大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Age Concern Dorchester on behalf of a Soldier of the 8th Army, who wants to remain anonymous,and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I served in 215/57 H.A.A. Battery R.A. (T.A.) from August 1939 until I was demobbed in 1946, travelling thousands of miles, supporting the 5th and 8th Armies.
We were involved with many operations both at home and abroad and our vehicles became our homes as we moved on week after week
One day, just before we reached Tripoli, we acquired a duck (just an ordinary sort with whitish feathers). We had meant to kill him and eat him, but after a while, no one had the heart to as he was very friendly and every time somebody picked up a towel to go for a swim or have a wash, the duck would follow them and swim with them. Sometimes he came on parade with us.
One day, we didn鈥檛 have any fresh water for him and so someone gave him wine to drink. The next day one of the men was going round asking if anyone had an Aspirin as the duck was obviously the worse for wear and staggering around. We called him Donald and I think that he was with the convoy for about 2 months.

Another memory that I have was in Tobruk: we moved into a camp which had been abandoned by the enemy, and they had left lots of tins of soup. Our diet at the time was very monotonous and we all looked forward to having some nice hot soup, but we weren鈥檛 allowed to have fires in case they were seen by the enemy. In the end, we solved this by draping a tarpaulin over a wagon and lighting the fire behind the tarpaulin. It was very very smoky and a man could only stay in there, stirring the soup for a few minutes, before he had to come out coughing and spluttering and someone else would take over. Everybody brought their bowls and we shared it all round.

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