大象传媒

This account is linked to the account of Colin Abrey, the brother of Dennis Abrey. See A6982185 for Colin's account.

I trained at the T. Barracks in Newark, in the county of Nottingham. My younger brother, who had not yet been called up, came to visit me. He was in lodgings in Newark for a week (I saw him in Italy in the town of Forli where I was stationed in 1944). From Newark I was posted to Halifax in Yorkshire, then to a house in 鈥楾he Chase鈥�, which was just off Clapham Common, and then to a technical college to learn electrical wiring, switches, junction boxes etcetera. We installed twin naval 4.7鈥� guns in Wimbledon Common.
From there we were sent to Greenock in Scotland, where we boarded the Highland Princess and sailed out into the Atlantic. One day during the voyage our escort torpedo boat circled out ship, firing large depth charges for something like 30 minutes.
We eventually landed in Algiers and were transferred to a troop ship, the Volandam, which had once been a liner. The troop ship docked at Phillipville (Skida), where we boarded Bedford trucks. The truck I was travelling in broke down. However, I was able to get it going again by wrapping silver paper around a fuse. We arrived late at Corkforest and bedded down in bell tents. In the morning we began training in assembling Bailey bridges over a large ravine.
One morning I awoke to find that my hip and knee joints were so stiff that they cracked on bending. I was taken to a nearby field hospital at Gurlna made up of marquee tents. There I had an operation on my leg to relieve a poisonous blue swelling on my right femoral. One chap in the hospital had been badly burned in a shelled tank. He used to relive the battle he and his crew had fought to survive. He was the tank鈥檚 corporal commander and appeared to have been the only one to get out of the burning tank alive. He was eventually sent back to England for skin grafts.
Training also consisted of laying out explosives and grenade throwing. After about a week of hard training we went in Canadian Chevrolet trucks to disgusting transit camp at Constantine, via a ramshackle mountain pass road. We stayed there three days then were moved on to Bizerta where we boarded a flotilla of seven flat-bottomed welded American invasion boats and set sail across the Mediterranean. After two days in storm-lashed sea, during which most of us were sea sick, we landed at Taranto. So, here I was鈥n Italy.
We camped at Montemesola under canvas, and I caught yellow jaundice.

The following are places Dennis stopped at, not all include details.

庐 Mola-di-Bari
We were stationed in Mola-di-Bari, where we fished a 250lb German bomb from the sea opposite an American camp.
Another 250lb bomb was caught in a fisherman鈥檚 nets. It was deposited on the quayside. When the officer and I arrived to view the bomb, the small harbour had at least three fishing boats and a few onlookers. We began to defuse it. Having looked at the nose fuse and deciding that the damaged top and locking ring were best left alone, we sat astride the bomb to keep the thing steady while 鈥榮ir鈥� started to unscrew the locking ring on the centre fuse with a spanner. A few gentle taps with a hammer were needed to get the locking ring moving, which gave us the excuse to light up our fags. It was then that we discovered, to our surprise that all the fishing boats and onlookers had gone. Everything was quiet except for the gentle lapping of the sea against the harbour walls.

庐 Molfetta
庐 Barletta
庐 Monopoli
庐 Foggia
庐 Benevento
庐 Avellino
庐 Salerno

At Salerno six men of the 43rd Bomb Disposal Section dies from a British bomb. The main cause was that the Ministry of War officials would not let our bomb disposal teams know how to diffuse our own bombs. The excuse given was that of we were taken prisoner by the Germans they would force these secrets out of us. What a load of cobblers!

庐 Pompei
庐 Naples

Beautiful villa overlooking the island of Iscia.

庐 Caserta
庐 Spoleto
庐 Cassino

Our 43rd Bomb Disposal Section drove down the hill into Cassino (or rather what was left of it, as all of the buildings had been reduced to rubble). The monastery stood sentinel at the top of the mountain, which was strewn with mines and shells. Laying on its side a third of the way up was a Red Cross ambulance. Everything was silent- a ghost town. The only movement was our own trucks. We approached the tee junction, turned left and drove for about two and a half miles past what remained of the airfield and the wreckage of umpteen planes.
Our officer halted the trucks, and we scrambled out. Down a 30 foot drive we found a three-storey villa bathed in sunshine. Its terra cotta bricks and open shutters looked so inviting. It had been completely untouched by the war.
We made our way down the drive on foot, checking for mines. It appeared to be clear up to the front of the villa. Just then a family of Italians cautiously came out of a large wooden shed on the right hand side of the driveway. One of our sergeants and one of the lads- a Catholic who studied music and understood Latin- questioned them. It turned out that they owned the villa, but dared not go into it for fear the house was booby-trapped. A group of German officers had taken the place over as their headquarters a few months earlier.
So we drove a tree-tonner down and parked is as close as we could to the building. We then tied a ladder to the metal bars of the truck, so as to reach the roof. It was left to a 鈥榲olunteer鈥� to remove enough tiles to get into the loft and then go through all the rooms one by one, checking for booby traps, etcetera. After about forty-five minutes the place was declared clear. The floors of the villa were all mosaic, even that of the kitchen. We discovered later that one of the doors in the villa had a nameplate for a 鈥楰arl xxxxxxx leutnant鈥�.
Even an abandoned Mercedes staff car at the rear seemed to be in good order. However on lifting the bonnet I discovered that some German had been busy with a hammer, and had smashed all the plugs, the distributor cap, and so on.

庐 Rome

We worked for about a month on the outskirts of the city, checking through a bombed factory, behind an Italian army barracks, that had made lenses for telescopes and binoculars.
庐 Narni

The old capital of Italy.

庐 Terni

Lake in the mountains

庐 Orvieto
庐 Perugia
庐 Ariezzo

River Arno

庐 Monte San Savino

Small fortified town, complete with stone walls. Took a large dog to the opera.

庐 Siena
庐 Firenze
庐 Forli
庐 Ravenna
庐 Cattolica
庐 Rimini
庐 Venice
庐 Mestre
庐 Lido
庐 Faenza
庐 Imola
庐 Bologna
庐 Cotgnola

Cotignola was a bombed village where we were employed clearing mines. The main street was a shambles, with just a few houses still habitable. Of the church at the end of the village, the front wall and an arch were left, with the bell still hanging.
Opening the doors of a large barn, I found a horse inside, still in a harness but dead. As I looked a large snake, five feet in length, slithered out of the horse鈥檚 stomach. I shut the barn door very quickly!
The local 鈥榩ub鈥� was a large farmhouse with a dirt yard. There was no beer, but plenty of good wine and cigars. The pub games consisted of horseshoe throwing and card games on the large tables. Cigars were all hand-made, and we made our choice from a fixed galvanised bucket, picking out what we thought were the best.

庐 San Lazaro di Sevena

We buried Massey here in the cemetery. The grave was not long enough for the length of the coffin, so two of us got down in the grave hole and extended it a few inches. Massey was then laid to rest.
I still can鈥檛 remember his Christian name, but he was about 6 feet tall, an athletic, good-looking bloke. Dare I say a blue-eyed blonde. He was a team mate that you could rely on in a minefield, and a good swimmer (as were most of our section). Often, bombs had been reported to us that were being rolled by the sea against the rocks between Bari and Mola-di-Bari- about seven miles of coastline- and usually in about eight feet of water. Hence the need for good swimmers.

庐 Ferrara
庐 Padova
庐 Verona
庐 Mantova
庐 Cremona
庐 Milan

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