大象传媒

I volunteered in 1939 aged 22 and finished up in the Royal Engineers. Some mates and I had gone to Carlisle to look for building work and they decided to join up. I thought I would too. The army training was at Ripon. They taught me to be an engineer-building Bailey bridges, blowing up bombs and creating bombs. I wrote everything down in a book that I still have today. Because I wanted to catch up with the previous group I took an exam and passed with flying colours. That was 10 weeks after I'd arrived at Ripon.
The army were going to supply everybody with white clothing and skis, then it changed and we fitted up with desert outfits. We were embarked on the Orantis, it had been comandeered. It was alright-we had cabins. The deck was lined with people being sick-the crew! We called at Cape Town and finished up at Port Said. Then we arrived at our camp in Cairo. The boys were very quiet. But not the officers! They began running about with no clothes on and hitting each other with sticks!

The Desert Rats

At Mersa Matruh I became a member of the Desert Rats of 143 Field Squadron under the command of General Wavell. As an Orderly Corporal I had to go up to the 7th Army division travelling in a 15cwt lorry. We had gear for the officers mess in the back.

On our way to capture Tobruk, our convoy had to travel via Benghazi. We were carrying Bailey bridges as well. But I left there not in the mess wagon that I arrived in, but in a lorry full of Egyptian landmines. The convoy was bombed by a German plane but my lorry wasn't hit, while the mess wagon that I had been in previously was. There was no room for much regret for the lads who had been killed, you were just glad it wasn't you. The job I was given was to prepare the bodies for burial. When we reached the camp it was more bodies. We had to go round the water holes, taking the bodies of Germans out. You just get on and do it. One of my soldiers got shot 4 times in the leg but didn't notice at the time.

At the camp they were reorganising the stores and it was my job to drive 60 to 80 miles every day to collect petrol, water and rations. On the return journey we slept under the lorry. When we made a cup of tea we drank half and shaved with the rest.

Then we got a new Sgt Major called Bloomer. He decided he could make the trip to the provision store and back more quickly than we had been doing, but he got lost and never arrived. I never had any trouble finding the way, the desert looks all the same but I seemed to be able to pick the right route. When Bloomer got back to camp the next day, he told us not to say anything about him getting lost. He made a few attempts to get to the rations.
Then I was made Lance Sargeant in charge of bulldozers. The job was to fill in the holes that the Germans had blown in the desert. General Horrocks' car was blown up going over a hole, but he wasn't hurt.

At one point we had to retreat to Cairo in a hurry. We had a poor class of tanks and the Germans were advancing. Ambulances going past the rest of the division were captured. During the retreat we came to a waddi, with a deep ravine. It's a dried up river. I was out of the wagon looking at the problem when suddenly the driver panicked and ran over my foot. We got over the waddi and I was dropped at a field hospital and was then taken to hospital in Tobruk. If my foot had been broken I would have been sent back to England, but I was taken to hospital in Palestine- the Mount of Olives. One man had 25 bullets in him.

When I was better I had to rejoin my unit. I was put in charge of getting men back to their units, then I had to go back to Cairo. Monty joined us then and retired back to El Alamein. Or job was to reach Tunis. I had a bulldozer and scissors unit so that we could fill in craters and clear the way for the other vehicles. To confuse the Germans we helped to create a diversion by raising sand in a smokesceen effect, while others went through to reach the Germans elsewhere.

Around Tunis it was all green fields. All the wagons parked in a field and at 11 pm we moved off, but we were going round in circles and couldn't find our way out. Eventually we captured Tunis, but only just.

The Italian Campagn
Then we went to Derna in Libya to practise getting on and off boats in readiness for landing in Italy. I got onto an American boat and landed in Salerno with the Americans under General Mark Clark. I landed a 22 wheel lorry on the beach- it was the biggest in the army. We travelled on the roads but they were covered by the Italians so we followed the electricity lines instead. A bulldozer I had got off to collect was blown up, but I wasn't injured. We got as far as the Garigliano river but then we weren't advancing.

Montgomery's 21st Army

Then I was wanted for the invasion of France-the Normandy landings. Those who had fought in the desert and Italy were battle hardened soldiers. We we were loaded onto a landing craft and came under attack en route. It was 3.00am and we were surrounded by ammunition. An RAF. landing craft was hit but nobody could help them. It was awful. Many men were ordered to land in too deep water and were drowned. Our officer went too soon in an armoured car, he got back but the car was lost. I had been ordered to follow him, but because I had experience of the landings at Salerno, I chose my own time. I knew it was too deep.
We landed on D-Day but we were supposed to land on D-37. We set off for a place called Tilly -Sur-Seulles and came across a Panzer but it was empty so we were ordered to take it onto our truck. I was given 6 bulldozers to clear and reconstruct whatever needed doing.

Germany

Iwas in the Rheine crossings. When we got to Hamburg it was raised to the ground and the people were living under corrugated iron sheets. Conditions were terrible. Then it was on to Berlin to take over the Hermann Goring Barracks. The Russian Army had been living there was no running water. Imagine the conditions-the toilets and basins and the wardrobes were full of excrement. I had to get German workers to clean it out. At the German labour exchange they gave me 200 women workers who were promised a brwn loaf a day. Conditions in Berlin were desperate- there was no food. They were good workers though. Then I moved on to build a special unit at Spandau Prison to hold special new prisoners. Rudolph Hesse was held there.
I finished up in a little village and finally got my discharge in January 1946. It had been a long war since that day in Carlisle in 1939 when I decided to join up.

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