大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Cyril Ellis and added to the site with his permission.

I joined up in 1941 - I was seventeen but I altered my birth certificate. I lived in Blackpool but then we were sent to Lymston, to Dalditch near Exmouth, and then to Pembroke Dock. I belonged to the 8th Battalion, the Royal Marines. From Pembroke Dock we were sent to Commando Training School in Scotland. We had private billets there and we were looked after very well - people got 30/- a week for looking after us.

In 1943 we were sent from Scotland to Sicily. We went out in the biggest convoy there had been throughout the war - we were dive bombed by enemy Stukas - you just had to dive for cover. It seems funny now - it wasn't then.

We landed by boat south of Agusto. We took a lot of prisoners - they were Italians - they just gave up. We fought our way across Sicily - I was a rifleman. Then we went across the Straits to Messina and we went way up the coast 5 kilometres beyond Salerno to a village called Vietre del Mare. It was at the head of a defile - a narrow valley - and it was our job to hold this defile against the Germans who would be retreating before the main body of our troops.

We had taken the village and suddenly heard a noise coming up the road. I seized a Bren gun and fired - it was a German half track - a sort of troop carrier with 12 men on board. I killed them all.

Subsequently we lost a lot of men there - 47% of my unit were killed so they pulled the remainder of us out and sent us back to England. Here we re-formed and trained for D Day.

I actually came ashore on D Day - we were on one of the landing crafts that came in at Sword Beach - Lyons sur Mer. It was horrific. First we were making our approach; then we were 50 yards away; then 10; then the doors went down and we were moving. We were making for the seawall - there were people falling on either side of me. We lost quite a few that day.

We moved on to Caen to help there and afterwards we were sent here, there and everywhere because as commandos we moved fast.

We moved through France and Belgium. On November 1st we were sent in to Volkeren on the River Scheldt. Our orders were to clear the mouth of the river - to knock out all the Germans there who were attacking the shipping as it headed upstream. We lost a lot of lads there. Eventually we ended up in Recklinghausen to sort out some displaced Poles who were going round murdering Germans.

When the war ended we were back in Holland in Middleburg and I remember one of our boys was playing around with a phosphorus grenade when it went off and the whole barracks burnt down!

The worst part of the War was losing your mates - times like Salerno and D Day and Volkeren but I remember too a time when we had been seven days without sleep at the River Maas and we had just come out of the line. Two of our lads - and they were both from the same village - were about to go home on leave but one of them put his sten gun down and it fired off accidentally - both of them were killed. That will live with me forever.

The best part of the War was picking a fight with the Americans. The lads of 41 Commando had yellow tabs on our shoulders and on one occason in the NAAFI in Brussels, the Americans were rude about us. I was a sergeant and I was with two of our corporals. I started it by hitting an American under the jaw with the heel of my hand - after that it all kicked off - but we escaped under the table and out the door leaving all the mayhem inside.

The best thing about the Royal Marines is the discipline - there isn't another unit like them in the world. I was discharged in 1946 - by then I was twenty three and a colour sergeant - and I was married in 1947.

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