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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/����ý Radio Nottingham on behalf of Mr Kenneth C. Allen with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

Across the River Trigno, which flowed into the Adriatic. The noise of Battle was pretty intense as we arrived and when I alighted from the lorry, two or three of the lads approached to greet me on my return to the Battalion, two of them being our most experienced DR’s (despatch riders), named Richardson and Bishop: as we chatted, the sound of aero engines drew nearer. Then suddenly looking towards the setting sun a flight of focker-Wulf fighter bombers came streaming in, heading straight towards us, some of the chaps taking cover behind the ammunition wagon on which I’d just arrived, but for some unknown reason I threw myself down behind a huge spare tyre at the side of a ditch, machine gun fire being dropped, one of which had a direct hit on the ammo lorry, causing an explosion that rattled every bone in my body as it blew me into a very wet ditch underneath a large pile of debris from which I had to be due out: never shall I forget that moment of impact — I imagined I should be horribly mutilated as I waited for the next bomb, yet within a minute some of the lads were digging me out —what a sight I must have looked, covered from head to toe in wet clayey mud — But how lucky I’d been, for all the chaps behind that lorry had been killed, that including those two D.R’s who, but for my untimely arrival may have been alive today: I was feeling a little unsteady as a medical orderly walked with me to the nearby casualty clearing station where, believe it or not, I was offered a cigarette (didn’t smoke) and a hot cup of tea which was most acceptable: I lay on the ground, outside this C.C.S which was based in a small farm yard building, quite uninjured but soaking wet and again thanking my lucky stars, for all around me were very serious cases, one of whom, laying on a stretcher beside me had a lighted cigarette put in his mouth, his life passing away before he could take one puff and he looked barely 20 years old. The Luftwaffe paid another call in this hour I was waiting there, this being a little further away, though I wasn’t sorry when an ambulance came to convey us to the next stage on the medical corps pipe-line: This was in a small school building a few miles behind the front line where a British nurse instructed me to take off all my clothes, ‘wow,’ they were still soaking wet so that meant everything, handing me a large blanket. This, on wearing it made me look like Ghandi|: ‘Twas dark by now, my bed was a stretcher, a medical officer taking my temperature before I bedded down finding it way above normal, which wasn’t surprising, having spent three hours in wet clothing and it was November. I slept well enough and after breakfast was carried on my stretcher to a waiting ambulance for a much longer journey to a real Italian hospital in a town called Lucera where on arrival I was placed in a bed of a ward filled with really wounded soldiers-what a hypocrite I felt, for by now I now I had recovered from the primary shocks, my temperature seemed normal, in fact I felt fit for duty, that being my confession to the M.O. who came to examine me, but the doc. I insisted I should stay in bed-pity the nurse couldn’t join me! Orders is orders so I did, still feeling guilty especially when listening to the cries from a youngish soldier in the next bed who had lost both legs and must have been suffering physically and mentally. The following morning, after having spent a night in a real bed for the first time in over a year I asked for another examination, was passed o.k. so was released, but where were my clothes, (my uniform)? Nurse went to look, returning with a bag containing them still soaking wet, finally rigging me out with an assortment of pieces maybe not required again by the poor chaps who had passed away in this hospital. I walked around Lucera until I found an R.A.S.C. (service corps) Depot scrounging a lift on a lorry bound for our area and what a surprise for the regulars of ‘B’ Echelon when I walked in as they’d been informed I’d been killed in that raid and here I was ‘Kenneth from Heaven.’ Our attack over the River Trigno and on the village of San Salvo had been a success in that just a few more miles progress had been chalked up but not of course without further casualties, details of which I didn’t learn until I rejoined C company, who were now in San Salvo. There was a temporary lull in the fighting and my platoon were outside a seemingly run down villa, the grounds of which bore signs of some fighting because just inside the sleeve of a German uniform. We were here a few days, during which time I wrote to my folks describing the events since I landed in Italy-unknown to me I had been registered as, ‘wounded in action,’ by the war office, a telegram arriving at home notifying them in cold, clinical words as underlined, sending icy shivers down their spines as they envisaged some major disablement: Relief came in good measure when my letter was received, but neither of them could understand my impatience at wanting to return to my comrades so quickly and for those who’ve never experienced war-time camaraderie it’s difficult to explain.

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