大象传媒

I don't really know where to start. In the army there was a section of soldiers and they had to wear brown boots. Not the ordinary common or garden soldier, no Sir! What happened was that I joined the army in 1940 and I got pitchforked into a place called Deepcut (that's been in the papers quite a lot recently where several young soldiers died) and it was drummed into us, "Whatever you do, get to know your ranks." I had only been in Deepcut for a very short time and I was going for a stroll, minding my own business, and I saw this smart looking soldier coming towards me and he had brown boots on. So I thought, "Well, you don't salute the sergeant-majors. You only salute the officers." Sergeant-majors used to wear a crest. So, as I approached him, I have him the best salute I could manage. He said, "Gunner, don't you know your army rules and regulations?" He was a sergeant-major and I shouldn't have saluted him! Sergeant-majors would come up behind you, tap you on the shoulder and say, "Gunner, you need to get a haircut." "Do I, sir?" "Well, you should do because I'm treading on your hair!" That was an old dodge on their part. They'd say, "You might have broken your mother's heart, you won't break mine though!" They never swore at us though, it was all that sort of thing.

We had more training in Scotland, on the barges for landing and so on, and then after 2 or 3 years had passed we were moved to North Africa. The weather was fine out there, that's one thing. One time when we were in Tunisia, which is a lovely country in the springtime. Not the tourist Tunisia, the real Tunisia. We were going up this narrow street in one of the coastal towns on a brilliant day in July I believe. Brilliant day, with the blue sky you get out there. Looking up through this little aperature, you could see the stars. I lot of people say, "Oh, no, of course you couldn't", but you try it. If you get the chance in England, although I don't suppose you will, get down a well and you'll get the same effect. Looking up through the shaft of the well, you'll see the stars on a fine day, in broad daylight! Also in the same part of Tunisia, there was what must have been a dried up salt flat about 50 miles inland. Looking on the horizon though, you could see water, or at least you thought you could. It was just a mirage though.

Another time we were about to leave North Africa, and go to Italy on an invasion. Not far from where we were camped there was an orange grove owned by some local Arab people, and naughtily I suppose, we decided we could do with a few of these oranges to take to Italy. We went out that evening, another chap and myself, shinned up this bank, and there were all these cactus trees planted on the top - those Micky Mouse ones. Well, unbeknown to me, I picked up something when I was up there. We went to Bizerte, ready for sailing, and about 3 days later the old arm was beginning to play me up. Of course, you couldn't undress at all, that's one thing you can't do in the army, not for ages on end. I took the old tunic off, and there was one of the Arab thorns in my tunic. It was through enough just to nicely say, "Now don't you do that again, Soldier!" I didn't go back to apologise and they were horrible oranges anyway!

We landed in a place called Anzio for the invasion beyond the Germans. We couldn't get in through Monte Casino so they decided to send us up the coast and land behind them. A lovely thing about Italy was that we were in Anzio from the end of January until nearly into June when we went into Rome, and the nightingales sang their hearts out! There were the guns firing, and from the shrubs which was the vegetation there, they just sang their hearts out. I think they broadcast it in England, one of the leading news chaps broadcast from Anzio about the nightingales singing. When we arrived, naturally the Italians cleared off, and we decided we wouldn't mind having a bit of lamb or mutton as it proved to be. There were sheep wandering all over the place, you see. In the next gun, which was several hundreds yards from us, there was a chap who had been a butcher. He said, "Well, why not? We'll have lamb for lunch." So we finished off one of these poor old sheep, but we couldn't eat the thing - it was an old ewe! It was all for nothing and we had to content ourselves with corned beef, bully beef, which wasn't too bad. It was funny that, when you look back on it.

Another thing was, the army was very particular about hygiene. It might sound silly, but even tins had to be flattened them so the water didn't gather in them and attract mosquitoes. Mosquitoes were one of the biggest enemies out there, because soldiers are no good when they've got malaria! One of our gunners was very good at digging trenches, for 'a certain purpose' let's say. About 8 o'clock every morning, the Germans, who were about a mile and a half away up in the hills, would send over some shells - just to cheer us up for breakfast really! Our bombadier, he had taken up position by this trench, to carry out what is a personal, and usually private bodily function. Over came the shells, and he didn't completey disappear, but suffice to say he went backwards into the trench! It's true, he was a nice chap, he was too. Unfortunately, not long after that, we were dropping back and we were in what they call a 'waddy', or a dried up water course. Fairly deep, and there was a troop of about 50 or 60 men sheltering in it. The weapons were nothing like they are today, and they sent over what is called in German a 'Mininverva'. It's on a dustbin, and it had 6 barrels on it. They came over and dropped it on us. One of the chaps who I'd been with since I joined up got killed, and another young Welshman. He was a young married man with a kiddy, and soon after a little parcel came for him, but he had gone. The captain said, 'Well, boys, it's not going to do any good, is it?" So we shared it out. There were razor blades and stuff in it. That's the tragic side of it, you know.

I remember one time we were going along a long straight road in Southern Italy and we had tractors pulling the guns. I was having a scrounge riding in the back of the tractor with another gunner. There were 54 guns in the regiment, and when you're on a long wide stretch like that, you have to keep your distance because the German planes are likely to dive down, with their horrible sound. If you're well spaced out though, maybe they'd only be able to get one lot. So, away we go, with our backs to the way we were going so we couldn't see the road ahead. We'd gone up this road a certain way, and we both needed to spend a penny - very badly! They wouldn't stop though, oh no, you just had to put up with it. But the strange thing is, it isn't possible to spend a penny when you're on a moving vehicle. I'm not kidding at all! At that moment, unbeknown to us, there was a peasant farmer and his wife jogging along the same road as us, going the same way, with their daughter sitting in between them. She wasn't exactly Sophie Loren though - I think she was dressed in sacks probably. As we overtook them, doing our best to relieve nature, there was nothing doing at all, so we had to put it away and wait until we stopped!

So, back we were in North Africa, and they got our hopes raised. They told us we were going back to Algiers. 'Hurray!', we thought. 'Back to Algiers, and then home to England.' But then they started that second front that they were talking about all the time. We set off on our 1,000 mile journey, and unfortunately the guns we were on hadn't got any protection at all. You sat on this side, and they fired off the wheels. It was the heat that used to beat us really, because there was nothing at all over our heads. We got back to Algiers thinking, 'Well, this will be alright.' We had a few easy weeks training, and then they told us we were going back to North West Africa! 'No, we don't believe it.', we thought. We were though. We had to get ready to go over to Italy. Apparently there was a bit of a do on over there! So, 1,000 miles this way, 1.000 miles that way, and we were back were we started from! That was how the old army operated. I think Mr. Churchill was behind it but I'm not sure!! He was alright though, old Winnie!

Another thing was, old Eisenhower, the American general, was going to review us before we went over there. Rumour was that he took rather a shine to his lady chauffeur! Anyhow, the idea was that we were going to have a march past, and to save the vehicles getting dusty we had to go to the parade ground, and stay there overnight just so that we were ready for when he arrived the next day. I wasn't very pleased with him really!

When we finally got to Rome, they were throwing roses at us and that kind of thing. We got held back for a time, and sometimes we went into a lovely wood, with ever such tall pine trees. It was really cool in their amongst the pine needles, and the ladies used to come and visit us occasionally! Then we went back to Naples by which time it had been conquered by the Allies. There was a canteen set up for us there, and foolishly we went for our tea leaving all of our personal belongings in our vehicle. When we come back, we found that the locals had helped themselves to the vehicle, and all our things!

From there we went to Leghorn, and over to Germany. At that time of course, people didn't like the Germans, but we found them alright. In fact, the first time we ever took any German prisoners was in Anvio, and there were only a few dozen Germans there. We started talking, and we gave them cigarettes. One of the Germans had a piece of smoked bacon. He knew very well that when they were passed back down the line (as POW's) that would be taken away, so he said, 'You'd better get on with this!' So, he have us the bacon, we gave him the fags, and he also gave us something that was known as 'something for the weekend'! (Condoms). He told us, 'Well, they won't do me much good will they. I won't have much use for them where I'm going!'.

Quite honestly though, we envied them. They were out of the war, they were going back to England, and they would be working on a farm - how we wished we were going with them.

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