- Contributed byÌý
- wxmcommunitystudio
- People in story:Ìý
- Percy Gibbons
- Location of story:Ìý
- 'Germany', 'Belsen', 'France', 'Middle East', 'Shropshire'
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A9027065
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 31 January 2006
My name is Percy Gibbons and I’m 83 now.
I was in the army, the KSLI- King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. I volunteered, to tell you the truth. I was 20 when I went in. They called me out, well they called everybody to go to Germany, France, and all that. They wanted to send me over to Japan, to Burma, and I thought to myself ‘I’m not having that.’ I was on my own, you know. The RSM — the head one on parade, on the square- came to me, and he said ‘We’re not sending you to Japan now.’ He said ‘We’re sending you to Germany. To Dieppe.’ About five days after Dieppe had started. And I went right the way through to Hamburg. We were the first in Hamburg. And then we went to Belsen camp, to release the prisoners there. And of course, they all came up, started feeling my pockets for cigarettes and God knows what. (Did you know what you were going to see before you got there?) No, I didn’t know anything. And they were thin as hell, you know?
From there onwards, from Hamburg, we went out to the Middle East. And we were with Rommel’s effort. We slept in tents, and the Arabs were coming in, pinching the blankets that you were lying on! Just taking them! Whipping them away. Terrible it was.
When we were in Germany, in a forest, we didn’t see daylight for about three or four weeks. The forest, the high trees, you couldn’t see daylight until you got to the end.
Three of my mates got killed while I went to the toilet. They were in the same trench as me. I had to go to the toilet, got out, and they were shelling. One shell landed straight in the trench that I’d come out of to go to the toilet, and they all got killed. That turned my brain then. For two reasons, one that they’d gone, and the other that I could have been killed.
I try not to think about it. I dream about it now and then. (Do you find you think about it more, the older you get?) Yes, definitely.(Did you ever tell your wife your experiences?) Oh yes. Well, she knew. Because we were stationed at a camp in Whittington, we took over from the Yanks, and it was a terrible mess when we went there. The concert hall especially.
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