大象传媒

I joined the army in 1938 and after 3 years in the Hussars and a year on special duties I was to join the 12th lancers in Egypt. I was to be part of a special renconaisance unit at the frontline of every force which I ever fought it. It was a very hard life, even though we were in armoured vehicles we were still very easy targets, our formations rarely helped us that much and because the Germans had mined the area so much we had to be constantly careful for land mines. I saw many people die that way, one of my friends died right in front of me when his car exploded just in front of mine as he hit a landmine. Was a terrible explosion but the worst part of it was that we couldn't find much of the car or him which meant we couldn't give him a proper burial. Things like that were the worst, death was one thing but when you couldn't even find enough of your friend to bury him it just messed a lot of people up. It was because of things like that, that at least six people I knew committed sucicide, in some ways that was more merciful.
When I served in Tripoli landmines were no longer the big threat it was the big stuker bombers which were the worst, when they hit you in open desert there was little you could do but scatter and pray. Thats why we never slept near our vehicles and we all moved off in little clusters, it simply meant that our chances were imporved of surving by that bit more. On one occassion we were attacked by a Stuker and our unit scattered for what little cover we could find, I saw 17 men run under a bridge to avoid the bombs when all of a sudden a bomb hit the mouth of the bridge and it caved in a killed them all, was horrible because we had to get them all out of there and we were still worried about the Stuker calling in for help from.
Tunisia was much better, there were fewer Germans there and a lot less resistance plus we were lucky to have extra help from the Americans, we got to drive the new staghound armoured vehicles which were better than our old vehicles as well as got extra support. For the most part it was driving out the last German regiments and by this time many of them were tired and simply gave up and left their vehicles, not like Egypt where they still thought they had a chance. I found an old German staff car in a ditch and pulled it out and got to drive around in it for days before my commanding officer took it off me, even then he found it funny. The Tide had tuned and people knew it. I found a group of lads from another regiment, who were bragging about finding a German pay truck they had taken the money from the truck and had exchanged it at the local banks it Tunisia, it was like winning the lottery for most of them and I didn't begrudge them, they had earnt it.
In Italy life wasn't exactly a picnic though, whilst the Italians were surrendering in droves the Germans were still holding out in a few areas, espescially around the abbey of Montecassino.I didn't take part in that action because I had been made into infantry because the area was so mountainous that armoured vehicles weren't that useful, was funny because it was in Italy that I was in a car accident that saw my leg badly burnt and was sent home and spent the next nine months in hospital. It was strange that I had fought in Egypt, Tunisia, Triploi and even Italy and it was car accident that sent me home.

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