大象传媒

When we got on the cattle trucks going to Tunisia, it was uneventful. We stopped at a village once and went into a bar and had some wine and that鈥檚 about all I can remember. When we arrived at a place called Medjez-el-Bab, we were met by army trucks. We piled into them and we were taken to Tebourba and the driver of our truck actually said 鈥淭his is known as hell-fire pass. You鈥檙e never going to get out of here 鈥� you鈥檒l never come back鈥� which we thought was a great joke.

When we arrived at Tebourba, at night, we were told to be quiet and just file in ahead of the guide in front. When we filed in, we noticed that trenches had been dug. And when I say trenches they weren鈥檛 like First World War trenches, they were slip trenches which you had to bend down, you had to crouch down to get your head out of the way. And they were slip trenches, each one held about 5 men. We got into those, and the next morning when the daylight came, I realised there were all these dead bodies around, from the Northamptonshires, who鈥檇 been more or less wiped out, which didn鈥檛 make a good feeling.

And then the battle started in more or less daylight. The Stukas came down every morning and shook us up a bit. We were forbidden to fire at any planes because there were reconnaissance planes over as well that would give the game away about where we were. Well, I thought to myself, Oh, we鈥檙e obviously in an olive grove and that is the target. Anyway. The battle went on, started, and I went on a reconnaissance patrol on the first day. We felt that every shadow, every tree, was a German, was the enemy. But it was uneventful and we came back and stood to.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sue Craig on behalf of Ron Redman and has been added to the site with his permission. Ron fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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