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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Patricia Boxford, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My late parents recalled some of their wartime memories for me before they died.

My father, William (Bill) Bottrill of 97, Alder Crescent, Luton, was the first volunteer in Luton for the Home Guard in 1939, (L.D.V.) Local Defence Volunteer as it was then called. He heard Winston Churchill on the radio making an appeal and cycled straight to Luton Town Hall and enlisted. He was stationed at Leagrave and kept watch on Leagrave Marsh and the railway line and also at Caddington etc. The men were issued with a rifle and a round of ammunition to watch for Germans being parachuted in.

In 1941, my father was called up at the age of thirty-five and was sent to Wokingham to be kitted out and then to Towyn, Wales, for three months training with the Army. From here he was sent to a unit in Cornwall (heavy ack-ack 4.7 shell gun mobile unit). Here he was awarded a stripe — Lance/Bombadier, Royal Horse Artillery and defended bomber aerodromes. In 1942 he was sent to Gibraltar. To get to Gibraltar the men were locked in trains to the Clyde in Scotland and marched off between two rows of Red Caps, so as not to escape and on to the boats. Here they waited for a convoy to be assembled and the destination was unknown to the troops. They sailed far out into the Atlantic Ocean to dodge the German U-boats and took twelve days to reach Gibraltar. Later they were transferred from there to Italy in the Field Combat Service where Bill became a War Substantiated Bombadier. Then transferred to the 1st Regiment of Royal Horse Artillery as armour support for the Kiwi’s invasion of Italy. They landed in Taranto on the foot of Italy. Here he was asked to become a Sergeant but Bill turned this down as it meant more responsibility but no extra money. He was under Captain Hartley (of Hartley James family) who asked Bill if he would train to be an Officer but he again declined. Captain Hartley was a fair man and kind.

They marched up Italy in the front line, through Florence, the Po Valley and then to Venice and Trieste. They went up Italy so quickly that they overtook the Germans and fought them from the other side. As they went, villages were all bombed and children were crying on rubbish dumps for their parents. Bill and a friend went to sleep beside a truck and when they woke up their whole division had gone and they spent three days trying to find them. The Germans were often on the other side of the field and they slept in haystacks and were often dive bombed by German planes. One day, by chance my father bumped into his brother Alf who had arrived in Italy from fighting in North Africa. They spent two hours together and then had to go their separate ways again. Bill also lost his birth certificate in the river Po during the campaign.

Later on, at the end of the war he was stationed at Albano Terme in Italy, where he took charge of some gardens of a Countessa and made Head Gardener. In 1945 when the war was over, Bill came home on leave but then returned to Italy until demobilisation. He returned to a large hotel in Asiago which was turned into a rest home for soldiers when they were on leave. Bill was given charge of the catering and used to go into Trento with a driver to buy food. One day in winter, when the ground was frozen, the driver was driving at full speed when the front wheels of the jeep went over the edge of the mountain road. Bill got out very shaken and smoked a cigarette beside the road — he would not have that driver again! He returned home again in May 1946 by train through Simplon Tunnel, Switzerland and then had three months paid leave and wore his uniform the whole time. At the end of the war he was entitled to five medals but would not claim them and went on to have a nervous breakdown.
(11415669 Bdr. Bottrill. R Troop. C Battery, 1st Depot Field Regt. R.A.T.D. (Main) C.M.F.)

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