大象传媒

On 8th September 1943 we passed through Rosano and in the afternoon we were called on to assist the 23.1. Brigade. All our brigade carriers supported by Priest guns mounted on tanks and A section of the Royal Engineers formed a mobile armored column. We passed slowly through Mileto and anyone would have thought we had just liberated a big city. Everyone turned out to cheer us and showered us with flowers and gave us fruit. It was the first time we had seen so much enthusiasm from the Italians. We carried on and reached Vibo Valentia just after dark. The Germans had only withdrawn from this town a few hours before we arrived. During the night we sent out mobile patrols and contacted the 231 Brigade HQ. The next morning we moved on another ten miles and established a bridgehead for the 15th Brigade who passed through us. We then rejoined our own Battalion at Vibo Valentia. The following morning, 10th September 1943, Field Marshall Montgomery paid us a visit and told us about certain enemy units in the country. When he had finished talking we were entertained by George Formby and his wife. They put on a good show as they only had a rough stage in an open field, an old piano and of course his 鈥楨auk鈥�.

We remained static for the next two days and on Tuesday 13th September 1943 the rifle companies left by TCI鈥檚 for Bel Vedere and we traveled on our own carriers reaching Belvedere in the early hours of the morning of 14th September 1943. We stopped for a couple of hours to have a wash and shave, brew up some tea and have our breakfast, then all the carriers and trucks were refueled and we moved on another 30 miles to the little seaside town of Sapri. This must have been a very pretty seaside resort before the war, but when we arrived it had been fairly badly smashed, especially along the coast road. We stayed in and around Sapri for about three days. While we were looking around some of the houses we found that, although the occupants had gone, all the furniture and personal objects still remained. In one house was a radiogram, children鈥檚 toys, a dress uniform and sword. There was even wedding gifts still in their wrappings.

On the second day we found out where all the local inhabitants had gone. They were taking cover from any shelling or bombing by living rough in two very long railway tunnels. Disaster had befallen many of them in one tunnel as at least one of our bombs had fallen and exploded at the entrance, killing many of the occupants and several German soldiers too. The stench of the dead was terrible, so Wenty and I didn鈥檛 hang about there, but went to have a look at the other tunnel. As soon as the people in there saw us, they rushed out jabbering, crying, shouting and waving their arms about. They all looked very scared, dirty and tired. We didn鈥檛 dare go into the tunnel as the stink of foul air, unwashed bodies and human excrement and urine nearly knocked us out. We were also sure it would be alive with fleas. We followed the railway line a little further and found yet another tunnel. We were going to give it a miss, but decided to yell in the entrance to see if anyone was in it. No one answered us, so we walked in a little way and found it was only a short tunnel, but along the rails were six covered wagons. On closer inspection we found that all the wagons contained sack of white flour and the usual darker flour used by the Italians. By the time we had made a thorough search to see if there was anything else, we were surrounded by the Italian civilians. They started shouting and yelling all at the same time, and we didn鈥檛 know if they were going to lynch us. We had our rifles ready in case of trouble. They were really trying to make us understand that they wanted permission to help themselves to the flour. We did not want to witness a free for all scramble and possible fight for the flour, so we tried to explain that we would go and bring an Officer back with us.

We made our way back to our gunpit, and told Gilb Mullins what we had seen. He said it would be a good idea if we got hold of some of the white flour for ourselves as it would make our hard rations tastier. We could have battered bully beef, pancakes or scallops. We went back to the tunnel again, and this time Gilb Mullins came with us. When we arrived, we found the Italians hadn鈥檛 or didn鈥檛 want to understand our suggestion to bring an Officer. They were just like a nest of ants or swarm of bees, they were filling sacks, tins, boxes and anything else they could find with the flour. The din of their voices in the tunnel was almost unbearable. Babies and women were screaming, men were arguing and all were pushing and struggling as if their lives depended on it. We met a few more of our lads who were looking around, and they told us that two press photographers were taking photographs of the bombed tunnel, and were going to photograph the Italians taking away the flour; a good story for some paper I expect. We filled two sandbags and a larger sack with white flour and then returned to our gun position. I started a fire, Wenty made some batter and opened a tin of bully beef. We cut it into slices and dipped them into batter. Ernie Hayward peeled the spuds and we cooked it all with a few tomatoes. What a smashing dinner we had. A section of Inniskillins who were going to take over our gun positions were quite envious and hungry, so we gave them some of our food as we had made more than we could eat.

While we were waiting for the Inniskillin mortars to arrive, we had another look around and found some buildings where German and Italian troops had been billeted. Bomb and shell craters were all around and all the roofs had been destroyed. Inside, amongst the rubble, were broken beds and lockers, the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and yet there were no signs of any casualties. When the Inniskillins mortars arrived, Gilb Mullins gave us a shout and we got our mortars and bombs loaded on to the carrier.

When we got back into Sapri, we had a refreshing wash and brewed up. All the detachments concentrated in the area for the night. The next morning, 19th September 1943, we moved out of Sapri and took up defensive positions on a fork road just outside of Sanza. We only stayed one night, but we were able to replenish our supply of fresh tomatoes and potatoes from a nearby field. In the morning we moved on to a little village called San Angelo where we repeated the previous days programme. On 22nd September 1943 we moved onto Caggiano Torest for a few days.

So far, this invasion of Italy had been a real snip, we were moving on nearly all the time and had met very little resistance. While we were at Caggiano, we did maintenance on our carriers and trucks, and a bit of driving instruction for the new lads. I went to see the Dental Officer at Sala Consaline to have a tooth out.

I think we had been at Caggiano for about five days when the first of the autumn rains came. We were living in our detachment groups in improvised tents made from the strong canvas carrier sheets, under trees, bushes or earth banks. Our detachment had a carrier sheet and we cut some stout poles and built a really decent shelter for the five of us. L/Cpl. Nicklen, Dusty Miller and Pete Kirk did the cooking for the whole platoon while we were there. On the night the rains came, most of us had gone to bed, except for those on guard. Some were sitting smoking or talking in their shelters. At about 9pm a huge cloud came up and blotted out the moon and stars. In the distance we could see flashes of lightning. By 10.30pm with wind got up and howled around our shelter, we knew then that we were in for a rough night. Ern, Gilb Mullins and myself went outside and made sure everything was tied down and secure and then we tried to get some sleep. At 1am the first drops of rain splashed down on the canvas and then it simply fell down in torrents.

The thunder crashed and rumbled about us and the whole area was lit with vivid flashes of lightning. After about an hour I was still dry, but the rain had found a few small holes in the canvas and Amos, our driver, who was sleeping near the outer end had to move in a bit as the wind was blowing the rain under his end. We covered our blankets with our gas capes just in case any rain got in. I lit up a fag and sat listening for a while to the storm. Outside, above the noise of the storm, we heard a few chaps shouting, swearing and laughing. We could just picture them, floating about in their tents, waving goodbye to their boots and socks as they sailed away down the valley. Our Platoon Commander was shouting for his Batman to bring him a torch, and we pictured him splashing about in bare feet, looking for his boots that had gone absent without leave. Just then, two chaps who had just finished their turn on guard came into our shelter, then two from another detachment. Aber Gale was one of them, and of course he would have to go and do something daft. He saw a huge bulge in the canvas above Ern鈥檚 head and he tipped it up and sent a big flood of water behind Ern鈥檚 bed. It soon seeped under his ground sheet and he had to dig a little channel to run the water away.

The rain became heavier as the night went on, but after a while I got my head down to sleep and so did the others, including our four visitors. It was a tight squeeze, but at least we were fairly dry and warm. The rain had stopped when we got up in the morning and a strong wind was blowing, but there were still plenty of rain clouds about. Anything that got wet was hung out to dry before we had our breakfast. Apart from having to go for inoculations, we spent the whole of that day improving our tents and shanties. No one had lost any kit in the storm, but we did have a lot of laughs at some of the tales some of the lads told us.

On 2nd October 1943 we were on the move again, and passed through Potenza. After about twelve miles, we pulled into an area among the olive groves. It was raining hard again at the time, so we soon fixed up a temporary shelter and got a fire going. We brewed up some tea and heated up a few cans of M&V鈥檚 and rice pudding. We left this area the following afternoon and arrived at a little village high up in the hills called Vaglio-Di-Lucania. What a journey that was! It poured with rain all the time, and as we climbed higher into the hills, it got colder and the clouds completely enveloped us. It was nearly dark when we arrived, so after a bit of a confab between the Officers and NCO鈥檚, it was decided we would all sleep in the village school. After parking all the trucks, lorries and carriers in a square outside the school, the cooks got cracking with the food and tea. We lit fires in the two stoves to warm the place up, and to dry some of our wet clothes. The surprise of the evening was an issue of fags, even though they were the dreaded 鈥淰鈥檚鈥�. We were nearly all out of fags, so a smoke was very welcome around a nice warm fire after our meal. I was not on guard at all that night, so I had a good sleep in the dry. We were called early the next morning, and after breakfast, we joined the rest of the brigade carriers and RA guns. Meanwhile, the Rifle companies moved by TCVs on another route as their transport was a good deal faster than ours.

That night we arrived at Miner Vino, which was a big town. We did not stay in the town, but pulled into an area just outside. We had traveled over 100 miles that day. After supper when we had been given our times for guard duty, we got down to sleep. I was on guard from 1am to 3am with Charlie Seaward. We had an even longer journey the next day, and in the evening we arrived at an area just outside Bovino, about 26 miles from Foggia. We had landed in Italy on the southwest coast, now we were well over on the East. In all these days of travelling we had seen nothing of the enemy, even the Luftwaffe were never around to pester us. We began to wonder where the enemy had gone.

The battalion stayed at Bovino for twenty-one days. From the evening of Tuesday 5th October 1943 until Wednesday 27th October 1943. During that time we did a little normal training and fired our mortars. All platoons were in different areas and catered for themselves. 鈥淒usty鈥� Miller and L/Cpl. Nicklen cooked for us. We lived quite well, we scrounged fresh vegetables and flogged salt and chocolate for eggs and fresh milk. We all clubbed together and bought a small pig from a farmer, Peter Kirk killed it and we had some nice pork for several days. We resold half the pork to another platoon as we could only eat so much and had no way of keeping it fresh for long. Fags and soap became more rare than gold or diamonds. It became so bad that if any of us had a butt end, it would be nothing for two pals to walk away from camp to have a puff or two from the butt. I remember when they first started to get short I would cut a fag in half and give Ernie Hayward the other half as he was a heavier smoker than me. We had to save all our butt ends until we had enough to make a fag. We had to bath and wash our clothes in a nearby stream, as no other water was available. Drinking water came in an ARMY water tanker. Soap was very scarce too, and we had to use it carefully and not waste a scrap. We saw one open-air mobile film show while we were there.

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