
We met the 8th Army just outside Tunis.
We went from there to Anzio. We were at Anzio quite a while. But we were losing men hand over fist, you see. And the 3rd batt, they were due to come out.
We would take them all in as reinforcements, and then they stopped it. We were to get no more men so we were sent home. And then we went to the base. The 3rd batt, when they went across. But I never had to go again. I had an embarkation leave just before the end of the war, and when I came back the war was over. So I never got sent out.
[anzio rations]
We didn’t get much bread.
But we had good cooks.
[yanks]
oh, there was plenty of rivalry. The yanks were sort of a trigger-happy lot, you know? There’s a lot of British soldiers killed by the yanks.
Oh, the bombers. There’s one time they got what they call the triangle, and you’re supposed to wear it on your back so you can be seen from the air. The ones at the front wouldn’t wear it, it showed themselves up too much. Well, a bit further back they were wearing them. So the yanks come over, they thought they were the front line — and the next lot, they just dropped their bombs on them thinking they were Germans.
[RAF]
They were much better.
I was brought home from Italy to go as reinforcements, but I never had to go to. This idea came up at the end of the war, but I was on leave. You used to get 3 weeks leave before you went, you see? I was on leave. Well, I was back off leave when the war finished, but I was only back a couple of days.
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