大象传媒

This was written by my father, Arthur Helps, two years before his death in 2000, for a school assembly. These are his own words.

Wartime Reminiscences: A Soldier's Story

"I am now 74 years of age, and enlisted in the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment in November 1942 as an infantry signaller. The battalion first went into action when the front line was static in the mountains near Monte Cassino, Italy.

It was not always suffering and death. There was the time when we were pinned down in a cherry orchard for three nights and days, unable to receive food supplies, our sole diet cherries - you can imagine the state we were in after such a diet!

Another time I was, so I thought, alone in a shell damaged farmhouse, manning a telephone exchange by candlelight and reading the Forces Newspaper, when I became aware of another presence. Slowly turning my head to the right I found, sitting on my shoulder, reading the paper with me, a mouse!

Another time when the battalion was taking over Florence (declared an open city and, therefore, no fighting could take place within it) we had marched about half way into the city when the newsreel camera men came up to the Commanding Officer, who I was with as his radio operator. They asked if some of the men could be turned about, as the sun was shining into the camera lens and they were unable to take a decent picture. Several days later I saw this newsreel which showed that the first British soldier into Florence was my Regimental Sergeant Major whose actual position had been at the back of the advancing line.

But wars have far more horrendous moments than amusing ones.

I particularly remember when the Gurkha Regiment (the bravest soldiers I ever met) launched an assault on the high hill at Monte Cassino in an attempt to capture the heavily defended German position at the monastery on the top of the hill. They were within about 20 metres of the top when they had to retreat. They had run out of ammunition and supplies and could not be got to them. Tears were in their eyes as they retreated through our line.

When my Battalion of 1,001 men advanced onto Monte Cassino village, three days of fighting had reduced it to 97 men. Imagine how I felt talking to a comrade, then turning round to see him wounded, or worse. Or when, as one of a group of nine men with two or three metres between each of us, only three of them were capable of movement after the area had been bombarded with German shells. I was lucky with only a shrapnel wound across my left shoulder blade. But in all these encounters there was the confidence in the known reliability of having disciplined, trained comrades at each side of me.

So, I have no hesitation in saying why I observe the two minutes' silence on Remembrance Day. I have much to remember. For the last twelve or thirteen years I have had the honour and privilege of reading the Roll of Honour of the fallen in two World Wars at my local church. During the two minutes' silence I ask God to continue to care for my fallen comrades and remember all who have died or suffered as a result of wars.

I pray that there are no more wars and thank God for bringing me through.

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. We will remember them."

PS: If you should ever wish to broadcast, via television this story, I am sure that I could provide you with my father's voice recording of the text, which I believe is in my sister's possession, as it was prepared for a school assembly she was undertaking at the time.

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