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Memories 3

A well-worn, faded Army Book 64 records that Peter Geoffrey Bate enlisted in the Army on January 22 1942, and was discharged 3 years and 244 days later with the rank of Gunner 鈥� 鈥淢ilitary Conduct Exemplary鈥�.

No diaries on active service, of course. What memories are there, of those 3 years and 244 days?

1942

By train to Signal Training Regiment, Scarborough.

Sergeant of the Guard 鈥� 鈥淲hat can I do for you, Corporal?鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e come to join up鈥�

Sergeant 鈥� 鈥淕et those bloody stripes off!鈥�

Six months of square-bashing, rifle drill, truck and motor-cycle driving and maintenance, gun drill on World War I howitzers, Morse code, wireless and telephone technology, flag drill (!) and heliograph signalling (!!)

Posted to 67th Field Regiment, quartered in Fakenham, Norfolk. Regiment saw service in France, escaped via Dunkirk, and still a bit punch-drunk. A few weeks later, almost everyone stricken with dysentery, cause unknown. Lines of ambulances carry us to hospitals all over the country. To temporary hospital in Hatfield House. Pretty, friendly nurses, but stupefyingly boring wait before the requisite 3 negative samples are produced. Regiment moves to Kilmarnock in the winter, for intensive training for the North African campaign. To a Women鈥檚 Auxiliary Air Force convalescent home for a Hogmanay Party at Dungavel (The place that Rudolf Hess was heading for when he crash-landed in Britain}. Helped by an enchanting WAAF sergeant, become so engrossed in studying the tombstones in the chapel (or something) that the last truck back to the camp leaves without me. The girls have to get rid of me somehow, so they put me on the female adjutant鈥檚 bike, point me downhill, and give me a push. The back tyre goes flat, the chain comes off, so I use the bike as a sort of sledge, braking with my feet when necessary, to slip and slide down the narrow, slush-covered roads all the way back to Kilmarnock.

1943

February

Home on embarkation leave. Later learned that at that time, Mum and Dad knew that Mike had been posted 鈥淢issing鈥� at Alamein, but decided not to tell me, for fear of spoiling my leave. Must have been so hard for them.

March

The regiment moves to Liverpool to load men and equipment on the 鈥淒uchess of Devonshire鈥�. Loading seems to take forever, but when we offer to help, the so-patriotic dockers say 鈥淵ou touch them guns, and the whole docks go on strike鈥�.
Take one look at the crowded hammock sleeping quarters on the lower decks of the 鈥淒uchess鈥�, and volunteer to man the Oerliken anti-aircraft guns above the bridge, as the AA gunners slept in cabins

2
on the Promenade Deck. Great fun, later on, practising with Oerlikens, but the enemy present us
with no live targets during the voyage, which was probably A Good Thing. Dock in Algiers, off-load the guns, trucks and so on. Trundle slowly along the main road towards Tunis. Very taken with the picturesque town of Constantine, built on a steep hillside, on both sides of a deep gorge. Into action a few miles West of Tunis. Dig in, and get the guns into action. German Panzer tanks counter-attack, and go right through our lines, our 鈥渁rmour-piercing 鈥渟hells bouncing harmlessly off the front of the tanks. Our Major 鈥淏uck鈥� Rushton is captured, and carried off to captivity in Tunis. Nevertheless, the advance continues, and later we put two of our guns forward, to a low hill called Banana Ridge In the dark, on my dispatch-rider鈥檚 BSA, pass trucks going in the opposite direction 鈥� only later realise that they were German. As soon as the guns have been deployed, machine-gun fire breaks out and we realise that we are surrounded. Twenty-five pounder shells start falling all around - due to a mix-up our sister regiment, the 19th Field, has been ordered to shell Banana Ridge. When dawn breaks, see that there is a big mosque on the top of the Ridge, with German troops going and coming around it. As the crews of our two guns have been killed or wounded, a scratch crew of drivers and signallers manhandles one gun into position, and opens fire 鈥渙ver open sights鈥� (a very rare occurrence in WW2) at the mosque. First shells explode in puffs of black smoke against the outer wall of the mosque, just like a scene from the film 鈥淔our feathers鈥�. Shells fired 鈥渃ap on鈥� go through the wall and explode inside. Germans come pouring out like ants, and scarper away over the Ridge.

May

Germans in Tunis surrender, the Regiment drives into town, to be met by our Major Rushton, driving an open-top BMW coupe which he has acquired somewhere 鈥� if he fell in a sewer, he鈥檇 come up with a bottle of champagne in both hands.

Hope for a period of R and R, but are immediately put in charge of a makeshift Prisoner of War camp. Italian prisoners happy and helpful, singing, cooking and generally making themselves useful. German prisoners 鈥� Hitler Youth 鈥� sullen, disobedient and bloody-minded.

After a month, get sudden move to a camp amid olive groves on the coast near Monastir. After bedding my trusty BSA down for the night, go exploring, and find that we are only a couple of hundred yards from a perfect sandy beach. Oh frabjous joy, galloo gallay 鈥� skinny-dipping in warm sea water. Days of lotus-eating are followed by a trip by train to a temporary School of Artillery in the desert at Mechta Chateaudun, to be trained as a Battery Surveyor. ( The man who makes sure that all the guns in a battery are pointed in the same direction). Find the course astonishingly difficult for such a lowly role 鈥� plane-tabling, triangulation, star recognition, Collins Point Resections etc 鈥� am only able to keep up with the others by literally burning the midnight oil in my scorpion-ridden tent Return to the Regiment as a fully-fledged battery surveyor. (It is only many months later that it transpires that due to an admin snafu my course and the qualification had been that of a Royal Artillery Surveyor Class II, a creature considerably up the ladder from a Battery Surveyor, and a fish out of water in a Field Regiment. Result 鈥� loads of back pay, and a delightful increase in my daily rate).

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