大象传媒

My father Frederick, a WW1 veteran in the King's own Scottish Borderers was decorated in France with the MM and mentioned in despatches, was a Captain in the Home Guard. My mother Isabella and sister Marion worked in a munitions factory in Dalbeattie, Scotland.
I can remember our Battalion were rested in an old extinct volcano just outside Naples after a successful crossing of the Garagliano, waiting for the Brigadier from 17 Infantry Brigade, 5th Division known as the Y division, to tell us we were going home as Division had been in action in Sicily, Southern Italy. Although I only joined them in Italy from North Africa. We were firing German Spandaus which we had captured. When the Brigadier came his words were "Sit down men, smoke if you wish" - he then congratulated the battalion on its achievements and then said "I am sorry, you are not going home, you are going to Anzio. We sailed from Naples Harbour in March 1944 at night. Things were fairly quiet. We dug in, in a supposed safe area but soon found out we were well within reach of German artillery and bombing by Stukas. We were moved up to a place called the "Fortress" an area of wadis which were filled with bramble bushes. The Germans attacked daily and we would come under sever mortar fire. One incident I remember was the Germans (The Panzer Grenadiers) called a truce to collect the wounded. A German officer came over smartly dressed, with polished boots and said "Have a cigarette lads, we took them off your ration party last night". No wonder we had no rations. He said "You should pull out lads, you'll never hold this position". But we did! Everybody had either a bren gun or a Thompson sub machine gun and boxes of 36 grenades to give us heavy fire power.
When the breakout came in May we advanced across a flat plain, I think it was called the Lombardo Plain and we received heavy casualties with quite a lot of men taken prisoner. I went over the Plain again with my company commander Major Jocky Northcott, to see if there were any wounded lying out in the sun. We found some in a bad way.
Remnants of our battalion went to Rome and then back to the Middle East to refit. Our next action was crossing the River Elbe in Germany.

Anzio was hell on wheels, every bit could be covered by gunfire. I have recently visited the Anzio cemetery.

The picture is a copy of a Certificate of Honour from the Mayor of Anzio.

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