大象传媒

While stationed in the Shetlands with the Royal Engineers in the winter of 1940 we were ordered to hand in our water bottles, complete with webbing, straps and buckles because there was a shortage of such equipment for troops overseas. We were certainly not in need of them in the Shetlands - our only concern was to keep dry.
Because Army possessions often went "missing", to keep my losses to a minimum, I marked my clothing and equipment with marking ink. My webbing equipment was all marked inside with my army number 1913328 and surname. The water bottle straps were shaped in a cross; I put my name on the lower part of the cross running downwards; my name in the centre so -

L
DEW
N

inside and out of sight. The served me well as I didn't lose any webbing equipment, valises or haversacks during the whole of my six and a half years army service.
In 1942 we were back "on rest" from the forward area near Quassasin (Egypt). The term "on rest" was laughable - there was no rest. While on this particular respite we were detailed for Italian POW duties. Nor far from camp was a huge dump of every type of war material imaginable which had been collected from the desert by the Pioneer Corps and supervised locals, as the enemy retreated. There were mountains of revolvers, rifles, machine guns and of course - webbing equipment. One day, Jack Graves and Frank Ashdown returned from a foray with grins on their faces - "Look whate we've found Len!". It was my water bottle webbing complete with my markings as clear as when I handed it in two years earlier in the Shetlands. Who, I wondered, had worn it and had he been killed, wounded or taken prisoner? Where had the webbing been since I had parted with it? A chance find in a million!

One of many War Time Memories!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.