大象传媒

Eric Clayton
When the war broke out I was working at Austin Motor Company in Longridge.A friend and I joined the Territorial Army. Which was a foolish thing to do as I was in a reserved occupation. However I thought it a good idea at the time. The unit I joined was the R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corp).
We had to do regular training in the evening as well as a yearly camp for two weeks. We learnt weapon training, drills, and marching. We started out marching four abreast but a directive soon changed all that to three abreast. The idea being that soldiers marching two one side of the road and one the other were more difficult to hit from the air. At least that was the theory.
One of the things we had to do was bayonet practice, as well as self-defence. Our Sergeant was an old soldier and taught us lots of dirty tricks. For example we had to charge him and try and stick him with the bayonet. When we tried this he had lots of tricks to make us miss. A favourite was to push the front of the rifle down so that the bayonet stuck in the ground as you rushed him. Usually you were going so fast that the rifle was torn from your grasp. It was quite painful.
When this sergeant was training us to use hand grenades, a trick he used to prove to us that the fuse timing was accurate, was to pull out the pin, and stand with it in his hand, next to a pit, counting in a loud voice. This went on until 3 seconds had passed before it exploded. He would then drop it in the pit by his side, and walk slowly away. It always went off just as he reached safety. We also used plastic hand grenades for practice purposes these had a metal clamp pin to prevent them exploding. I seem to remember that they had some form of tape connected to the pin, which unrolled when you threw it. They were supposed to be safe to use with untrained troops, but one day the steel part came back and hit a man on the top lip, taking out his front teeth in the process.
One day we had to do a route march, and as usual with the army, no thought was given to the fact that we had just been issued with new boots. As a result good many of the new soldiers got blistered feet and had to drop out. I got a bad blister as well, but managed to keep going although the blister broke.
It was so bad it became infected and I was 'excused duties' for the rest of that training period. Instead I had the job of working in the officers mess. Several of my mates swore I had done it on purpose to get out of training.
Around about that time I used to cycle down to Devon and Cornwall, on my bicycle when I was on holiday. I had a small tent in a roll on the back and used to find somewhere to stop by the side of the road. A favourite place was Beer in Devon and I used to camp in the field of a farmhouse just above the town. Beer is a lovely little place with a steep road down to a shingle beach and a small stream running down the side of the road into the sea.
I had cycled down to north Devon and was staying at Minehead when the war was declared. I saw in the papers that the Territorials had been called up so I cut my holiday short and cycled back home.
The Territorials were sent out to France with the army as part of the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force), and that winter it was bitterly cold. We ended up in a place called Henin Lietard not far from the Belgium border, and it was there that we spent the "phoney war". There was not much to do there except write letters, and for those inclined get drunk in the cafes, or visit the local brothel.
The sergeant major told me to find a certain corporal one morning that, I knew was an ardent visitor to the brothel. Since I couldn't find him anywhere else I decided to look for him there. The brothel was approached by a long passage that always smelt of stale beer and urine. It led to a door at the bottom, which opened on to the room where the prostitutes sat around a large pot-bellied stove. There was a small bar, which served drink, and which was presided over by Madam who collected the money from the clients of all her girls. On the day I chose to go looking for this corporal, business was bad and most of the girls were seated around the stove. As soon as I stuck my nose round the door, most of the girls got to their feet and rushed towards me. They obviously thought I was a potential customer. I took one look at all these advancing maidens and beat a hasty retreat! I might have been able to handle one prostitute, but six or seven scared the living daylights out of me!
Because life was so boring, one of the sergeants organised a trip to an adjacent town where there was a very much bigger brothel. After much drinking and carousing in the town we all ended up there. We were just in time for the "show" which consisted of two of the girls one of whom had a large rubber penis strapped on, demonstrating all the various positions. Our sergeant, who was a randy individual, kept grabbing at one of the girls. She at last lost her temper and hit him across the face with the rubber device. He staggered back shouting, "You dirty bastard" and a free for all erupted. Eventually the military police were called, and peace was restored. When we got back to Henin Lietard one of the squaddys produced the rubber penis which he had "won" during the crisis. It was a treasured trophy until the sergeant was posted and went on leave. Not quite knowing what to do with it, we sent it to the sergeant鈥檚 home address, marked personal. I often wonder how it was received.
One job we had to do was to clean out the toilets and we used to pour in about a pint of petrol in the French squat toilets and set fire to it to kill the flies. On chap poured in too much and flushed some of it down the loo. When he set fire to it there was a dull thump outside on the parade ground and one of the circular manhole covers spun up into the air for about ten feet, as the petrol exploded. The parade in progress at the time scattered in confusion.
It was shortly after that, the "phoney war" came to an end and the unit started to move across the Belgian border towards the German advance. We went about 60 miles into that country and then received orders to retreat back to France, as the German Army had broken through. There was confusion everywhere with refugees going in every direction.
Most of them were carrying what ever they could salvage from their homes on their backs or on handcarts and wheelbarrows. They would be travelling one way and meet up with people travelling the other. It was pathetic to see little children holding hands with their parents and marching along so seriously.
The retreat deteriorated into a route as we made our way towards Dunkirk, which we could see in the distance the closer we got as it was marked by a massive great column of smoke. As we approached the town we often had to leave the lorries and dive into the nearest ditch to escape the attacking aircraft. We were fortunate in getting fairly near to Dunkirk before we had to push the lorries into a field to be smashed beyond repair to prevent them being used by the Germans. This meant that we had to walk about 15 miles to get to the evacuation beaches. We passed through the town and for a while we came under attack. It's not pleasant to be on the receiving end of bombs from attacking aircraft, and a favourite trick of the pilots, after they had dropped their bombs, was to machine gun the troops on the ground. They did not get all their own way though, as we used to fire our rifles and Bren Guns at them, and I saw at least two with smoke pouring out of their tails. Once a Sergeant with a Bren fired it at an aircraft, and as he traversed it across the sky, he managed to sever the electricity supply cable above him, and had to do a bit of fancy footwork to avoid being electrocuted. It was a strange time while we waited for the boats, there were long periods when nothing much seemed to be happening and we lay on the sand in the dunes outside the town. Some of the squaddies, broke into houses or shops looking for food and drink and one or two got very drunk indeed. I found a knife and spent some time practising knife throwing with a Lieutenant I had met.
Once I heard a loud "ping" and a plop as something landed beside me, without thinking I picked it up and burnt myself on a piece of shrapnel. I still had most of my kit with me, as well as my rifle and one character had a magnificent mantelpiece clock he had "liberated" It had a wonderful chime, which he was happy to demonstrate to anyone. It didn't do him much good though, as he had to drop it in the sea before he got on the boats.
Finally our time came at night half way through the week, and we were rowed out from the beaches in a small rowboat. The man in the boat rowed back and forth between the shore and the small boats ferrying us out to the boats further out to sea, a very brave man. We had not gone far when we went aground on sandbank and had to bail out and push the boat into deeper water we all piled in again, soaking wet. As the Colonel was the last person in the water we had to pull him over the stern of the boat. Poor devil lost most of his dignity. There was some further rowing and eventually we came to a small ship. It was pitch black by then and we were pulled up onto the deck. I made my way down a rickety wooden ladder into the hold, which stank of fish and put my kit on the floor. I decided to go back on deck then as we could feel the engines starting. Up on deck I could see the hulk of the ship that was bombed alongside the quay earlier, it was still red-hot down to the waterline I could see it clearly, as well as the glow from the fires at the refinery. In the distance I could see tracer bullets curling up into the sky, and flashes from exploding shells and bombs.
It was just about then that we were told that the boat we were in was hopelessly aground and we were to be taken off. I went down the ladder to get my kit and was lucky to find it in the dark. I fell over it actually. We all had to climb back on to the deck again. So we and stood and waited for something to happen. Eventually we were told that there was a tender from a destroyer below us in the water it was very difficult to see anything but when told to jump, we jumped. I was lucky I landed on someone and knocked him flat, a soft fall for me but unfortunate for him. The tender pulled away from the stranded boat and made for a destroyer that was further out to sea. When we got to the Destroyer, the sailors had rigged a scrambling net for us to climb up, and as each person climbed up he was hauled aboard. His rifle (if he had one) was taken and added to the pile on the deck and his kit was dropped over the side. As one sailor said to a protester who had lugged his trophy's half way across France, "Either you or your kit! When we were all on board, the Destroyer set off, we thought for England.
We were served our first meal for days; it was a boiled egg and lashings of white bread and butter. It was delicious. Mind you, thirty or forty eggs were placed in large boiler and cooked until they were hard, but nevertheless they went down well. The destroyer's engines were working all that night, and we though that we would be well on our way back to England by morning. It was with a sense of shock that we found ourselves still cruising up and down the coast the next morning. We were just in time to pick up some men in a rowing boat who were so exhausted with rowing that one of them was waving the oar about in the air instead of in the water. One of the sailors had to go down to the boat to help them climb the net up the side of the destroyer.
There were only minor problems on the way across the channel. We were attacked once by aircraft and except for a short period when we stopped for the sailors to deal with a floating mine by shooting at it with rifles, nothing else happened. The sea was unbelievably quiet. I have heard the expression "quiet as a mill pond" but it really was so, I never expected to see it.
When we arrived at Southampton we were transferred to trains after being given cups of tea by the canteen ladies. Some of the lads had lost most of their uniforms; others were naked except for blankets wrapped around them. Quite a few were bare footed, and a number of them were wounded and carried on stretchers or being helped by friends. I think we must have been in a state of shock as it is difficult to remember all the details of our arrival. We were sent to a barracks near Salisbury for a rest, but it was not long before we had a visit from a large and ferocious Sergeant Major. His opening gambit was "Well you lot have had a rough time, but isn't it time you stopped feeling sorry for yourselves and pulled your finger out?" It did not take him long before we were doing a bit of square bashing etc. I was eventually posted to a headquarters unit of the RASC.
I was sent with the unit to Dartmoor to a little village called Bovey Tracy not far from Newton Abbot in Devon where we continued our training. While we were there I got detailed as assistant to the cook. I was fortunate that the catering officer in charge of the officers' mess was an ex-chef. I learnt a lot from him. In fact he complimented me on my on my puff pastry and said it was better than his was. Sheer luck.
I also learned how the catering industry got over various problems. Once one of the orderly's dropped an omelette on the stairs on the way to the officers mess which was upstairs, he brought it back and I was about to throw it away when the officer in charge said, "Hang on a minute, we can save that!"
He took it from me, scraped off any mess from the stair carpet, dipped it in beaten egg and stuck it back in the frying pan long enough for the new egg to solidify. It then went back up to the officers' mess, to the man who ordered the dish.
It was in Bovey Tracey I learnt to drive and of course the army chose to begin my lessons on a 3-ton army lorry. One of the junior officers was kind enough to give me my first lesson and we set of towards Tavistock. Tavistock is approached from that direction by a steep hill and is full of narrow winding streets, not exactly the ideal place to learn to drive, especially in a three-ton lorry. One of the lads said to me on my return "Here, you know that officer who went with you for your first driving lesson?" "Yeah, what of him?" "Well after you came back he went into the officers mess and knocked back three double whisky's on the trot!" I can't say I am surprised!
I got involved with a local girl there but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, due to the fact that the family had lots of children we were never allowed to be alone long enough to get into mischief. Talk about being chaperoned! Mind you, it was not for trying!
At one time I was co-opted to work in the men's cookhouse. The unit was billeted in, of all places; a disused prison in Tavistock and it was there I that I slept in a genuine cell. Fred, (I've changed his name to protect the innocent), the head cooks method of checking whether the fat was hot enough was to spit into it, if the spit shot out again he considered that the fat was OK for frying. If it sank he waited a little longer. He was an interesting character that at one time in his life he had been a wrestler. He was almost as broad as he was long with a large paunch and arms like tree trunks, but quite gentle until anyone criticised his cooking, which incidentally wasn't at all bad. I saw him once chase a corporal all round the cookhouse with a large carving knife yelling wild threats as to what he was going to cut off when he caught him. I don't think he was too serious, as the two of them went out together that night and got drunk.
Fred said to me one day. "How about making some spotted dog's for pudding?" It seemed a good idea, but unfortunately we ran out of pudding cloths. In a flash of brilliance I had the idea of using some clean army socks from the stores. The puddings came out beautifully, except that they were all furry from the hair inside the socks. Fred considered the line of ten hairy puddings and then said "I like your furry puddings, but I'm not sure the lads will". After some thought I singed all the hairs off with a taper and smothered them with custard. The puddings were a great success several of the lads came back for more.
One of the cooks used to say that he liked making dough, as he never had to clean his fingernails afterwards. Looking back I think it's a wonder no one ever got poisoned. (As far as I know!) We used to serve the meals from long tables with Dixies and trays full of food in front of us. All the men had their 'D' shaped containers and we put the main meal in the bottom half and the pudding in the top.
Except for having to get up early in the morning being in the cookhouse was considered a cushy job, as we were excused all guard duties. We used to get up to all sorts of tricks. We had a corporal who used to sleep in the nude, and he was a very heavy sleeper. It was almost impossible to wake him up in the morning. So one morning we pushed him, bed and all into the middle of the high street and left him there with the traffic going round him on both sides. Much to the amusement of the local populace. He did not dare get out of bed, so he shouted "I'll bloody well kill the lot of you" and it was not until he moderated his threats that we took pity on him, and wheeled him back in. It still did not cure him though.
On another occasion I watched a sergeant who was not well liked laying down the law to a group who were standing behind a lorry. The driver of the lorry was making some minor adjustment to the engine and was revving the engine from time to time. At the precise moment that the sergeant decided to lean back comfortably against the lorry, the driver let in the clutch and drove away, and the sergeant found himself flat on his back in the mud.
It was shortly after this that the unit was moved further up the country. I think we were bound for Durham, but I never got there.We were driving along in convoy, when a dispatch rider rode along the column calling out my name as he passed each lorry. I had to pull into the side of the road and change with the man who was on the pillion seat of the motorbike. I took his place and he took mine. I was taken back to headquarters and told I had been posted to Paisley in Scotland, for some course or other. I hadn't a clue what it was all about. But it had turned out that I had applied to go on a radio course some months before and promptly forgotten about it and after many months the army had decided I was suitable. It was quite a shock, as you never expected anything to come through from the top brass. Incidentally all that fuss about sending a dispatch rider for me was totally unnecessary, as I had to go to where the lorries were to get my kit.
Anyway, I packed my kit, collected my train pass and set out for Paisley. When I got there no one expected me. Or any of the other members of our group, that arrived that afternoon. So after many telephone calls from the station master to the local army unit someone unearthed some orders telling them that we were to be billeted on the local populace. By the luck of the draw I was billeted with another chap on a local solicitor and we were delivered to that address in Calside Avenue, by of all things the police station's "Black Maria" normally used to transport prisoners. Must have come as quite a shock to the respectable family that housed us.
I was very fortunate with that family, because we were looked after by the housekeeper and terribly spoilt. The people following us on the course, (we were the first), did not have it half as good, as the army got it's act together and billeted them all together in an old garage. Complete with drill sergeant...
We did our course at Paisley Technical College, which was controlled by Glasgow University. It was quite an intensive course, mathematics to calculus level and all the usual electrical and radio theory. I was originally billed as a Radar mechanic, but halfway through the course it was changed to Telecommunications. I was very pleased about this as I felt it would be more use to me.
We were fortunate in the people we were billeted with, as they looked after very well. As I said spoilt, us was probably nearer the mark. I suspect that some of their food coupons were used on our behalf as we used to eat extremely well. One of the ladies looking after us was the housemaid and she had a very dry sense of humour. Apparently the front doorbell rang one day and it was a book salesman, his opening gambit to her was... "Good morning madam, is your husband a bookworm?" Her immediate response was "No, he's one of the ordinary kind!" She then shut the door in his face.
The solicitor in whose house we lived was also an extraordinary character. He was blessed with a photographic memory. A favourite demonstration was to offer someone a telephone directory, get him or her to pick a page and let him look at the page for about two minutes. He would then hand it back to you and he would answer questions, like "What's he third name down in the left column?" and he would proceed to give you the name, the address, and the telephone number. Very impressive he was. Mind you it did not last. He couldn't do it with that page an hour later without refreshing his memory.
He was old enough to remember the first aeroplane to fly in that part of the world and he told us about the astonishment of everyone present. Miss Stewart, who was housekeeper to the establishment, was very keen to get us involved with the local ladies and I was introduced to several of them at special meetings arranged by her. I was very taken by one of them. She was the daughter of a local greengrocer and I was sent, by Miss Stewart, on many occasions as possible, to buy the produce they sold. I was also invited to the ladies birthday party and after a few drinks we were caught snogging under the table. After that the two of us were kept under strict supervision.
We had a great deal of fun during the time I was in Paisley, we used to go to the Ice rink for skating as well as going swimming at the local baths. During this period I was introduced to Margaret Mackenzie and we hit it off from the very beginning. She was a very attractive girl with a sunny personality and great sense of fun, she also had red hair and a temper to match!. Nevertheless she was great to be with. The Mackenzies had a coal and log business and they had several lorries going around Glasgow. Their hospitality always amazed me, if you got invited to tea you could bet that the table was loaded with food, in fact their idea of tea would have fed quite a few of the starving millions for a year. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Paisley and Glasgow, although the work at the college was quite hard. The mathematics up to calculus level, as well as the electrical and radio theory were difficult to get into after such, long break from school. We had one instructor who was an absolutely brilliant mathematician, but he was a lousy teacher because he could not see why you did not understand. He used to stand in front of the blackboard and write an equation at the top, then off he would go... "As we study this equation we can see that it follows, that if we do such and such, that this must happen and therefore we can say that as , result, we can....etc, etc." By the time that he had filled the board with figures, half the class at the back were playing cards. If you were rash enough to say to him, "I'm sorry Sir, but I did not understand that". He would get out a piece of paper and start all over again. We were fortunate that we had another mathematics instructor who had much more patience with us dimwits, otherwise we would not have learnt anything..
Personally I enjoyed the practical side the best, we built various circuits including simple radios, using the theory that we were taught, as well as experiments to prove the various electrical laws. It was fun building working radios, mind you they seldom worked properly until we had tinkered with them. You would add resistors here and capacitors there with bits of wire all over the place, until it worked to your satisfaction. Then you would tidy it up, running the wires in neat looms and lining up all the components. Then the damn thing wouldn't work half as well! Most frustrating.
After our course at the Technical College we were transferred to the Royal Corp of Signals training school to get practical experience on the actual equipment we would be repairing, and about the various types of radios in use. I was astonished to learn that some of the equipment still in use was being used during the 1918 world war. The more I think of it the more I wonder how we won the war. it, wasn't till later that we started to get more modern equipment. It brought home to me just how unprepared the country was for war. I suppose as
usual it was all the idiots in Government who were not prepared to spend the necessary cash to keep the army up to date, as well as the top brass in the army who, as always, were opposed to change. I can see the same thing happening now.
Of course in those days all the radio equipment was powered by valves, as the transistor had not come into use. As a result they were very bulky, and heavy.
It was some time before I saw my first No.19 tank set which was used extensively during the war. It was a revelation after the rubbish we had been working on before. It was three sets in one, general purpose transceiver, (combined transmitter and receiver), a high frequency transceiver with a very short range, and an internal communication amplifier for use in the tank.. I was to become very familiar with this piece of equipment, as well as the backpacking No.18 set and its more up-to-date successors, such as the 38 set. The latter were portable versions carried by the infantry.
Our job was to repair the equipment and to "Net" the tranceivers, (align all the circuits to the same frequencies using crystal controlled signal generators), so that every signal on each set would be on the same part of the dial. After our service in in the workshops, I took some leave and went up to Glasgow. It was then that I got engaged to Margaret Makenzie.
We then went to Northern Ireland to await transfer to our new units, and while we were waiting, new company was formed called Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers., R.E.M.E,. for short, and we were transferred into it. The design of the badge for the radio and electronic part of R.E M.E,. was a circle with three bolts of zigzag lightning coming from each side. We promptly christened it "The Flying Arsehole!" and some educated person thought up a phony Latin motto. "Manurus per Explodus" which was freely translated as "shit or bust!"
Our job, while we were there, was to work on transmitters and receivers to familiarise ourselves with the equipment in the field. We of course got up to all sorts of tricks. As some of the receivers would pick up the B.B.C. Home service, a favourite pastime was to sit and listen to the programme when we should have been working. Our instructor soon cottoned on to that one, and he used to watch and see if anyone did not move for some time except for foot tapping, he would then creep up behind them and grab the earphones to see if we were listening to the broadcast. Later on he got more sophisticated, and made a small but powerful transmitter which he used to "net" (tune in to), the most popular radio program. He kept this in his office and when he suspected we were skiving, he would switch it on and rush out of his office to see who had removed their headphones. It was difficult not to, as the transmitter made an terrific howl in your ear. However when the howl came we learnt not to snatch the earphones off, but grin and bear it. He eventually got a rocket from the top brass, as he switched it on once when the Colonel was listening to his favourite programme, and the Colonel tracked down the source of the interference.
It was while we were in Ireland that we were notified that we were to be sent to the Middle East to act as support to the fighting troops. We were issued with tropical kit and transported to Southampton, where we joined our ship. Talk about sardines, there were so many of us that we had to sleep in hammocks suspended from the anywhere we could find some support. After falling out a few times we got use to them and found them quite comfortable in the end. One plus was the food. We were given the same food as the Navy. This meant that we had white bread and butter and fresh eggs etc.
Going through the Bay of Biscay the weather deteriorated and I was lucky in that I was not seasick as so many others were, and as the food was allocated to each table of twelve people, I was living on the fat of the land and enjoying every minute of it. The toilets were an area alongside the rail on deck and consisted of a long board with holes cut in it shrouded from view. Under the board there was a trough and water was pumped along it from the sea and discharged over the side. It was very popular during the passage through the Bay of Biscay with so many being sea sick. When we got to warmer waters I was intrigued by the little sparkles of fluorescent light from the marine organisms that passed down the trough during the night, the ship also had a fluorescent wake that was not such good news, as it was visible to enemy aircraft for miles.
When we arrived in Algeria we were disembarked in a place called Bone. There was a R E M E base workshop there, which later took over a large tobacco warehouse. It was here that all the equipment of a modern army was maintained.
Opposite the gates at one end there was an orange grove and when we arrived the trees were laden with luscious great oranges. It was not long before we organised a raiding party, and we collected a good many oranges. Unfortunately they turned out to be Seville oranges used for marmalade and were as bitter as gall.
Bone was far enough away from the action to be very quiet most of the time with only occasional air raids to disturb us. These were mainly aimed at the port and the ships in the harbour, and things could get very noisy then. I heard my first firing of a battery of rockets there, and it scared the living daylights out of me as I was quite close to the battery at the time. There was this great rushing noise like a tremendous piece of calico being torn, and about ten rockets took off at once for the sky. a most impressive sight.
We quickly settled down to routine work. Our job was to see that all the telecommunication equipment was kept in working order, as well as salvaging anything worth while from damaged equipment from the front. This was not always a pleasant job particularly for the people that had to deal with the motorised vehicles and tanks, as they often found bits of bodies in them when they had been damaged in action.
大象传媒shop was on the top floor of the tobacco warehouse. There were a large number of bales of tobacco around the place, and we used some of these to secure our area and to give us some privacy. We used to employ some Algerians to strip down the radio sets that were too far gone to be repaired, so that we could salvage the parts that were still usable. To do this we had several soldering irons that, for some reason best known to the army, were permanently
connected to the mains. One night someone left an iron on the bench instead of in its holder. The result was a very bad burn mark on the bench which could have been a fire. My colleague, who was a bit of a dreamer, was told off to fit a switch into the wiring. Being a believer in the easy way, he chose to do this without bothering to switch the power off, he took one wire and fitted it into the switch, then took the other wire and fitted it to the switch. Then he closed the switch.There was a hell of a bang, the switch disintegrated in his hand, while the mains generators in the basement gave a groan and then picked up again. He had only shorted the mains out through the switch! It woke him up though. Fortunately he was not injured. Which is more than I can say for a friend of mine. I was working on a large high voltage transformer that had an output of several thousand volts. The output was to two insulated prongs sticking out of the top of the case. I suspected that some of the windings of the transformer were shorted out as it was overheating and I was doing some measurements to confirm this. Unfortunately my friend came over for a chat and before I could stop him he leant on the top of the transformer and completed the circuit of the high voltage section through his arm. It burnt a neat hole in his arm that would not heal until the doctor slit the little tunnel in his arm open with a scalpel. It was fortunate that I was displaying the Dangerous High Voltage sign on my bench or I would have got into serious trouble. The large transmitters that we were working on at this time had gate switches so that they could not be switched on while the were out of their cases but we,having to work on them and check voltages, had to short these safety precautions out, and I got burnt several times because I forgot that I had shorted out the switches, and I had put my hand across between a high voltage and earth. Electrical burns always seemed to take so much longer to heal.
About this time, and as a result of the burnt bench, it was decreed that there should always be someone on the premises during the night and, as it meant that whoever did the job would get out of guard duty, I volunteered. I was a Lance Corporal in those days and, as such , was put in charge of myself and a colleague on the the picket. It was not too onerous, as our duties only meant that one of us had to be there at all times. We could, however, go out together during the daytime when the place was occupied. We moved a few tobacco bales to make a small room for our beds and moved in.
At night the factory was a spooky place. In fact there was a spot just inside the gates at one end where I would defy anyone to stand for long, as you got a very depressed feeling while you were there and it felt very chilly. It was fine just the other side of the gate in the moonlight and under the stars. At night you would hear the relief guard coming up the main gangway and at a certain spot he would start to make, noise or whistle to keep himself company. Anyway one night I was lying on my bed in this warehouse reading a book and waiting for my colleague to come back from the pictures, when I heard him come up the stairs, he walked across the floor towards our bed and came right up to my side. Without looking up from my book I said "How was the film then? Worth seeing?" There was no reply. I looked up mildly irritated that he had not answered my question and there was no one there! I thought at first that he was playing the fool, but there was no sign of him anywhere. It sent a shivery feeling down my spine. I switched on all the floodlights until the place was a blaze of light but there wasn't anyone to see. Eventually my friend came back from the pictures and wanted to know why all the lights were on. When I told him he said he had had the same experience some nights before but that he had not said anything as he did not want to get laughed at. The same thing happened several times, and after a while we got used to it. In fact we used to talk to the "ghost" and ask it how it was on the other side. What we would have done if it had answered heaven alone knows. Nothing else ever happened though. Of course everyone to whom we told this story said that it was the building contracting in the coolness of the night and it is true that there was always a lot of background noise at night with creaks and groans, but these were random noises and anyway I know footsteps when I hear them!
Before we got organised at the warehouse we were under canvas, and there was a temporary arrangement for the toilets. This consisted of about ten large buckets with a toilet seat balanced on each of them. It was a very precarious arrangement and it was not unknown for the contraption to overbalance. One night there was an air raid, and many of the buckets were occupied. Suddenly, bomb burst nearby and several of the buckets overturned together with their riders. The stench was horrible and for sometime no one would go near the unfortunates who ended up quite literally "in it".
We had a man who was in charge of the toilets who's job it was to organise the emptying of the buckets. He apparently worked on a farm before the war, and could never understand why everyone avoided him, but you only had to get down wind from him to learn why! One day one of my colleagues got into an argument with him and said , "You must like working in shit, how would you like to fish this out?" And he threw a half-crown (12 pence) into one of the full buckets. Matey rolled up his sleeve and stuck his fist into the bucket and came up triumphantly with the coin! "Easiest two and six I've ever made" he said, as he washed his arm under the tap.
Talking of toilets, just before we went to Italy we were under canvas outside the town where the latrines consisted of a large trench about six foot deep surrounded by canvas and with the usual board along it. This board had holes cut in it and was surrounded with a screen, with a partion and door to each hole. Every day a squaddy was detailed to throw in a pint of petrol and set alight to it. The idea was to kill the flies and other vermin. He was then supposed to throw some earth on top of the excrement. Usually however, the person
nominated couldn't be bothered to measure out the petrol and just used to get a two gallon Jerrican and slosh a few pints into the hole. Sometimes too, they did not bother to check whether anyone was in the toilets at the time and just tossed a match into the petrol soaked trench. They soon found out if anyone was at home though, as people tended to shoot out of the toilets like rockets!
While I was at the warehouse I became a member of our own home grown concert party. There were quite a few talented people around, and we were organised by one of the warrant officers. I played the Harmonica in a solo spot, and also appeared in several of the sketches. We used to put on shows to entertain the troops both at the warehouse and the surrounding district. It was great fun and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We were quite successful too. One of the members
used to write the material for us. He was a radio script writer before the war, and was very good.
We also acted as extras for some of the professional shows that came out to entertain the troops. One of these was George Formby and his wife Beryl. Poor old George was, bit henpecked and was always being told what to do by his wife.
About this time I was moved into a "Z" lorry crew. This unit consisted of three lorries, one of which was very important, the "Z" lorry itself. This was a 3 ton lorry specially designed to repair receivers and transmitters. It contained all the necessary equipment required to repair and calibrate them, and it was very softly sprung. It was equipped with, chicken wire mesh lining and a metal covered body outside. The metal cover was very important because it had to be earthed to prevent the transmission of radio waves when we were testing transmitters. The Germans had a nasty habit of doing a radio cross reference on any transmission they picked up and lobbing a shell or mortar bomb on it, on the grounds that where there were transmissions there were likely to be troops. One of the other lorries was a stores lorry which carried all the replacement parts we were likely to need. While the third was used to transport the staff. As soon as we were allocated our equipment we were moved out of the warehouse and put under canvas. We were not far from the town and used to go for walks there to eye up the local girls, as they had the French idea of walking about the boulevards in the evening all in their best clothes. We used to go into the cafes for drinks, and there was a fruit we used to eat that was a bit like a plum, but tasted a bit like strawberries.
I remember going for a walk one evening rather late, it was a fine night and I set off to walk up a local hill where the was a church on top. It was very pleasant walking in the evening, except for the mosquitoes.. As I walked up this hill towards the church, I heard some children singing in the distance. It was obviously choir practice. Anyway I stood in the porchway of the church under the stars that seemed so close and bright that you could touch them, and listened to the singing. a magical moment.
I was working in the "Z" lorry one night fairly late outside , a small North African village, when there was a knock at the door of the van. When I opened it I found myself facing a large expanse of red. It was the aide de camp of the then commanding General, General Auchinlech. He asked if the General could come in, which he did, and spent about half an hour asking questions. Good job I was doing some official work at the time. Eventually he asked me to find the Duty Officer, and this presented a problem because, had I had heard the Lieutenant in question remark to the Duty Sergeant, that as nothing was likely to happen he was going into the village for a drink. Anyway, I rooted out the Duty Sergeant and explained the problem.
Panic stations! I was asked to return to the van and try and delay the General and his entourage, while they found the missing officer. I understand that they sent a despatch rider on his motorbike to fetch the officer back. Meanwhile I was having my own problems. The General was not a fool and he pretty soon realized that I was stalling him. He had just got to the stage of saying "Well corporal it has been most interesting, but I must put this visit on an official basis and find the Duty Officer" when that individual turned up a little under the influence but all in one piece.
Much relief all round. It was shortly after that I was made a full corporal.
There was a marked difference between General Auchinlech and General Montgomery. One day the unit was told that General Montgomery was to pay us a visit. For a whole week we brushed and polished, whitewashed all the stones round the camp and generally tarted everything up. (There's , saying in the army that "If it moves, salute it. If it dosen't whitewash it!). Anyway the great day came and we were drawn up alongside the road. All standing to attention, when the General's car appeared closely followed by the cars of half the worlds press. He drove slowly down the line of troops and then off into the distance. In fact all we saw of "Monty" was a figure half obscured by a cloud of dust as he disappeared into the distance. I have always felt that the British army had better Generals than Montgomery, Wavel for instance. But fortunately for Monty he was in the right place at the right time, had the right amount of backing, and was a flamboyant figure who took the fancy of the public.
We had some quite lively lads in our unit. One we called Paddy, although he was Welsh, told us that when he had his first motorbike he tried to ride it up the stairs in his mothers council house in Wales. Apparently he got half way up the stairs when the bike reared up, and bike and rider came back down again in a heap, history does not record what his mother said. We had another chap who was a superb piano player and if he was anywhere near a piano he used to entertain us with music of all types from popular to the classics. Another of the chaps was a very talented artist and used to sketch anything that caught his fancy all the time he was not working. When we were in the canteen he would start to sketch someone and if that person moved he would turn round and do someone else.
You were fortunate in the army if you had a trade and the two most popular trades were watch repairing and haircutting. If you could do either of those you were in clover. You were excused cookhouse duties and could get away with murder. The only thing I could do was repair radios and I did quite a few of those and made a fair amount of canteen money.
I was lying in my tent one night under the stars listening to a radio that I had made. When I picked up a programme that said that the Allies had invaded Italy. Unfortunately when I told all my friends they thought I was pulling their legs and refused to believe it as there had been no official announcement. It was another six days before I was vindicated.
Eventually Naples was taken, and the unit was moved over to Italy. It was there that the "Z" lorries came into their own. There were several groups of us, and each group was attached to one of the attacking divisions. My group was nominally attached to the Eight Indian Division and we stayed with them mostly, except for a stint with the Tenth Indian Division. We followed the fighting troops a short way behind the advancing front line, and when they were pulled back for rest and recuperation our job was to work on their radios and transmitters to get them ready for the next push. Because we were on temporary attachment no one used to bother us. We only saw our officer once a month when he came with our wages and mail. We were always a thorn in the sides of company Sergeant Majors as they could not organise us as they would have liked to have done, although several tried. Fortunately both our officer and the Staff Sergeant in charge of us always took our side, and fought off all attempts to railroad us.
We trailed along behind the advancing troops and more or less did as we chose, and nobody really interfered with us. We were often billeted in private houses. In one just outside of Rome we spent about three weeks. I remember this one particularly as the owners daughter, (he was away at the front on the German side), was a really beautiful dark haired girl and there was always a large bunch of dark red roses on the table where we ate. They were very glad to see us as we were the first troops to stay any length of time, and they made us very welcome, possibly because of the rations that we brought! What a pity that so many of the Italian girls let themselves go when they get married and get fat.
There were many rogues in the army. Probably on both sides. There was so much stuff went missing, and was used for bribing Italians or repaying various favours. Sometime just for making people comfortable, doing their washing etc. Sometimes for sexual favours as well. Mostly it was food or clothing but some of the lads thought big, I remember that outside one little village there was a Bailey bridge over a small stream on some farmer's land, and the farmer asked one of our rogues if we would leave the bridge after the war, as he found it very useful, anyway this character said that if the farmer wanted it he would sell it to him. The farmer was delighted, and paid the chap
thousands of Lira for it. I'll bet there was some upset when they came to collect it.
Most goods in the army were carried in canvas covered lorries which were often open at the back. Outside Naples there is a steep hill, and the lorries had to slow to go down there. The local kids soon found , way to profit from this, and used to run behind the lorry, climb over the tail-gate, and throw everything they could move out of the back to their waiting accomplices. We soon caught on to that tho' and we arranged for a couple of Ghurkas to ride in the back. As soon as fingers came over the tailgate the Ghurkas smacked them good and hard with the butt of a rifle.
The pilfering got so bad at one time that lorries were being broken into and we decided to do something about that too. One of the lads had the bright idea of removing the earth wire to the earth pin when we went away and connecting the mains up to the chassis so the whole of the van was at 250 volts, a dangerous thing to do of course, but it seemed , good idea at the time. Our first victim was, corporal who urinated on the wheel late one night. They say you could have heard his yell a mile away! Anyway he shouted at the top of his voice "I'm going to bloody-well report you lot" . Our sergeant thinking quickly said , "If you do we will report you for urinating on an army lorry". Stalemate all round and exit the corporal.
Once I was inside the van when my colleague outside said "Pass the voltmeter down will you, I want to check if the chassis is live." Without thinking I handed it to him. As soon as our hands touched we got the full benefit of the mains voltage. The voltmeter went up into the air and landed with a crash. My friend picked it up, shook it and said, "That's buggered it", and handed it back and like a clot I took it! There were further swear words and the voltmeter did another trip down to the ground.
Talking of electric shocks, we had one fellow in the unit that always used to check if any of the houses we were billetted in had electricity by putting his his finger in the lamp holder and operating the switch. He said he only felt , tickle if the mains was on, he must have had very dry skin.
After the Allies captured Rome we were allowed to go on leave there. The Americans of course set themselves up with a fancy canteen in the stadium. For once we went one better and took over a minor palace for the NAAFI. Very nice it was too. Our friend immediately found the piano and before long he had everyone roaring out the old songs. Then he played some classical pieces for his own enjoyment and you could have heard a pin drop. Also the fellow who was a
magnificent artist was there and if someone sat down in front of him out would come the pencil and sketching block, and away he would go! If the subject moved off he would immediatly start on someone else. He did several of me, but unfortunately lost them all.
It was a marvellous leave that one, although I managed to get caught out one day. A party of us were walking along on of the shopping areas when I saw a gorgeous girl walking along in front of us. Anyway I said to my friends secure in the knowledge that she was Italian. "I would like to go to bed with that one". She turned round, looked me up and down, and said in perfect English, she said, "Thank you for the compliment Sir, but I'm afraid it isn't possible". With that she gave me, beaming smile and walked off leaving me well and truly flattened and completely lost for words.
One of the leaves we took while we were not too far from Naples was to Pompeii. We arrived in Naples just after an eruption of Vesuvious and everything was covered in ash. It was piled high an all the walls and seemed to get everywhere. It was very interesting to walk around Pompeii and see all the wall paintings and other artefacts. I would like to go back and see all the progress they have made on the excavations since our visit. Being an old soldier, I was particularly interested in the rude pictures painted on the walls of the Brothels!
We had to wait for sometime while the advance was held up outside Casino, until one day a terrific bombardment took place. Immediately the guns started up, quite a few of the local nightingales broke into song. I don't know who they thought they were competing with. There was a long wait outside the Monastry of Casino while we waited for the army to get its act together, and there were several skirmishes with the Germans in a very commanding position but we passed through Casino at last and was nothing left of the town. It was completely flattened. In fact it was difficult to see where the roads had been.
It was just outside of Casino that I caught one of the Indian Corporals who had been out in the act of poaching and had got someone's chickens. Anyway I threatened to report him if I didn't get a portion of the chickens when they were cooked. I was really only joking, but later that night he appeared with a chapattie and a bowl of chicken curry. He slapped a generous portion of the chicken curry on to the chapattie and handed it to me. It was the hottest curry I have ever tasted! To this day I'm not sure if he did it on purpose. It was
so hot I seriously though of putting the toilet paper in the fridge!
The advance after Casino was so fast that there was total confusion. We used to listen to the 大象传媒. saying that we had just captured such and such a town, when we knew it was ten or twelve miles behind us, in fact we were once told to proceed to a map reference and await the arrival of some troops who were about to be withdrawn for a break. Any way we duly got to the little valley designated and set up our camp, unloaded the lorries and sat down to wait for the promised customers. We were just in the process of brewing a "cuppa" when a land rover came down the road behind us, in it was a sergeant who, as he arrived in a cloud of dust, yelled "What the f..... Hell are you lot doing here?" We explained about the map reference and he replied "I suppose you know we haven't taken this valley yet?" Consternation all round. It appeared that the Germans were in the next valley, and our lot were in the one before ours, and each side were lobbing shells at each other over the top of US. We reckoned that we could pack and move out in about an hour under normal circumstances, but this time we did it in 20 minutes!.
On several occasions we were moving so fast that we were bombed by our own aircraft despite the identifying stars on all our vehicles. I suppose that when aircraft are given a target such as a certain ridge, and perhaps only given map references, they are over the target for such a short time that it is impossible to see all the details. It must have been the same during the Gulf war. I am surprised it did not happen more often, especially as we often used the dug-outs and fortified positions the Germans kindly left for us.
One day a pal and myself found an automatic machine gun in a dugout and we carried this around with us for some time. About two weeks after we found it, we decided that it was about time that we tested it, so of we went to a field and set up a target. We did not know at the time but behind the hedge which bordered the field was a German munitions dump. Any way we set up a target against the hedge and started to blast away at it. A very short time after that the munitions dump caught fire. To this day I don't know if it was our firing that set it alight, but I do know that it was a spectacular sight! We hurridly hopped it, in case we were blamed!
The weather was very difficult at times as sometime after rain the roads were all slippery with mud, and the lorries used to slip all over the place, if it was dry they were covered thick with dust. If ever we got to a river or a stream, the Indians used to bale out and start to wash clothes in the water. They were very good at scrounging food from the local farms in exchange for varios items of equipment. Not that some of my colleagues were very far behind.
We drove into one village and just before we turned the corner into the village I turned to my co-driver and said "I know this place" and proceeded to tell him about the well in the middle of the square, the duck pond and the little corner shop with the long wall alongside it. I had never been to that part of Italy in my life and yet it was so familiar. Unfortunately I had to put up with side-long looks and muttered words like, "You must have seen it before etc etc..." Talk about re-incarnation. We often put up our "bivvies" (small tents) in fields of grapes and it was good to reach out and pick a bunch to eat as we lay on our beds.
Much of the country side was untouched by the war and the little villages were clean and neat. Other parts were smashed to bits with the cattle lying dead in the fields and the horses bloated from internal gasses usually lying on their backs, legs stuck up from each corner. Someone must have had a terrible job to clear up the mess. We eventually came to the river Arno in our trip up Italy and it was there that I single handedly nearly stopped the flow of supplies to the front line the Germans had blown up the bridge across the river. and our side had replaced the bridge with a pontoon bridge. This consisted of about ten pontoons lashed side by side across the river with a flexible bridge across it. Anyway we had to wind down a treacherous road to the river to get onto it. I was driving the "Z" lorry at the time and as I reached the actual bridge a sergeant stopped me and asked me what the weight of the rig was. Without thinking I said "3 Tonnes" (that being the designated description of the vehicle), and was waved forward. Unfortunately I had forgotten that we had loaded it with all the the kit and equipment! It must have weighed at least ten tonnes. Anyway as I proceeded across the bridge, each pontoon I passed over sank beneath the surface of the water and I proceeded in a permanent dip. If I had stopped for any reason the bridge might have sunk! Fortunately I managed to keep going and I got safely to the other side, only to be greeted by the very irate lieutenent in charge of the bridge who threatend me with all sorts of dire consequences. He also cast doubts on my legitimacy and my fathers legitimacy and I think, possibly, my grandfathers as well as all the rest of the family. It was some time before he calmed down.
It was shortly after that I found a fancy German radio transciever. This had a large rotary switch on the front calibrated in voltages. The procedure was that if you did not know the mains voltage you took the highest marked voltage and plugged it in, and then rotated the switch until the set went "dead" Then you turned the rotary switch back to the begining and this time stopped at the position before the set cut-out. This was the optimum position for it to work, and the correct voltage. Very clever. Some time later I swopped this radio for a German open staff car! We had met up with some Yanks and one of the sergeants took a fancy to my radio, and so a deal was done. We found the car very useful and we used it to visit local towns and villages.
Allthough the blackout was still in force and lorries and cars had to have the headlight obscured except for a small slit in the mask placed over the light. Our German car had one headlamp on the front that was VERY high powered. The Yanks were the worst for riding about without headlamp masks, and we were occasionally blinded by a car coming towards us, that's when our big headlamp came in useful. a flick of the switch and the opposing car was bathed in brilliant light. It stopped them in their tracks as if they had hit a wall.
It was about this time that , went on leave to Firenze (Florence) and when wandering about, came upon a little workshop where the two men were making alabaster copies of famous Italian statues. these were beautifully hand carved although they used very rudimentary equipment. They had a master to copy and to do this they had a wooden frame that they put over the master. They then dropped wooden rods through holes in the top of the frame, and kocked them in position. This contraption was then transferred to a block of alabaster and the stone taken away at these points until the frame rested on the bench. These parts then acted as datum points for the preliminary carving. There was an immense ammount of skill involved in this carving, as these men were real craftsmen.
Anyway I could only afford a small statuette which I bought and packed in a wooden box, then sealed it in a soldered tin box I then sent it to my brother. Much to my astonishment it arrived in England in perfect condition despite the war. I always wished I had bought a statuette for myself as well, but I could not afford it at the time.
However, after watching these craftsmen at work for some time i decided to take a photograph of them to send to my brother so he could see where the statuette had been made, unfortunately just after i took the photograph one of the workmen broke the little finger of the statue (quite a large one) that he was working on and I hurriedly left in case they thought it was my fault.
For some time I had been troubled with the Clayton family complaint which was ear trouble, and I managed to pick up an infection. When I visited the M.O.. he told me that I should never stand on a high place as due to the infection I would be in danger of loosing my balance! I didn't tell him that I had just been on leave to San Marino, and that there was a large buttress out from the wall about 8-900 feet from the ground there, and that I had walked out on this buttress and looked down on the tennis courts below which looked about the size of a postage stamp.
We eventually arrived in Venice where we stayed outside of the town for nearly three months. We used to go around the place and visit all the wonderful sites. Fortunately Venice was almost untouched by the war so we were able to see the famous "Bridge de Sospiri" (Bridge of Sighs) which we were told was the last bit of daylight that convicted felons saw before being taken away and incarcerated in the dungeons below. We also saw the famous clock, and visited the wonderful churches, as well as going across to the glassworks on the island of Murano in the middle of the lagoon.
One day when two of us were wandering aroound the city we met a group of freedom fighters who insisted we join them in a meal at their expense, we were taken to a little restaurant alongside one of the canals, and with a flourish one of these very friendly people handed us the menu.We chose our meal, and I noticed one of the men chose squid. This duly appeared and the sauce was jet black as it was made from the squid ink. Anyway after our new friend had finished his meal he wiped his hands across the snowy white tablecloth and left great black marks behind. I must say I thought that the proprietor would have something to say but he seemed to accept that that was normal behavior. I half expected to be slung out on our ears!
I finished my war in Trieste on the north east coast of Italy and we were billeted in an Italian army barracks at the top of the hill above the town. On our way there the convoy stopped for a lorry that had gone off the road, as there was a drop of 8 or 900 feet from the edge of the road to the sea, this lorry was in a very precarious position. It was perched on the edge of the drop and was swaying gently in the breeze, with the driver and his mate directly over the drop. Any way we held on to the back of the lorry to prevent it going over, while the driver and mate got out and worked their way along the running board and managed to get back to safety. Afterwards we tied a rope to the back of the lorry and pulled it back onto the road. It was some time before the driver stopped shaking.
Several amusing things happened to me in Trieste. One night I was Corporal of the guard and we were told to expect a visit from a general who was passing through. Unfortunately it was raining fairly hard and when we were told that the "brass" was on his way I called out the guard and we were standing to
attenion out side the guard housse when the general arrived. I gave the order to present arms, and as we came to the present my fingers slipped on the rifle and it shot through the air and landed at the generals feet! Fortunately for me he had a sense of humour because he picked it up handed to me with the words
"I think you have dropped something corporal". I wasen't so fortunate when the segeant major heard about the incident, and he slandered my mother and father something awful.
We had another amusing incident too, one of my jobs was to act as anchor man when we were called out for parade. I had to march out first as marker and the Orderly Sergeant would then shout out the familiar "On parade" and the men would form up on me, left arm outstretched on to the shoulder of the man next to him. After all the shuffling had taken place and the lines were straight it was my job to call the role and hand over the parade to the duty Sergeant who then handed it over to the duty officer.
After we had been in Trieste for some time I was promoted to Acting Sergeant (the usual Army wangle to promote you at the same rate of pay as your previous rank but use you in the rank above. The only advantage you got out of it was that you could use the Sergeants' mess). Anyway one of the Lance Corporals was promoted to acting corporal and took over my old job. The very first time he was on parade he marched out very smartly and did everthing perfectly until he had to call the role. He started well enough, calling out the names until he got to Lance Corporal Smith, no reply. Again he calls out "Lance Corporal Smith", then, "Oh, Christ that's me!". Complete disintegration of the parade as
everyone collapses with laughter.
Another favorite trick in Trieste was to blow up contraceptives and launch them on the prevailing wind that took them straight down the hill and into the town!
Every so often there was a very strong wind that blew through the town, it was so strong that at certain points the Italians erected guide lines to enable you to walk against it. I was told that on one occasion a passing tram was blown clean off the track as it passed an opening between houses.
I arrived on the scene once, just in time to see a flat bed hand cart laden with oranges blown almost over the head of the man pushing it. Oranges everywhere.
Another time myself and a friend went out for an evening walk, on the way back we decided to go for a drink at a local cafe/bar. There were some steps up to the entrance and I was in the lead, I opened the swing door and stepped through, and was immediatly hit in the face by someone's fist. There was a full blown riot going on in there! Anyway I staggered back out through the swing
door and knocked my mate over in the process. We picked ourselves up, and my mate, being a pugnacious individual said, "Let's go in and have a go at the bastards!" At that moment we heard the sirens of the approaching police and Red-caps, so better sense won the day and we beat a hasty retreat. I never did find out what the rumpus was all about.
I met a very pretty Italian girl about that time, and I was often invited back to the lady's house for a meal. We were under constant supervision by Dad, and all we could do was hold hands under the table.and he never noticed or if he did, he didn't say anything. The lady wrote to me after the war but as I could not find anyone to translate her letter I never did find out what she wanted.
Finally the war ended with the invasion and collapse of Germany, and we were all waiting for our release from servitude. Of course it was in Trieste that my ear trouble blew up again, and I had to go to the local hospital for treatment. Eventually I was transferred to to England for further treatment. Unfortunately this meant that I missed my slot for release and I found myself sent to Bromsgrove Hospital for a Mastoid operation. I must say that the army showed some consideration in sending me to a hospital near where I lived. At least my brother and his wife were able to visit me while I recovered.
At last I was released from hospital and sent to a de-mob camp where I was given my de-mob suit and trilby hat, and sent on my way to civvie street.

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