大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Graham Black of the People's War Team on behalf of Lesley Jarvis and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I went out on the Britannic in 1943, it had been an old white star liner and I remember we had bananas and oranges for the first time in two years. We took ten days to Algiers and we were in Benakanoon and were under canvas. We got dive bombed by the Germans but thankfully they missed. We had no running water in this hospital tending wounded from Libya. We were there for six months and then moved over to Naples just before Christmas of 1943. Naples was bombed so you went there to look after the troops. After the landing of Salerno and tending wounded men we went to Nocera, 103 General Hospital were Vesuvius erupted, I remember the weather was awful. I remember the Italians crying at the gates of the hospital. The ground felt hollow beneath you. There was nowhere to evacuate all the wounded men to and the authorities didn't know what to do. After Naples we went to Venice and had leave at Rome I remember that it was half a crown a night at one of the most expensive hotels. All the treasures of the Vatican were stored and locked away to stop the Nazi's stealing them.

The army looked after us, we bought our own uniforms. They had to give us more money because the British Officers drunk our booze and we couldn't afford to pay for our mess. We came home before Christmas but VE Day had passed and it felt awful because we came back to nothing - there was nothing to come back to. Wherever we went we were well received but we came back to nothing after the war.

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