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StanEllis4
The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein.

Hello, my name is Ellis Stanley, Army Service number 2092841. I have written my memoirs of World War Two as I lived it. I served through the war from first day to last, and served as a vehicle mechanic, reaching the rank of Corporal. I was a soldier in the Army firstly in the UK, then in North Africa, and finally in Italy and Greece. After Victory in Europe, I was posted to Italy again until I was returned to Aldershot and demobbed in 1946. These memoirs have been edited to conform to People’s War standards, and are spread over 12 title pages, and cover my service in locations as listed below. They have been transcribed by Andrew Voyce, an Open University graduate.

StanEllis1 UK- The Phoney War part 1
StanEllis2 UK- The Phoney War part 2
StanEllis3 UK- Northern Ireland and preparations for the desert
StanEllis4 North Africa- The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein
StanEllis5 North Africa- Active service with the Eighth Army
StanEllis6 North Africa- The final defeat of the Afrika Korps
StanEllis7 Italy and Greece- Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino
StanEllis8 Italy and Greece- Monte Cassino
StanEllis9 Italy and Greece- Some matters of everyday soldiering
StanEllis10 Italy and Greece- The end of the war for me: Victory in Europe
StanEllis11 Demob- Time after the cessation of hostilities
StanEllis12 Demob- Postscript

The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein

This part of my military service in World War 2 involved travelling by troopship the long way, around the Horn of Africa, to Egypt, where I arrived just in time for the decisive Battle of El-Alamein in 1942.

The journey out to North Africa.
We trained at the REME workshops in Nottingham and this prepared us for the Indian Division, for North Africa. I had completed my mechanic’s training at Nottingham before travelling to Egypt. I was a fully-qualified mechanic, I think they called it Mark Three. I had been transferred out of the Royal Engineers to the Royal Ordnance Corps, and I had the rank of Private. So they formed up the workshop in the Nottingham area, the unit was the equipment as well as the men, we had become used to expect to deal with desert equipment. They didn’t tell you much in the Army, but we knew we were going to Africa. That’s what’s going on- out there. We had a brief stay at Carlton, which is just outside Nottingham- it should still be on the map! We went to Glasgow, we embarked at Greenock. The troopship’s name was the Oronsay, and it was a converted passenger liner. All these convoys went out the same way, I think, which was down the west side of Africa, past Sierra Leone. We stopped at Sierra Leone- but it was thick fog. They stopped there for some reason- probably dropped somebody off. At a bit of a guess, there were at least twenty ships in this convoy. All sorts of ships- big troop carriers which were the liners, and there were various ships that carried equipment, stores. Carried on from Sierra Leone and went to Cape Town. Half day ashore, which was a very minimal amount so that it wasn’t hardly worth us stopping…They welcomed us, the locals. A lot of them, of course, were Brits at that time. We were taken up to Table Mountain, in their vehicles. Of course, down there, they had their lights on, all that kind of thing. It was quite an utter change from what we’d come away from. So we did what we could in the time available, and they dropped us back towards the quayside, and we went back on board. On the convoys, there was a danger of U-boats. The convoys were set up in a proper order, and they used to change course- I seem to remember it was every twenty minutes. When they changed course they gave a toot on the siren. I suppose that indicated to everybody else, so they didn’t run into each other, that we’re changing course. But that used to go on all the time! All the time it was at sea. We assumed that the Naval escort had communications which would tell them if there were any U-boats in the vicinity. If there were any, hopefully they would deal with them. But we never saw any enemy action on that trip, anyway. So we zig-zagged our way round Africa, and then after Cape Town we came up the other side of Africa. Zig-zagging- all the same. They just used to keep that routine up. I suppose they never knew where the U-boats were. Communications then weren’t quite as good as they were later on. We zig-sagged up there, and up the Red Sea, to Egypt.

Arrival in Egypt.
And in Egypt the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) base depot was a place called Tel-el-Kabir. Whether it’s still there or not, I’m not sure. It might well be. It was a massive base the army had got there. I think it was somewhere just outside Cairo. We weren’t all that close to towns. Because they were pretty good at pinching things, the Egyptians. So this base, depot, was surrounded by barbed wire, to keep the pilferers out. So it was quite a surprise really- we thought they might be friends of ours. But it didn’t look as though they were, because any opportunity to pinch something, they would, that they could use. Then when we got actually to this base, they decided that they didn’t want this complete workshop, out there, so they decided that all trades were sent out as reinforcements to various units. No end of trades in a REME workshops. So my Nottingham unit was all split up. That happened to me several times. Some people go through a war with the same blokes, but I’d already changed two or three times. I know it was because I’d initiated my interrupted apprenticeship, to get that done. I had one new lot of mates at Sheerness, one new lot of mates in Northern Ireland, and one new lot of mates in Nottingham. Then coming out to the Eighth Army, and then all personnel were posted as reinforcements to units short of men, fitters or anybody they wanted any trades were pushed out. At that time I joined the 4th CLY, that’s the County of London Yeomanry, of the 22nd Armoured Brigade, part of the 7th Armoured Division. Tanks they had, Honeys and Crusaders. I realised then I was a fish out of water. I didn’t know much about tanks! Or anything- why they sent me there I’ve no idea. So I said to them when I arrived, I said: You’ve got vehicles here that I don’t know anything about. So they thought, that’s encouraging! Well, anyway, nothing quick can happen. They’ve got ordinary trucks as well, so that would be my department. These tanks were the best we had at the time. Honey tanks, Honeys as they called them, they came from America, light tanks they called them, and the Crusader, was a medium tank, I think. We didn’t have the gun power that the Germans had. Some of those Crusaders, they only had a very small gun. It was like a pea-shooter sitting on top of it. And that of course was a bit of a down, but the only thing they had was a bit of speed. They were quite fast. The Honeys, which were American manufacture, they included an American aeroplane engine- a radial, air-cooled engine. In the back of the tank.

Alamein approaches- and I get injured.
This was just coming up to Alamein, and we were all moving up, to battle positions, and apparently I had an accident. I was whipped into hospital- it was a bit of an ordeal, that. All that happened was I had this accident, and I was picked up. I woke up in a hospital train going to Palestine. I didn’t know what had actually happened, I just woke up, I checked I still had both arms and legs…Things like that, and then, I said to the orderly when he realised I was coming to. I said: What’s happened then? He said, I don’t know what happened to you, but on your ticket- everybody has a ticket- there’s three things on there: you could be a battle casualty (it speaks for itself), an accident injury (which mine was), and a self-inflicted, which is bad. It turned out I’d got an accident, I was wounded over here (Ellis’s right temple), there’s a scar up here now. Very slight now. But it didn’t seem to damage the eye, which is fortunate. So I never have been back to anyone who saw what happened. It wasn’t a bullet, I must have had a fall or something like that. I don’t think it was enemy action. I would have been ‘battle casualty’. It must have been some accident. Whether I was doing something on a vehicle or a tank, and fell off. Also, it was in the autumn of the year, and we had all written our Christmas letters an’ all that, and somehow I managed to lose all them. So —they forgot to send them on. The medical facility was in Palestine, a massive field hospital, massive great marquee tents. It was hundreds of miles by train from Egypt- I can’t remember what the name of the place was. The train ran more or less into the hospital, and we were transferred by ambulance the final bit. A field hospital it was. This (right) eye was all bandaged up heavily. ‘Thought- oh dear, wonder what’s happened to that eye then? I realised the other one was working ‘cos I could still see a bit. These ambulance trains, the bunks were in tiers, four tiers, and I was up on the top one. And when I woke up, I was just under the roof, really. You wonder where you are. As I say, you check all your bits, see that you are- fairly complete. I says to the orderly, I says: ‘What’s happened to the eye? Is it damaged?’ He said: ‘I don’t think so. They’re going to take you to hospital and look into it.’ Oh well, and that was that. I was in that hospital for Christmas ’42. And then: bad cut over right eye. Then, when you’re mended, they pass you out, and you’re sent back to base depots.

Back to a front-line unit.

It was REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) in my case, but all these regiments, had their own bases. And then they re-post you again to where you’re required. Which is probably better, because they’d obviously got me in the wrong place with the tanks, as I had a very limited knowledge of tanks. I was in the field hospital about two months and it was early ’43 they posted me back to Egypt. By this time the Allies were going up the desert. Alamein had been a success, and we were all very cheerful about that. That was really good news, because they’d been up and down that desert many times before and they made a success of it all. We had some newspapers out there, just sheets. We knew they were chasing the Germans up North Africa, which lifted everybody quite a bit. So then they sorted me out again and they had to find another position for me. Then I was posted to the First Battalion, Royal Sussex. It wasn’t because I came from Sussex, they wanted that trade, that’s all. A lot of people in the Sussex came from all over England. It was a tie up, even though they were regular soldiers. So, went to REME base at Tel el Kabir, and the regiment then, the Sussex, were at El Alamein. They’d been through the Battle of Alamein and they’d moved up the desert for a bit. Their vehicles had been commandeered to carry fuel up to the Army tanks, so they were just sitting on the desert, as it were, just practicing their arts, as it were. Most of our vehicles would drive over the desert. There was a road, there was a coast road, adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea, but most of the Army vehicles could drive anywhere over that desert. Unless it was very soft, and then you had to watch what you were doing. These drivers acquired the knowledge that…of where they could go and where they couldn’t go. They’d been out there so long that they did know. When I joined the Royal Sussex at El Adem, they told me they’d been out there six years, which I could hardly believe. They were a regular battalion. As for my (former) TA status (of ‘Immature Soldier), once you get to the right age, you’re a soldier. It was only that they called us that, because they couldn’t post us to France because we weren’t old enough.

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