大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Rob Illingworth of Kent Libraries and Archives on behalf of Sydney Vinten and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Death Hill with no brakes鈥�

When the war began I was living in Ditton near Maidstone and Joan [my wife] was living in Snodland. I joined the army in 1936 and went into the REME. In a REME workshop there were all different trades: fitters, carpenters, blacksmiths, silversmiths, instrument makers, motor fitters, gun fitters, all mechanical trades and even shoe repairers. REME stands for the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I was based in Bramley, near Basingstoke and we did our first training as fitters. Then in 1938 I went to Aldershot and did the training there with vehicles, guns and so on and then at Christmas we were sent on leave for a fortnight and when we came back we were posted to different units. In 1940 I was posted to Yorkshire to a territorial unit as a qualified fitter. Later we went on to Leeds and from there I was posted to Doncaster. From Doncaster I was posted to Nottingham for overseas posting.

We went overseas in autumn 1941 and we sailed from Gueroch in Scotland on the SS Ormond. We stopped at Sierra Leone and by now all of our potatoes had gone bad so they stocked us up with yams. We carried round to Durban and at Durban we stopped about a week or so and changed over to The Duchess of Richmond. We left for Bombay and on the way The Repulse, a big battle ship, was our escort, which at half way left us with flags flying and a band playing. The Repulse went on to Japan where it was later sunk. We stayed at Bombay about a week and got onto The Lancashire which took us to Basra. There we were with the sixty-first heavy Ack Ack unit; we were a REME unit attached to them. All the guns arrived later by boat which we assembled and then we went on to Baghdad. The first day we stopped at a place with ruins reputed to be the lost city of Ur. At Baghdad we were split into about eight detachments of men plus a Staff Sergeant. I had my twenty-first birthday in Baghdad and the parcel my Auntie sent me with a cake in it didn鈥檛 arrive until March when we had reached Suez! After Baghdad we went through Palestine to the Suez, where we had a workshop on one side and the guns were on the other side. We used to see the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Nieuwe Amsterdam and other big boats coming in with troops. From there we went up to the desert, and on to Tobruk where I got the chance to do a course for promotion and became a Staff Sergeant. The day I left for the course at Tel-El-Kebir in Eygpt my brother, who was in R.A.S.C. and also serving in the desert found my unit and slept in the bed I had just left.

I was posted to 168 Brigade workshops which were on their way to Sicily and I joined them at Catania. I was given a big machinery wagon to drive with a large Italian trailer containing a hydraulic press and all the blacksmiths鈥� equipment. We went from there to Messina and from there to Italy. As we travelled we reached a sign which read 鈥淒eath Hill鈥� so I put my brakes on to slow down but the brakes had gone. This vehicle had no windscreen, just a canvas flap if it was raining, the hood went back and the canvas could be opened up. Two lads were sitting up there and one was on the bonnet with a poisoned foot. There was a Staff Sergeant, a spare driver and one lad sitting amongst the machinery. Off we went down the hill and the Staff Sergeant jumped off to try to get the trailer brake on but I was gone, we were picking up speed all the time so I decided to swerve into an olive grove. I hit three trees before we stopped and I can still see the lad on the bonnet go over the front. The two at the back were on either side and the other poor fellow was amongst the machinery, I was sat holding the wheel. The stuff from the trailer was spread through the olive grove and one of the lads went back to tell the recovery wagon, another walked down the hill and he said 鈥淪taff come and have a look鈥�. I walked down the hill and the road came to a cliff, did a sharp U bend, then a U bend the other way and another U bend the other way then went over a bridge which was over a river. There were twenty six graves of troops who had gone over that hill and been killed.

We recovered what we could and went on. Later I took over another detachment and we went to Naples and up to Anzio, beachhead. Up there we established guns in the woods and we were in the fields living underground. There was the odd shell-fire, after several weeks the Commanding Officer of the battery called me in and said 鈥淪taff we鈥檙e going out, I鈥檝e lost the piece of paper with the numbers of the guns on it鈥� so I had to go and get the numbers of the guns with shells flying about me. Whilst there I did a repair job on one gun that had been caught with a bit of shrapnel. We went back to the battery HQ and the Quarter Master had a lot of new battle dresses so he said 鈥渃ome on, help yourselves鈥�. We went back to Naples and we were taken to shower and have new clothes, they thought we were lousy.

Our advance across Italy was quite organised. We were a REME workshop of a fair size and we weren鈥檛 actually in the frontline though we did get the odd shell now and then. So we just did the guns in the desert, on the aerodromes and if there were any faults we just went out and fixed them or replaced parts.

We went back across to Bari and then back to Egypt where we did training with new guns. Then we went back to Italy again. Later we joined with others and formed the 730 Advanced base workshop near Senigallia where we used to repair and overhaul vehicles. After this we went on a train of cattle trucks to a town near to Rome and we were flown home in Lancaster Bombers. Each plane had twenty two people and had twenty two circles drawn on the floor and you went in, put your small kit on the floor and the big kit was put in the bomber. We flew to Peterborough and then back to where I had started from in Nottingham. It was now 1945, we went home for some leave and I was posted to Germany after a few weeks. This was cancelled and we were all given war leave for a month, so I had Christmas at home. I was then sent to Germany to the Tank Training Centre at Hohne where I was second in command of the REME workshop and promoted to Armament Quarter Master Sergeant until March 鈥�47 when I retired.

Travelling was interesting; we saw the pyramids, the sphinx, Cairo, Rome. We even met the Pope in the Vatican on a day trip and we got his blessing. We got to know the people too and we learnt a lot. We had some [Italian] lessons in Sicily and now we visit Italy regularly. We鈥檝e been going there on holiday for years, we鈥檝e seen Florence, Venice and we鈥檙e going to Jesolo this year which is being paid for by the 鈥淗eroes Return鈥�.

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