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The following is written from notes taken whilst interviewing Mr Robert S.Clark(Lance bombardier)

I was posted from the Militia (prior to six months training). I was aged 21 at the time.
In Iraq (in the desert) set up camp and could see a small town. We were warned not to go there as it was hostile.

One morning Sergeant DeGonzo (from Liverpool) came and wanted a driver to take him to the town. The CO told Mr Clark that he had to drive him. Clark was cross about this as it meant he’d have to miss ‘backs down’ (=sleep).
There was a party of six with the senior NCO being the sergeant.
The CO was from Hightown a Colonel Winters.

They got to the town leaving Clark on his own with a loaded rifle to look after the truck.
When the men returned to the truck they said to Hocker that they’d seen a photo of Hitler at the back of a market stall. The lads wanted to remove it as they felt insulted.
They went to the market entrance in the truck. Clark waited with the engine running. Hocker went with the rest of the lads.
The only think Clark witnessed was the stall and the market trader being knocked over the stall as they grabbed the photo. The lads returned to the truck.

Clark had never seen so many Arabs before. They just appeared before him and stood in front of the truck- it was like psychological warfare. He had no idea where they came from or how they coordinated this as this was the days before mobile telephones! The Arabs were stood two deep in places. It was intimidating at the time. Clark wasn’t bothered about the Arabs behind the truck as the guys on the truck were all armed. The whole episode to try and escape back to camp felt like it took half an hour but he had to keep revving the engine on them and moved forward as though he was going to run them over.

Clark preferred to be in Persia as no desert. It was a mountainous country as he remembers it. He got paid 11d per day as ‘hardship’ money.

Clark remembers playing football. He was know as ‘nobby’ Clark or ‘dirty’ Clark. The sargeant major used to pay him one shilling and ten cigarettes to get lost in ‘tock (or toch?)’, so as to be ready to play for the regiment in the afternoon.

Clark supposes that the photo of Hitler is in Liverpool now and- Hocker if you are still alive — Mr Clark would like to have it!

Most embarrassing moment?

It was really before call up in 1939. Clark had to go to Price Street, Birkenhead for a medical. There was about fifty to one hundred blokes there. Everyone had to strip down to their birthday suits and queue up in line, filing along in turn to see the one or two doctors. One doctor played hell with one bloke and gave him a note to give to his GP. When it came to Clark being examined the doctor called over the other doctor to take a look at him commenting that he had the ‘perfect body’.

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