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StanEllis11
Demob.
Time after the Cessation of Hostilities.

Hello, my name is Ellis Stanley, Army Service number 2092841. I have written my memoirs of World War Two as I lived it. I served through the war from first day to last, and served as a vehicle mechanic, reaching the rank of Corporal. I was a soldier in the Army firstly in the UK, then in North Africa, and finally in Italy and Greece. After Victory in Europe, I was posted to Italy again until I was returned to Aldershot and demobbed in 1946. These memoirs have been edited to conform to People’s War standards, and are spread over 12 title pages, and cover my service in locations as listed below. They have been transcribed by Andrew Voyce, an Open University graduate.

StanEllis1 UK- The Phoney War part 1
StanEllis2 UK- The Phoney War part 2
StanEllis3 UK- Northern Ireland and preparations for the desert
StanEllis4 North Africa- The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein
StanEllis5 North Africa- Active service with the Eighth Army
StanEllis6 North Africa- The final defeat of the Afrika Korps
StanEllis7 Italy and Greece- Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino
StanEllis8 Italy and Greece- Monte Cassino
StanEllis9 Italy and Greece- Some matters of everyday soldiering
StanEllis10 Italy and Greece- The end of the war for me: Victory in Europe
StanEllis11 Demob- Time after the cessation of hostilities
StanEllis12 Demob- Postscript

Time after the cessation of hostilities

Billets in Italy after Home Leave:
The Battalion took over a hotel on the shores of Lake Garda and us REME bods got a little garage down the road. This was when we had returned from our 28 days leave in the UK after the cessation of hostilities. This was still during 1945. We got back from the UK by a service of Army trucks running right through from Northern Italy, through part of Switzerland, across France, and you return on the same fix. Several of our trucks were running to and fro, trying to get everybody 28 days leave. Those who had been serving all those years without any breaks, as it were. Where we ended up- well it was a very pleasant place. We had this luxury hotel, and us mechanics lived in the garage, because we had enough room down there for our own arrangements. The battalion itself was a hotel. Our garage was one down the road. Half a mile down the road it was. All- most of them- deal with Fiats out there. The leave time was in October. 22nd of October ’45. I’ve got a date here for that. It was quite a pleasant time of year. But we were under cover from the elements, you know. The first time for many years.
Excursions with the Army in Italy:
There was a certain amount of leave granted when we were in Italy, because it was all finished in Europe, the Second World War. I did a visit to Venice, and to a skiing centre. Learned how to ski. That was a pleasant change, yes. The relief mechanics had arrived, out in Italy, to take the strain, as it were. I was a Territorial soldier- I just got called up. The battalion I joined, they were regular soldiers. I don’t remember getting more pay than a conscript. You get more pay for being a qualified tradesman, that ups your pay. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it, you know. I had the rank as well- extra pay for the rank. I can’t remember what the actual increments were, it enabled me to enjoy life a bit more. You got more money. Of course most of us were sending money home anyway, to parents in my case. The higher the rank was more money and the trade pay was quite a good increment on your basic Army wages. I was a valuable man. It was mutual, really- I gained no end of experience; they had the benefit of my services. All Army transport, trucks, troop carriers, that’s what we used to get to Venice and to the ski centre. It was organised tours. Like a coach tour would be today. To Venice, and they dropped you off for the day. And then you came back in trucks. That was the same with the ski centre. We went up there for a week, and that was organised like a coach outing is today. We were dropped off and we lived in a hotel up there, which had been used in peacetime as a hotel, and the Germans obviously used it. They all learned to ski the same as we did. By the end of a fortnight I was quite useful on skis. But there weren’t any lifts going up. You walked up and you skied back. There weren’t any of these ski lift things that made life easy- well they do now, don’t they? We deserved that- I think so.
What we had been through:
All that cold weather in Italy, all that soldiering, and all that. A lot in the open air. Particularly for the Battalion, you know, because they were infantry soldiers. In the open air in the winter time. Definitely an ordeal, it was, for everybody who was involved in that. And then of course, you were awarded an age service group in the Army when it come to the end of the war. I was 28, and then eventually you get called to report to Milan, and go down on Army trucks, again, ‘cos all transport is Army, and eventually you get shipped home. Went, drove across to France, come across the Channel, you know. We were demobbed according to our age- Age Service Group, it was called. Depending on your age, and the amount of years service you’d got in. Quite a lot had been demobbed before me, some came afterwards. Mine worked out at, as I say, 28, and that was, I got the full war service in. Having got called up just prior to the war. My Age Service Group was 28- I don’t know what my actual age was, to be quite honest. I was in my mid-twenties. (I spent all those years of my young life chasing after Germans, in the most atrocious conditions and danger.) Quite an experience, it was. We dealt with Hellas, a group in Greece: when the Germans pulled out, they thought it was an opportunity for them to take over. And then the British Army was trying to restrain it all. To keep it for the Greeks. This group Hellas- that was about the time of VE-Day, 1945. We came back from home leave to Italy, stayed in Italy, to Verona initially, then Lake Garda.
The process of leaving the armed services (demobilization):
Got demobbed (de-mobilized from the services), got in the demob process. There were thousands of people being demobbed, it was just a process of going through the systems, and getting shipped home. It was all organised, really, but we were all a bit anxious of course. Eventually we ended up in Aldershot. Got a suit, and a hat, came home. There may have been two pairs of trousers with the suit. They were called ‘Demob Suits’. We had a choice- I picked a brown, a darkish brown one. It may have had stripes. The fashion of the day was for wide lapels. After a while everybody seemed to be able to recognise demob suits. I suppose there was something about them that gave the game away. I wasn’t very old when I went in the Army, I don’t know if I had any suits before that or not. But probably not. When we came back, people like Montague Burton were doing deals on suits. And I retained the Army greatcoat, because I didn’t have any coats. Service greatcoat. I’m not sure whether there wasn’t a small donation required (to the Army to retain the service greatcoat), and there was a process going on, certainly locally, they would dye it a nice dark blue colour, and remove all the brass buttons and things, making it into a civvy coat. Because clothing was rationed at that time. You couldn’t just go and buy an overcoat. So it was a good move to retain it. They were very good stuff, you know, the Army- didn’t half last. I kept that overcoat for years and years. Wore it till it wore out, more or less. This system of dyers dying it, dying it a dark navy blue, it transferred it into civvy street. (We got our demob gear at Aldershot). I’ve got an idea we took our demob gear home in a box. We retained one uniform. We arrived home on the doorstep in uniform.
Initial readjustment to civilian life:
It was something of a terrific change after seven years in the Army, and all of a sudden you’re on your own, as it were. I was thinking about trying to get a job. (There was more or less full employment in those days) and I thought- I’d served with a bloke at one time who worked for the GPO (General Post Office) as a mechanic. I thought: that sounds like a good firm to work for, which it is, I think. But they didn’t have any depots in Bexhill or anywhere near. The nearest depot was at Tonbridge, so if you went and joined that, you’d be travelling to and fro to Tonbridge daily. Didn’t have any transport of course. Anyway I had to waive that, and I returned to Russells’ Garage where I was an apprentice. Went back to the job. And they, according to the law, they had to take you back, but anyway, they were all welcoming, so…Because all their staff had gradually diminished in the war: in the local fire services, and ambulance services, and all that. Yes, they were quite involved with ambulances and fire engines, Russells’ Garage. They used to build ‘em there. Going back a long time, ambulances were built on the chassis’s of very large cars, and they were used by the ARP (Air Raid Patrol) during the war. And for some time afterwards, if I remember rightly. It wasn’t until the big motor companies started building pukka ambulances, like Daimler did, and Vauxhall, that you got a factory built job. But the rest of them were all converted for what you might call temporary use- seven years, like! I am not sure if Russells was a Renualt garage in those days, it could have been, because they had several agencies. One was the Pontiacs from American agency, and they imported two or three of them as a chassis and built caravans, motor homes on them, you know. They had all the blacksmiths and carpenters down there in those days. That’s when the founder member was still alive, L. Louis Russell. He was a strong man for discipline, especially for the mechanics, and apprentices: Get this! Do that! You know.

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