大象传媒

Henry (John) James Gee 鈥� Reminiscences of Italy

I worked for a Devon brewery and had an allotment. When the war started I was 15 and my mother asked me to go to the allotment. As I went out the air raid siren went. I took no notice but I heard these planes come over and they were bombing Portland harbour. I looked out and saw dive-bombing and bombs being dropped. They hit HMS Foilbank 鈥� I saw it sink.
I worked 1 night a week for the cinemas fire watch. I lay on the bed and if the alarm went I had to look for incendiary bombs. In the cinema, the manager showed me a letter asking if we could get girls to do our jobs. My sister trained and when I had finished training her I was sent my call up papers.
In Weymouth I was an LDV (Local Defence Volunteer) which later became the Home Guard. We had broomsticks as rifles. Every Thursday they kitted me out with Battle Dress.
When I was called up I thought I would go for the Navy, but I didn鈥檛 want to be at sea because my father had always said that 鈥淭here was no back door to a ship!鈥�
I went for the air force but decided not to join them because they wanted gunners and fighter pilots. I wanted to be a projectionist but they already had enough. So they put me in the army.
They said I was too tall so I finished up in the cold stream guards. I had training for 16 weeks at the Guards depot in Surrey. When we passed out we had to do another week because our corporal gave the wrong command and turned us the wrong way.
When we were posted to Perbright in Surrey for intensive training, and wherever we went we had to trot.
After leave we came back and boarded a troop train through the Mersey tunnel to get on a Canadian liner called the Alamazure. We left in convoy during the night but we never knew where we were going. We were then told we were going to Italy which took 16 days. My job on the boat was to ensure all the toilets had paper. It took all day because there were thousands of troops. No beds 鈥� hammocks 鈥� we had to swing together because they were so close. At night we used to play 鈥淗ousey Housey鈥� and we got things like cigarettes and chocolate as prizes. At mealtimes on board we had to take it in turns to collect the food for the 18 men on the table. It was difficult when the boat was swaying. One day I dropped the hard boiled eggs which rolled along the deck, but they gave me some more 鈥� I held on to them tightly. I saw rats eating the chocolate on the table one night when I was in my bunk.
When we docked they put us on trains in freight wagons. After 2 hours and carrying our equipment they put us on Troop carrier trucks. We arrived at a reinforcement troop training centre. We had to erect 8 men tents and then dig a 2 foot deep trench around the tent because they were expecting the monsoon rains. There was so much rain that we got washed away and that was the end of the tents. We were there for 7 days and then we were taken up to the front line. At the River Grigliano which had been bombed by the Germans the Royal engineers had built a bailey bridge to replace the one that had been bombed. As we crossed the bridge we were being shelled and had to dodge the bombs as we crossed.
As we got to the fifth army front up the mountains we took over from the squaddies who had been there for about 2 months. It was a static position up the mountain. For 2 months we just looked out and did some rekkies. Every so often we had 4 days off to get cleaned up. When we went back after the break we went to a different static front.
When I had my second break my sergeant gave me a job as batman to a high ranker. He was an officer with one pip 鈥� and so he was not a guard he was from the line infantry. He was like a giant nearly 7 foot tall! He was big and clumsy.
When we went up the line to slip trenches dug under a hill our officer went to the telephones. At this time it started to snow and became freezing even though we had great coats. One day the phone rang and we had to go out on a rekkie patrol 鈥� so we put on white coats so that we could not be seen. We went down into the valley and see if a big house there was occupied by the Germans. The moon was very bright and shone through the windows of the house and I could see a booby trap. I stopped everyone just in time. We went back and reported to the Major. The next day the snow had stopped and when the phone rang we had to go back to the house to see if it was occupied, but it wasn鈥檛 - someone had given the wrong information. When we got back to the dug out our officer said he could not stand this cold and cried his eyes out.
When the snow lifted and the mud dried out we were moved on. When we went into an operation we either had a rifle, a brand gun or a picket mortar 鈥� I had rifle and bayonet. Our troops put up a 鈥渃reeping barrage鈥� of shells, 4.5inch and 7.5inch shells, which kept firing. They put canisters in with smoke so that the enemy could not see us advancing. Some of the guns were firing too short but luckily they were only the smokers. The Germans had moved back a long way.
When we were in a static position in Italy, it was snowing with ice and everything, we had to get our rations up from lower down the mountain. There was a railway track which ran into a tunnel on the right hand side. We had to walk up to the railway tunnel, and inside the tunnel was a mule train. There were three guardsmen, including me, and we had to take the nineteen mules up the mountain because they were carrying all the rations. The Italians brought the mules so far up the mountain as the tunnel but would not come up as far as we were positioned. The rations were taken off the mules, and then we had to take the mules back down to the tunnel. The mules were like big horses, stubborn and strong. We used to hold onto their tails so that they would pull us up the mountain, the mules had a better grip on the snow and ice than we had. Then the mules would slide all the way down the mountain again!!
We were then pulled out of the 5th army and put into the 8th army. Montgomery was in charge of the 8th army at this time. They put us on the start line at the front, and we came to lots of barbed wire and a minefield. We walked through he mine field and we could see a house. We wondered if Gerry was there and with that an enemy tiger tank came round the corner. Me and my mate ran like hell and headed for a tank trap. As we were running back a machine gun opened up we hit the decks 鈥� my friend Cross got hit. The bullet went into his arm muscle. We left the bullet in and found help for him and I never saw him again because they took him to the hospital and he was probably given other postings.
Another attack was on the paper factory. I was put on the mortar with a friend who carried the mortars. Captain Audison-Smith told us to follow the cinder trap and fire the 3 bombs at the gable end of the factory so that our troops could enter the factory and attack. I aimed and was about 1 yard out then we moved in closer and fired again. The detonator came out and the third bomb failed. The Captain had his pistol ready and fired at a German 鈥� I think it caught him in the eye. We captured about 15 German soldiers from the factory.
Attack on Casino Monastery. The polish had been there 3 or 4 times but they could not take it. So the Guards were sent. The monastery was surrounded by fields and fields of corn. We were told to withdraw while the flying fortresses came over and bombed the place. Then we had to advance. The monastery was flattened. This was part of the big push for Rome. We bypassed Rome. Then had a couple of days leave and I visited Rome and had my picture taken when I was having my 10 lira dinner. My companion at the meal was a pal of mine Jim Steer.
The push for Venice was called The Venetian line. We had to cross the River Poe which is by a big forest. The Germans had no petrol or diesel so they only had horse and carts. When the Germans left we found some horses that were in a dreadful state. We released the horses because the Germans had crossed the River Poe. The horses had been tied up to trees and so were bleeding from tie wounds. There was one horse which had run and it was eating a dead sow. When we were looking around we found a store of brand new typewriters in an old fashioned wagon. We waited for the army service corps to bring us some boats. Before we got there the officers had us lined up with bren guns 鈥� overlooking the River Poe. My mate, a bloke called Muffet had a pair of German binoculars and he said there was a German looking out of a window on the other side of the river. We found out after, that the Germans were using effigies. Which were used to put us off. We didn鈥檛 know that they were effigies until we got to the other side of the river ourselves.
When the war finished we saw Germans pushing horse carts. We could not believe the war had finished.
We went on the Morgan line between Italy and Yugoslavia to check vehicles from Italy. We did standing patrols. Our checkpoint had a Nissan hut not far away and we used the electricity so I fixed up a pulley system down to the hut. When I lit it at night the Yugoslavians shot it out.
After the first attempt we placed the bulbs back in, and pulled the pulley wire to swing the bulbs so as to make it difficult to shot them out.
The next project was to take a house on the hill, unknown to use the jerry was in there, they let us get half way up the hill then shower us with 6 barrel mortar (Nebelwerfer) we could not dig in as the ground was so hard. After that when the mortar bombs came over one landed on the rock and I got the full blast in my right ear that made me totally deaf. So I had to go to the first aid post and they syringed out my ear and there was enough grass and withered stuff to cover half a crown! So that is why I always have to wear a deaf aid now. I had my first hearing aid for 20 years and now I have a new one!
The fifth army were doing an attack on the Germans which entailed climbing a mountain and then we had to wait because it was daylight and we were going in on the first light on the next day. As we stood there on the top of this mountain, if you saw a target 鈥� don鈥檛 fire. Well somebody didn鈥檛 hear the orders and I and this other somebody saw a German walking across the road with a pair of green trousers and a white shirt. This squaddy put a burst from his machine gun into the German, so now the Germans knew that we were there. As the shots were heard from the Germans, they sent out a sniper rifleman. By doing that the sniper rifles would never miss. The first one to get a bullet was our Sergeant Dennett. We were digging a trench to get a bit of cover. We sent out a sniper 鈥淣obby Hall鈥� and he returned to say that the German sniper had been liquidated. As time went by, night fell and we heard a lot of noise and the Germans were pulling out from the village below.
When we went down at first light to take over the village, the Germans had gone. We had to go and sort out all the houses to check for any stragglers. I went in one house and there was an old lady crying her eyes out and the German that was shot wasn鈥檛 a German but he was an Italian. It was her husband. He was a big fellow, about 25 stone! I understood from the lady that he came rushing down holding his stomach. He ran round the room three of four times, and then dropped dead. There were some orange boxes on the floor and he was laid on the boxes. I said to the lady, 鈥淭his was tadisco鈥�. She said, 鈥淟ienter Englishy鈥� . (I had said that it was the Germans who had shot him but she said it was the English.) After that we just pushed on with all the troops to see how far the Germans had advanced.

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