大象传媒

This a story about a friend of my grandads

A POSTMANS STORY

This is the story of a remarkable man. A man who wanted no accolades, but had three great loves in his life. His family, his religion, and his fellow men.
Not for him M.B.Es although goodness knows he deserved one. He just got on with his life and did the best he could for his wife and five children. His religion, by becoming a Methodist preacher. His fellow men, borne out by his outstanding war record. As a RASC driver he escorted many famous people (and later politicians) including Harold McMillan, Enoch Powell, Sir Brian Horrocks, Field Marshal Alexander, Marshal Tito, President Kadesh of Yugoslavia, Prince Bernaldt of he Netherlands, and even General Eiesenhower.

In the year 1913 in the parish of Bramley South Yokshire, a baby was born named George Eric Daniels. His family later moved to nearby Maltby, a village fast becoming a town thanks to it standing on a rich seam of coal.

Eric was first educated at Maltby Craggs School, and then on to Rotherham Grammar School. He was an exceedingly bright lad and would no doubt have made his way through University, he had the potential to aspire to any position he set his mind to, it is said Prime Minister would not have been outside his capabilities, unfortunately just like most working class families those days, when the time came to leave school there weren鈥檛 the funds to send him there.

It was apparent at an early age he held strong religious beliefs, though his parents were Methodists they didn鈥檛 have the same strong convictions as Eric, even at the age of fourteen he loved to read the lesson at the local Methodist Church.

After leaving school the first people to employ him were Middletons the corn merchants of Maltby, eventually leaving them to join Humphrey Davies a firm making medicines, as sales representative for whom he worked until his call up.

He met Violet his future wife in November 1934 At that time Violet lived in Mansfield Nottinghamshire where some of Eric鈥檚 relatives lived, his cousin attended the same Sunday school, and youth club as Violet and were in each other鈥檚 company quite a lot. Eric and his family used to spend Christmas with their relatives and that is how the two met. In1938 after a four-year courtship they were married.

After he was demobed he was unable to return to his old job at Humphrey Davies as the firm had fallen on hard times.

In order to look after his wife and family he joined the post office and served Maltby as a postman until he retired, hence the title A Postman鈥檚 Story.

He had a remarkable memory for facts and figures, during my interview to record his wartime experiences he needed no prompting, I had only to turn on the recorder for him to start, and what always amazed me was how he remembered where he left off at the previous session, as a matter of fact I used a small hand held recorder which used an half hour tape, and time after time I would look at the tape only to find it had stopped some time ago. I used to marvel at his recall of events, names, and even serial numbers on machinery.

Just to give one instance of Eric鈥檚 recall. Whilst in North Africa he mentioned a twelve engine Dornier flying boat, I was in the RAF Egypt but I never heard of a twelve engine aircraft. Looking on the Internet I found it. About which more later.

I only met Eric a year before he died but we became firm friends in that time. He loved to sit with me and recall his wartime adventures. His story was so interesting people had asked him to put it down on pencil an paper but he told me he was always going to do but never seemed to have the time.

The reason I took on the task was the simple fact people like him were nearly extinct, and as he pointed out future generations need to know what war is like to try to avoid making the same mistakes. It is not just the killing and the fact that practically an whole generation of able and capable people on both sides were denied the chance to make the world a fit place for all to live in, but the disruption of family lives for which he passionately cared about.

Having got to know Eric I firmly believe if he had tried, with his convictions he could have opted out of military service as a consciences objector. But I wouldn鈥檛 have thought the idea even entered his head, yet on reflection in all his military service he was never put into the position of having to fire at his fellow men, although he was in the forefront of enemy action most of his service career.

CHAPTER ONE

Hitler didn鈥檛 take me away from Civy Street until the fifth of December 1940 I was 27at the time and Dunkque was still on every one鈥檚 mind wondering when the German armies would cross the English Channel.

The Blitz was in full swing with British major cities being unmercifully pounded non-more than Sheffield; this was the state of play when my calling up papers arrived through the letterbox.

My papers had been deferred for a short while as my wife was expecting a baby so it was with mixed feelings that I presented myself at the Bluecoats school in Sheffield, to be informed my regiment would be the Royal Army Service Core. (R.A.S.C). The regiment I was given to understand had the responsibility of supplying the goods and services to the army, my army trade was to be a driver.

On the 12th of December we were given instructions on basic fire precautions and as if on cue around five o-clock the air-raid siren sounded their long unbroken wail. Before long the unforgettable sound of bombs falling starting fires in every direction. Within the hour we were placed under the charge of the fire service and given the task of shoring up buildings, rescuing people from the rubble and trying to make roads accessible to the emergency services. It was during this period that we sadly lost two of our men buried under a building we were trying to make safe.

I remember vividly the 13th for we were in the high street at 5am when the biggest store in Sheffield, Walshes, was burned to the ground and all we could do was stand by and watch, as the water mains had been severed, and no water was available, we had to leave the main street including three trams to burn.

On the Sunday night the German bombers returned and our basic training went by the board. The next two weeks was spent on rescue duties, as general laborers helping to renovate and restore something like normal life to the city.

When the final count of the damage Sheffield sustained by air raids, the figures made appalling reading. A total of 668 civilians and 25 service men were killed, and 92 persons were missing. 589 seriously and 1223 slightly injured.

On joining we were told to expect four weeks basic training, we did our first week before the blitz; the next two weeks were spent helping the emergency services, meaning we had to cram the rest of our military training into one week.

Firing practice was done out on the moors at Totley where targets in army terms called butts were set up. This was probably the first time most of us had seen a rifle as arms at that time were very hard to come by, and I well remember the chap next to me firing his rifle when it 鈥榝lowered鈥� meaning the end of the barrel opened up like petals. I remember it was snowing at the time and later at the subsequent inquiry the accident was put down to a snowflake falling inside the barrel.

Some of the training had to be done at night and as the army was short of training vehicles the army commandeered some civilian trucks for us to practice on, we drove all round Derbyshire in the middle of the night with the head lights lighting up the deserted roads like Blackpool illuminations, even though our headlights were fitted with masks which were supposedly designed to avoid the lights being seen from the air, whatever their function they certainly made it difficult for drivers to see on the road.

At the end of the months training we were passed out whether we had completed it or not. Because I was the oldest of the group I was put in charge of six men and sent to Seminary House in the Cookeridge district of Leeds, which before the war had been a residence of Roman Catholic priests who for their personal safety had been moved out to the country.

We didn鈥檛 know it at the time, but we were to find out later, that Seminary House was being used as an office for the formation of a new fighting force called the Ninth Core.

The time we spent at Seminary house displayed our lack of knowledge of how the army works. One example I well remember, we decided to complain over lack of diet in our rations, only to find the cooks were supplementing their pay by selling it around Leeds.

In due course we were marshaled together and marched along to Wellington barracks across Leeds in very heavy snow, on arriving we saw covered in snow the shapes of various vehicles. The method used to allot a vehicle to a driver was reminiscent to the old time racing start, by lining us up and telling us to run and get hold of a vehicle, not one for you and one for him and so on, just run and pick your own, I was the last one to get there and it looked as if they had all been claimed, until somebody discovered buried under a large drift a Humber car so really I did my self a favor by being slow.

After two weeks stay at Wellington Barracks we found ourselves erecting tents on the hallowed ground of Headingly, the home of Yorkshire CC, we camped on the pitch whilst others were billeted in the offices and stands using the parish hall for instruction.

The next move was up to north Yorkshire to Catterick where we were billeted in the tote on the racecourse, there we were allotted our vehicles and started to do regular trips allover the north of England distributing blankets, clothing, uniforms all sorts of army supplies. I formed quite a liking for the County of Northumberland with its wide-open spaces.

A large number of troops were stationed in that area at the time, as the thought was the Germans would try to cut off Scotland with England so it was our job to keep our forces supplied. Our main problem was being constantly shifted around, we would spend two weeks at one Barracks then on return from a delivery have to move on again finishing up in the Green Howard鈥檚 Barracks at Richmond Yorkshire.

Our next move was to the big hotel at Scots Corner where the A1 divides; the hotel had been taken over
As the army headquarters in order to form a new fighting force to be known as the ninth core, to be used as a striking force in some other theatre abroad. The force was to be commanded by the man who had organized the flying squad at Scotland Yard, General Crocker, before being transferred to the army.

My biggest memory at that time was the atrocious weather we had to overcome that winter, as the roads were treacherous. But somehow we managed without much loss of life or injury.

The time came when we moved down to Suffolk to take part in training exercises, the general in charge of the opposing force who was later to become famous was Bernard Montgomery, he must have been a winner, for after that exercise he was spirited away to the Middle East.

The time eventually came when we had to get ready to go overseas. We were moved down to Swaffham a town in Norfolk, which was home to several army encampments.
The one we occupied was in a densely wooded area called Cockley Clay, I remember we were very wary of playing football as nests of Hornets hung down from tree branches and Hornets get very angry when disturbed. Cockley Clay was the only place in the UK I can recall ever seeing Hornets.

The main industry in that area was farming and the farm workers didn鈥檛 get a great deal by the way of entertainment, it was suggested by one of or men with a theatrical back ground who originated from Blackpool, to put on a pantomime and invite the workers and their families to the show as away of thanking them for the friendliness they had shown towards us.

With our C.Os full permission we found a farmer who let us use one of his empty granaries, so we set about the task of sweeping it out and rigging up a stage, and started rehearsing Cinderella, my role turned out to be one of the ugly sisters.

After all the usual problems of putting on a show we were finally ready to give our performance to our public. The C/O again came up trumps by allowing our transport section to go out to the remote areas and bring in the farmers families to our makeshift theater. The show may not have been up to West End standards but the reaction of the audience made all our efforts worthwhile. Everyone forgot all the effects of the war for a short while, the kids shouted at the baddie, cheered the goody, and everyone sang the songs, it was a memorable night made even better by the fact that on pay parade we were issued with a bar of chocolate which we saved and dished out to the children as the entered the makeshift theatre to watch our performance.

The Pantomime was not allowed to interfere with the training, which I found very hard going, and I remember vividly having to go over the assault course, the most frightening part was at the end when we had to crawl along a rope tightly suspended over a muddy lake. Woe betide the soldier who slipped of the rope as it took half the day thawing out and cleaning themselves and their equipment, as the course had to be carried out with full kit on our backs. I considered myself very fortunate in completing the course successfully.

During our time at Swaffham we had an intake of men assembled from all parts of the globe, one of them was a reservist called back into the army who had served in the China garrison pre war and was a crack shot with a catapult. Thursday night he would sneak into the nearby woods and come back with some mixed game, which was against all army regulations and would have meant detention had he being caught. In the unit was eight men who hailed from the Birmingham area and the worked it so that two of them received a weekend pass, which enabled them to take back the game hanging inside their trousers hanging from their belts, giving their friends and families extra rations and a rare treat that weekend. I wouldn鈥檛 have liked to have to travel alongside them on the journey home as the game started to ripen.

The C/O tried his best to accommodate the men going on weekend pass, for instance the London men were not able to catch a train that would get them back to camp late on Sunday night, so for several weekends I had the job of taking the transport to King鈥檚 Lynn railway station to pick them up early Monday morning. I mention this incident in particular owing to fact that on my way to King鈥檚 Lynn I discovered a family of red squirrels in some Beech trees, I loved to spend ten minutes watching their antics, I felt this was my personal reward as red Squirrels were rare even in those days, before completing the journey to the station.

CHAPTER TWO

Towards the end of winter around early March we were assembled at the railway station at Swaffham, which is no longer there as is the fate of most stations, making way for a road. We embarked on a troop train, and set of for goodness knows where. I remember the window blinds being drawn late at night. I, like the rest of us fell asleep and for some reason awoke just as the train arrived at my hometown station of Rotherham, passing Swinton and Mexborough on the way to the Settle to Carlisle line, and up into Scotland in a transit camp at the side if the river Clyde.

There we embarked onto a large liner which after two days set off at a great rate of knots, we all thought this is it we are off now, but the ship having got well out to sea turned round and arrived back on the Clyde, tying up at the very same mooring as we had left a day or so ago. On asking the crew the reason for the short cruise, we were told they had being testing the engines.

After the trial another batch of men were marched aboard ship, we were later to find out that they were men who had volunteered to be released from prison to join the army, and had being drafted into a light infantry unit. After they joined ship nothing was safe and you had to keep a sharp eye on your possessions in case the vanished.

Eventually the journey started with six thousand troops aboard the ship and we had only sailed as far as the coast of Northern Ireland when we were struck by an Atlantic gale causing the ship to roll violently, it seemed that everyone aboard was violently sea sick leaving us with a terrible mess to clean up as the storm gradually abated. Because the ship could travel faster than a submarine we were sailing unescorted, the journey taking us down into the South Atlantic. It was there were we were entertained by the flying fishes emerging from the water and re-enter with a great splash, not to be outdone Dolphins and Porpoises would escort the ship and engage in the trick of crossing and re-crossing the ships bows. We were allowed one hour on deck morning and evening, smoking was not possible, as it was thought by the powers that be that the glow from all those cigarettes would make it possible to see the ship from a great distance.

For some reason the ship was turned around and sped northwards as fast as the ship could travel were we eventually entered the Straights of Gibraltar at nighttime to avoid any lurking Submarines in the vicinity.

At the Port of Aran we discharged some men then carried on to Algiers, where as soon as we dropped anchor before we could get to the ships rails they were marching the ex-prisoners off the ship presumably to reinforce a light infantry regiment there.

After disembarking we were transported twenty miles or so to a small place called Boufarik, the thing of note being the fact that the place boasted an abandoned brick kiln. The kiln and yard had being forced to close, as Welch coal, which was necessary to create the very high temperatures needed to fire bricks, was of course unobtainable.

On the outskirts surrounding Boufarik were orange groves and to our amazement a distillery. It amused us to find that the prominent citizens were running an assortment of vehicles on a spirit distilled from oranges.

The thing that didn鈥檛 amuse us was being billeted in the brick kiln, as we were covered in very fine brick dust, which got everywhere, on our skin, down our throats, and into every nick and cranny of our uniforms. But as the kiln provided good cover from the elements we some how learned to put up with the irritant. Fortunately for us we were only there for two week as our vehicles turned up at Oman

Around this time we lost our Brigadier a man who was later to become the prime minister of Great Britain. Harold McMillan. The reason being the French at that time couldn鈥檛 agree amongst themselves who were the rightful Government of France, so Churchill sent McMillan to try to mediate between them.

Now that we had our vehicles we prepared to move up to the front in Tunisia a distance of five or six hundred miles from our last location, we were also allotted new commanders, my officer being a young an active regular soldier, Lt Colonel Garrett, who on the day of departure, drove up to the distillery and arrived back with three large baskets of oranges, the way to Tunisia was marked by a trail of orange peal. The oranges being the Satsuma type we could peal them with one hand.

At our first evening鈥檚 stop we joined up with some American troops, they were the first Americans we had come into contact with; we were amazed at the difference between the provision of their soldiers and ours. They seemed to have everything for their well being, the thing that struck us most was the quality of their rations, they had things we had not seen since before the war. Compared to them we were on starvation rations.

Next morning we were on our way again passing between two mountain ranges, the Atlas and the Anti Atlas, we were able to make good progress thanks to the good road the French had lain. An interesting thing about that area was the resemblance to Holland, owing to the fact that almost every rooftop and chimney had Storks nests clinging to them.

Eventually we arrived at a stream straddled by a small bridge which we were informed marked the border, and across it lay Tunisia which to us meant we were now in the fighting zone.

We progressed further into the region and halted behind a ridge, we were informed by the commander that on the other side of the ridge were the enemy and be sure to keep our heads well down. The evidence lay all around us of the fighting, because of the heavy rains that winter the Allied troops had the worst of the it, burnt out tanks, half tracks, artillery, pieces of every type destroyed during the battle for the Kesserin pass, made sure we heeded his warning

. As the weather improved there was more activity, because the Germans at that time had air superiority, fighter aircraft continually strafed our positions. As we didn鈥檛 have the luxury of warnings and air raid shelters in the dessert, the thing to do was to dig slit trenches, and on the appearance of the fighter aircraft dive into the nearest one available. This ducking and diving lead to a funny incident, one of our lads dived into a trench landing on what appeared to be an enameled washbowl, only to discover when he moved it, the Brigadier was underneath, he hadn鈥檛 had time to grab his steel helmet the wash bowl was the only thing to hand at the time.

There was a three-mile stretch of road nearby which had been named Mesershmitt alley and was a no go area to us owing to the fact that German aircraft strafed anything that moved along that particular stretch, but as we were getting stronger every day it started to get less dangerous along that road enabling us to move more freely. I was out one day with the Colonel when he asked me to stop telling me he was going to do a spot of recognisance of the area, on moving the vehicle into a nearby orange grove to receive some cover I settled down to wait my officers return, unfortunately the vehicle must have been spotted as I was subjected to a barrage of shelling for quite a while and wherever I moved the shells seemed to land close by but not near enough to do me any harm. Eventually the Colonel returned and we were thankfully able to get out in one piece.

The General officer in charge of the Allied forces at that time was Alexandra, a veteran of the First World War. A General Crocker had now appeared and his job was to turn us into a mobile fighting force. When March arrived, as the weather improved we were engaged in hitting the enemy columns as they moved out of Libya into Tunisia, moving back each night to re arm and re fuel, and out again at six each morning only to break off the engagement as the light began to fade. This carried on for twenty-six days, only ending when the whole front burst into flames as the American armies were attacking the north with our armies coming up from the south, and us right in the middle, coming up to the front was the eighth army under the command of the later to become famous General Montgomery.

It was around this time I was privileged to be allocated the Fourth Indian division, I say privileged because of the fact that they were hero鈥檚 of thousands of sorties in and about the desert sustaining forty-five thousand casualties in the process, made me realize just how much we owed to the people of the empire. It felt strange to me to observe their culture and how their way of life differed from ours. One custom that seemed strange, was when they received their pay they received an allocation of wool sent from India and when they were off duty they passed the time in large groups knitting away making their own comforts, socks, gloves, jumpers, scarves anything to make life in the dessert more bearable.

As the campaign was nearing completion I was told by my Sergeant Major he had a new job for me, I was to next morning go to the local airstrip and collect our new General to replace Crocker, who was being sent to appraise a new weapon captured from the Germans. We were later to learn that General Crocker sustained a wound whilst trying out the weapon. I arrived with my vehicle at the airstrip and as soon as the aircraft had stopped out stepped the new General, who after jumping into the seat at the side of me introduced himself as Lt General Brian Horrocks of the thirteenth core. The General was later to become famous as Sir Brian Horrocks by giving TV lectures on war strategies

I found the General a very affable man, very approachable, and after throwing his baggage into the back of my battle wagon he hoisted himself into the spare seat, and told me he was at my command, off we drove to our headquarters.

On the way he asked me my name, then told me that for the next few days we were going to be together, because our General had been wounded. We had not traveled far when he spotted someone he knew and poking his head out of the window asked how he was, he did this repeatedly on the journey as he seemed to know every one by their first name. He told me on one of our trips, that at the end of the fourteen eighteen war he had signed on as a regular soldier for twenty years, but during the period between the two world wars he hardly made any progress career wise, owing to defence cuts. On reaching the rank of Captain he stayed in that rank for nineteen years until the outbreak of word war two. To his amazement within two weeks he was given the rank of Brigadier because of the shortage of skilled, experienced officers.

I remember one day seeing a column of prisoners coming towards us, he told me he yesterday had received signal telling him to expect five thousand prisoners, and now forty thousand were arriving to give themselves up. These sorts of numbers were causing bigger logistical problems than the fighting.

As the campaign progressed and the enemy retreated, mines became a problem slowing down our advance, one day we were amazed to see a line of tanks, where, attached to their fronts on a revolving drum were a number of flails made from lengths of chains, the flails were hitting the ground in front of the tanks exploding any mines in their path, quickly clearing a path for us to travel over, clear proof that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

The thing that stuck us as being strange as we approached the outskirts of Tunis was seeing the main approach road into the city clear of traffic and personnel. Next day the answer became clear, as after the flail tanks had cleared the road the whole army seemed to descend on it, tens of thousands of men and vehicles packed the road which left the city cut off by our forces.

Next day I parted company with General Horrocks who established a command post and Lt Colonel Garret took over my vehicle once again. Our unit was one of the first to reach the defences of Tunis after the Derbyshire Yeomanry, and on entering the city Garret told me to follow his orders implicitly, saying he was familiar with the city, as, having been here before the war knew it well, informing me we were about to go directly to the German officers mess as he new exactly which building was their headquarters. He marched straight into the building and made them aware that we were now in command of city. After some argument the German waiters and soldiers started bringing from out of the building cases of Champaign and loading them into my vehicle, he told me they were safe with me as I was strictly T-Total, and as they had relieved the French of it the last thing the Germans would need where they were going was a fine Champaign. This was the fruits of victory and whenever he met up with his friends they were handed a bottle or two of Champaign, a very popular fellow our Colonel. I had a hard time keeping the cache of Champaign secret from the men as my battle wagon was full of the stuff, and knowing what soldiers are the Colonel would soon have been relieved of it.

The French had resurrected an old abandoned railway line to replace the old slow route used by mule trains to supply the city, the men waited anxiously for the first train to arrive as the word was one of the carriages was loaded with booze. As soon as the train came to a stop the doors of the carriages were opened but not single drop was to be seen. It came to light the train was raided further up the line, and the carriage had been relieved of its cargo, this made me more fearful of my cargo and I was glad when last bottle had been handed out. There was a time when I was more fearful of my own comrades than I was of the whole German army.

Around that time an incident happened which had for me repercussions later on in Italy. For two weeks we were billeted alongside a regiment of the French foreign legion, whilst we were there one of my duties was to drive on an afternoon down to the railhead to pick up the units mail. On the way back from my first trip I drove up to a Legionnaire carrying a large leather bag over his shoulder, apparently returning from picking up the mail for their unit. I told him to jump in and gave him a lift back to his unit. This went on for a couple of days, then on the third day I found him being escorted by two armed Legionnaires, it appeared there had being some infiltration in the area and it was their duty to make sure the mail got through, I gave a lift to all three of them but couldn鈥檛 help wondering why I was not given an escort.

In due course a regiment of Semigallees from French West Africa supplanted the Legion, I remember them as being small men the tallest only coming up to our shoulders, they were a very friendly lot and were at great pains to quickly learn vital English words and phrases. They surprised us by asking us if we would help look for Tortoises in the spring groves, we supplied them with hundreds of the creatures, which, after they were cooked, were looked on as a great delicacy by the little fellows, I didn鈥檛 fancy eating them myself. Eventually we were moved away from that sector of the front and were sorry to have to Part Company with these troops as we got on famously with them.

It was about this time when Colonel Garrett was told that the unit was to be dismantled with the car company going to headquarters, as it seems the new commander in chief had been very impressed with our performance at the front. The Colonel was more than a little upset with this news as it meant breaking up a unit that he regarded as his baby, and furthermore he would be free and available for any commander who wanted him for his unit, we were all a little sorry for him as we had all worked well together and had a great deal of respect for the man.

Although everyone were preparing for the victory march through Tunis to be held as a celebration and mark the end of hostilities in that theater of the war, the Colonel who was angry at the decision to break up his command decided he wanted none of it, instead he loaded up our truck with food and vitals and along with his batman off we went to the Cape Bon Peninsular where the fighting had come to its conclusion in Tunisia. It was there the Germans finally gave up and asked for petrol to enable their tired troops to come in and surrender on mass. Horrocks himself later told me that we had none to spare ourselves, and although we may have been enemies we couldn鈥檛 help feeling sorry for them having to march in, in the terrific heat of the day. So whilst the victory march was taking place the three of us spent the day as tourists driving around the peninsular.

I never saw the march through Tunis but my palls told me what a great occasion and spectacle it had been with all the big wigs and Generals in attendance, still on reflection I was privileged to see things that not many had been able to see at the Cape Bon Peninsular. Celebrations were also held at nearby Carthage. Carthage being the ancient city of the Phoenicians, who used to sail all the way to Britain to fetch tin from Cornwall which was no mean fete in those days.

During my time in Tunis I made my way to the English church, which was established during the reign of Queen Victoria, I was privileged to have the opportunity to speak with the rector, Rev.Donald, and his daughter who were living in a compound close by the church, when asked how they were treated during the occupation, I was very surprised and pleased to be informed that the local German commander must have been a fine Christian man, as after his visit they were left to practice their beliefs without interruption all through the occupation. Whilst having a tour around the church gardens, it was interesting to see the place where the remains of the twentieth century songwriter, who wrote Home Sweet Home, John Howard Pain, had been laid to rest.

Now that the fighting had come to an end, troops were dispersed to all parts of Tunisia to wait for the next theater of operations, we ended up in Carthage and set up camp near the palace of the Bey of Tunis who was the ruler of Tunisia. The Bey had a summer palace at a place called Lamarsa which was the home of the State Museum which housed artifacts retrieved from both diggings and the sea by French archeologists and divers. There I was able to enjoy looking at boats and their contents thousands of years old, all put together inside this wonderful museum. I was also awed by the aqueduct the Romans had built at the time of their occupation, to enable clean pure water to be brought sixty miles, all the way from the mountains to Carthage, in order to indulge in their favorite social activity, bathing.

All the history around me inspired me sufficiently to obtain a two day pass and travel to nearby Tunis to visit the state Museum called The Bardo, I enjoyed the visit equally as much as a visit to the British Museum in London, I particularly enjoyed the story of the Phoenician General Hannibal, who crossed the Alps with a troop of Elephants in an attempt to capture Rome centuries before.

It was not long before we started to prepare for the invasion of Sicily, and the mainland of Italy, which was preceded by the softening up of the defences by the American air force, using hundreds of Flying Fortresses. Whilst this was going on we were moved to a land locked inland harbor named Biserta, which seemed large enough to house the whole British fleet, it was there the invasion task force was being assembled. It was at Biserta that our air forces had tried to find a huge German fuel dump, which turned out to be so well camouflaged that they never found it. When we arrived we found the dump housing over six million gallons of petrol, to us it was like liquid gold.

The surrounding area to our encampment was very flat and level; the American Air Force had laid a runway and was using it to fly the aircraft out to bomb the invasion areas. It was whilst we were parading one day, we were to witness a horrendous tragedy. A Fortress took off, and, on reaching around five hundred feet, turned nose down, powering into the ground with a terrific explosion, the aircraft being fully bombed up for the intending strike, no-one could have possibly got away from that inferno, it to me emphasizes the futility of war where so many young peoples lives end prematurely.

The accident by the Fortress reminded me of another accident; this time it was a German aircraft, which suffered. It happened to a very unique aircraft.

It seems that the Germans were in such an hurry to get reinforcement of both troops and equipment to the war zone in north Africa, that they fitted two prototype aircraft, Dornier flying boats, huge seaplanes fitted with twelve engines, six on each wing, which were being tested on lake Lucerne near the Swiss border. With undercarriages. We came across the wreckage of one of these monsters near Tunis. It appeared the aircraft whilst taking off from a former French airfield; the temporary undercarriage struck a wall, and came to grief nearby.

CHAPTER THREE

The day came when it became our turn to embark onto infantry landing craft for the crossing of the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of Sicily; our vehicles were to follow later as the craft were not equipped to carry them.

Whilst crossing the Mediterranean we passed a small Allied convoy, limping along behind the rest of the group was a small tanker. Suddenly the tanker erupted in a huge ball of flame, whether it was hit by a torpedo or struck a mine we never new, but the chances of anyone getting away seemed very remote, as the sea was boiling around the ship making it imposable to attempt to pick up possible survivors. It seemed sad to think of human lives being lost in the blink of an eye, friend or foe. I well remember the fire being reflected from the clouds long after the convoy was out of sight.

We were to disembark on a beach near a town called Syracuse famous for being the birthplace of Archimedes the great mathematician. The landing site was a small bay where some gliders had detached themselves from their tow too early and had landed in the water killing most of the occupants, evident by the wreckage strewn all around the beaches. The Italians had prepared the defences of the beach by installing big twelve-inch guns pointing out to sea, there was a big shock in store for us when we got up to these guns for on the makers nameplate was engraved, Made in Newcastle on Tyne. Manufactured by Sir W G Armstrong Witworth. Elswick on Tyne. 1919.

The ships whose job it was to bombard the area were called Monitors, and not having a deep keel were designed to operate in relatively shallow water. But here the water was even too shallow for them to sail in close, the nearest they could get to the beachhead was some twelve miles out, yet even from that distance their aim was so accurate they took out the big defensive guns as if it were a fairground shooting range.

We were billeted in Syracuse to wait for our vehicles, which we were told, were following on in slower ships. Whilst we were waiting I remember one chap to whom I shall always be grateful, a soldier by the name of Hewitt who hailed from the Reading area. He carried a Banjo with him wherever he went, even when landing on the beach, we were cheered us up no end by his playing, providing a ready supply of music for us to sing to. It was good to report that Syracuse escaped with little or no damage as the fighting took place around the outskirts of the town due to the fact that the Canadians had landed at the opposite side of the town and the defenders had been caught in a pincer movement.

We were in Syracuse for six weeks before our vehicles followed on, so our time was spent getting an old single track rail line back into working order to enable us to move supplies up front, as the few roads capable of taking traffic were chocked full. The big problem was the fact that the engines were steam driven and needed coal to run them, somehow the problem was overcome and the line at that time must have been the busiest single line in the world.

The American army had landed at Palermo in northern Sicily whilst the British and Allied troops pushed up from the south east corner. It took three to four weeks of fierce fighting before the Germans were forced into the top corner of the island past Mt Etna the mountain which boasts the highest volcano in the world, it seemed strange to us the fact that not long ago we were in sweltering heat and now here we were coping with snow.

Around that time the news came through that the Italians had changed sides and joined the Allies. The Italian prisoners we had taken in Sicily were relesed, and I remember driving up a road on my way to a place called Floridia seeing an old gray haired lady who spotted a soldier amongst the line of Italian ex prisoners whom we imagined to be her son. After all these years later I still see in my minds eye the lady putting her arms out and the soldier running into them with shouts of joy, yes it was what we now call a real tear jerker.

We arrived at a place called Catania where we came into contact with some SAS troops; they were in an area given to Lord Nelson after his victory over Napoleon at the battle of the Nile. The locals took great pride in showing us around Nelson鈥檚 Sicilian residence to them he was a local hero. The pride they showed in him one could have been excused for thinking Nelson had been an Italian Admiral

.

CHAPTER FOUR

Soon after the capitulation of the Italians the Sicilian campaign came to an end, once again we were bundled onto a landing craft this time we headed for Terranto, a port famous as the place where a couple of years before some slow moving British torpedo planes had knocked stuffing out of the Italian Mediterranean fleet.
Whilst we were waiting for our vehicles to catch up some troops were needed to guard the submarine pens, a lad hailing from Blackpool whose name escapes me, and myself even though we were only classed as drivers, must have been regarded highly enough to be called troops, were given the job.
It was at these pens the submarines were repaired and refueled; on entering the engineering sheds we found that British manufacturers, Davey United of Sheffield and Fowler Brothers of Leeds, had tooled them. Whilst looking around the sheds a number of Italian soldiers who had obviously not heard of Italy鈥檚 change of side thought we were hostiles and took us prisoners. After being missed for half a day a search party found us and explained to our captors the present situation, we were released. After a long ticking off by our CO. the incident was forgotten.

Eventually our vehicles arrived from Sicily and we moved up to Bari, it was there that we saw the full extent of the Allied bombing of that part of southern Italy with the road and railways receiving a great deal of attention.

It was whilst at Bari I had a very pleasant surprise. My brother-in-law like most young men was called up and the last time I had any news of him was he had been drafted to Northern Ireland. One day I had occasion to visit Bari docks and was stopped by the Military Police one of which was my brother-in 鈥攍aw and we were delighted meet each other under such cercomstances.

He told me of a tragic incident which had taken place a day or two previous to my arrival, it seems that two German bombers late evening, had set alight three colliers full of coal transported from Wales to be used by the railway engines so vital to the transportation of troops and supplies out here. The colliers in turn set alight forty ships in the harbour with great loss of life, as most of the sailors were asleep at the time. He had the terrible job of helping to bring off the burnt bodies from the ships, a task he was never to forget. We met on several occasions, but as the troops moved northwards I left him at Bari, although our paths were to cross again later in the north of Italy.

It鈥檚 amazing how chance encounters crop up from time to time. I recall an occasion back in England going down to Dunstable in Bedford with a party of drivers to pick up some brand new Bedford trucks for delivery to Newport Monmouthshire to be put on ships for transportation overseas. Whilst there I met a Maltby man who told me that I was the first man from Maltby he had met since joining the forces. He was a member of a support group seconded to the Bedford works. The next time I met him was in Sicily, he was a mechanic in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and was over Moon meeting me again. I seemed to have had encounters like this time and time again.

Thinking of chance encounters reminds me of the time in the Dessert when I had a mate who hailed from Brinsworth, we came together on embarkation leave. Before he left home his farther said 鈥渢ake these hair clippers with you and this steel comb you will find them ever so useful at some point whilst you are abroad鈥� and when we arrived in the Dessert we found no-one had any means of cutting hair. So he became the official barber, and was excused military duties, even the General was one of his customers.

If you had a civilian trade who鈥檚 skills could be used to the forces advantage you could get away with almost anything. For instance we had a chap who was very proficient at sign writing, and in the Army signs proliferate, he was kept very busy and hadn鈥檛 time for every day things like patrols, guard duties and other such mundane tasks, yet he played a very important part in the running of an army on the move.

The reason I mention sign writing is that I had to turn my hand to it one day as I was seconded to a Methodist Padre, as his regular driver had been sent on some course or another for two weeks, so I was given the Padre鈥檚 small car to drive, I remember it been an Austin pickup, The Padre was a jovial sort of chap who had lost an eye in the first world war, and yet here he was up at the front giving hope and comfort to anyone in need, it was one of my most hectic two weeks of the campaign. One day he had me paint a name on the bonnet of the pick-up; the word was 鈥淒orcus鈥�. Wherever we went we were asked, 鈥渨hat鈥檚 the meaning of the word painted on the cars bonnet?鈥� I had to explain that in the Bible chapter nine of the book Acts they would find a story of some early Christians who lived in a place named Joppa where a lady died and they regretted her passing as she was full of good works, The Padre used to say this car is also full of good works. During my time with the Padre I had to relate the story to lots of troops of all nations who were not conversant with Bible stories.

The Italians had been constructing motorway types of roads along the length of the country, each part of the road being serviced by a length man who was responsible for three or four miles of road and whose job it was to tend the herbs of Mint and Rosemary etc. planted along the roadside, and sell them on to a state unit who paid the length men for the crops.
The housing in this part of the country was interesting in so much as they looked like little beehives. It is now interesting to note they have become a tourist attraction, mentioned in the brochures for that part of southern Italy around the city of Lecce which still boasts a large number of these beehive houses, a relic of the days when that part of Italy was ruled by the Greeks.

From there we moved on to Bari arriving it seemed just after the Germans had pulled out, and was immediately set up by our staff as their headquarters, and for the following weeks we made our base at a place called Santas Fareto.
It was there we came across what remained of a prisoner of war camp where Allied prisoners had been held, but when Italy changed sides the prisoners all managed to escape and came drifting in steadily during the succeeding weeks mostly thanks to the local residents who had given them food and shelter. Weeks later we kept picking up men here and there who had managed to avoid the Germans.

Whilst there it was nearing Christmas, and we remembered that on a previous Christmas in Norfolk we had given a Pantomime to the local farming community which had been well received by grown up and children alike. Most of the original cast was still together so we decided it would help to strengthen relations with the local public if we were to give a repeat performance for our mutual benefits. As in Norfolk we gave the children each a bar of chocolate and felt a warm glow, first as their faces showed the look of amazement as they unwrapped their prize, then the shear delight as they tasted the confection, we realized that most of the youngsters had never before seen chocolate. They were amazed with our performance of Cinderella, and though they could not understand one word of it the shouted and clapped throughout the performance just as much as the children in Norfolk had done.

The village relied on fishing for its survival and to show their appreciation they invited us to a meal, one of the local delicacies they served up was Octopus, as we had never tasted Octopus before even the thought of it turned our stomachs, but as they had served it up with other fish and everything looked so nice we did finally tackle it, we suffered no ill effects but I would never be tempted to order it in a restaurant.
Whilst we had been traveling from Sicily then up through Italy the unit had kept two pigs in a lorry and fed them on our leavings boiled up as swill, with the intention of slaughtering the animals to be served up for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately they made a big mistake by slaughtering them on Christmas Eve whereas they should have been slaughted several days earlier, resulting in the whole unit going down with a stomach disorder, to make matters worse there were not enough latrines to accommodate everyone at the same time.

The nearby Italian air force base at Foggia had suffered heavy bombing and along with the exceptionally heavy rainfall was nothing but a quagmire, as were the roads making movement very difficult even for the tanks.

As we moved up the Adriatic Sea, we noticed the main industry of the towns seemed to be the construction of wooden fishing boats reminiscent of the times of the Greek occupation, they were small craft easy to construct.

Branching out into southern central Italy I admired the beauty of certain districts with parts as rugged as the highlands of Scotland. It was here we were to join up with the Allied troops who had originally landed at Salerno on the other coast of the country. It had been a full scale landing supported by heavy bombardment leaving much of the area in ruin. So much so it prompted one soldier after visiting the famous ruins of Pompeii to say, 鈥淲hat ruins? They are nothing compared with the ruins we left at Batapaglia鈥�. Batapaglia was the town, which had taken the full brunt of the bombardment.

It was here that the British 8th and 1st Armies joined up with the American 5th Army, under General Clarke, the objective being the capture of Naples the main seaport, which could offer better facilities than we ever had in the extreme south of Italy.
The capture of Naples would enable the Allies to establish a naval base where troops and supplies could be disembarked in comparative safety. The enemy was quite aware of the strategic importance of Naples and fought hard and with great courage to deny the attacking forces, and many pitched battles were fought before our objective was finally reached, the thing that sticks in my mind was the fact that the battles were fought in incessant torrential rain.

As it was around this time when the Italians had capitulated we found evidence of Fascist homes, which had, being sacked and looted by fellow citizens, I suppose those goings on were inevitable as more we came into contact with the Italian people the more we realized how much the Fascist鈥檚 were hated and blamed for the horrors which had befallen them.

The forward troops were finding it a hard slog to make progress, and nowhere more so than at a place called Casino, where the Germans had taken over a large mountain on the top of which was a Monastery. The battle fought there has now passed into legend as the battle of Monte Casino. The Germans had picked this spot to defend knowing that nothing could move in the surrounding countryside without been seen by them. Casino was a fair sized town only to be obliterated by the Allied bombing and subsequent fighting, with many good men of both sides giving their lives in the carnage. It took the full might of the Allied strength to winkle out the defenders, yard-by-yard, cave-by-cave and hole-by-hole. Successive wave after wave of bombing by the Allied air forces, was to show, after the mountain was finally overcome, that rather than destroy the defenses, the fact was, the resulting rubble falling on top of the archways of the buildings made it a stronger point than before.
I had the task of taking a man from the Defense Ministry up to the battle area for him to report on what he thought was causing the hold up. On arriving at the foot of the mountain in the Jeep I was driving we were quickly spotted and shelled by the defenders, it didn鈥檛 take long to persuade the ministry man to vacate the area, although I don鈥檛 suppose he included the reason for our hasty departure from the area in his subsequent report.

After we had secured Casino we moved up to the area known as the Pontine Marshes an area drained by the Fascist鈥檚, and turned into a rich agricultural area, which became a part of the Papal estate.

Leaving Rome we followed the same road mentioned by Charles Dickens in one of his books about his mid Victorian journey through Italy, leading to the Castle at Radicofani. It was evident here of the potency of our anti tank weapons, as the hillside was strewn with broken burned out tanks of every type. It was here were we came across the wonderful work of the Royal Engineers in erecting Bailey bridges, a portable bridge invented by a local man, Sir Donald Bailey of Parkgate Rotherham, some of these so called temporary bridges are still very much in use in some parts of the world today.

Arriving at the outskirts of Naples we were seconded to an American unit, I well remember a rather funny incident which although funny to us didn鈥檛 appear to amuse the Yank. He was demonstrating to myself and a couple of mates how the zip fastener on his uniform trouser fly worked, zips were a new invention to us, when it got stuck in rather a painful place and to his complete embarrassment we had to use a knife cut him free, after that incident we decided that buttons were a better option.

The time came to head back to our headquarters at Santas Fareto and as it was the Orange season, we were able to take back with us some of the King of Italy鈥檚 wonderful Oranges.
It was whilst at Santas Fareto I was able to meet some well-known Military figures. One incident I still laugh about today, happened in the middle of August, General Robertson was paying a visit to our headquarters to confer with General Alexander and he had to get back to Naples the next day, but strangely enough it happened to be a foggy day in the middle August practically unheard of in this part of Italy, it was far too foggy to use aircraft, so I was detailed to arise early the next morning, find General Robertson, get him aboard and drive him to Naples. I went along to the villa where the Brass Hats were quartered, but as I didn鈥檛 know the General I went round the grounds looking for him. I enquired at one tent after another without success, eventually I came upon a man out in the open having a bath in one of the old fashioned tin baths we used back home in front of the fire on Friday nights. 鈥淎re you General Robertson,鈥� I enquired? With a fierce growl he replied, 鈥淣o I am Air Marshal Tedder of the desert Air Force鈥�. I always remember meeting the famous Air Marshal in his birthday suit. I eventually found General Robertson and delivered him safely to Naples.

No matter how bad the conditions around them the British soldier always seem to have the capacity for humor, For instance one of my mates said 鈥渄o you know I have been listening to the people here talking and I think I would like to learn the language鈥�. One of the group replied, 鈥淲ell it shouldn鈥檛 be difficult, even the kids here speak it鈥�.
We had a chap called Hughes who hailed from South London; he was a swarthy looking sort of a man, who could easily have been mistaken for a Sicilian, who during the Sicilian campaign became very friendly with a local family, as a result it didn鈥檛 take him long to master the language, the result was that when we landed on the Italian mainland the locals mistakenly took him for a Sicilian owing to his strong Sicilian accent.

As we neared Naples we passed Avalon Airport, which had, been so heavily bombed it was useless as a landing site. Looking on the hillside we could see groves of Hazel nut trees the fruit of which were used by confectionary manufacturers.

Dotted around Naples are a number of small towns or villages, each seeming to interlock with one another. Whilst we were in that district there was an eruption of Mt Vesuvies, resulting in the paintwork of my vehicle being stripped by the hot volcanic ash, I considered it very fortunate my tyres did not suffer the same fate, although I did need to have all the glass on the vehicle changed, as the ash had pitted it, making it practically impossible to see through having the appearance of frosted glass, it wasn鈥檛 until I could drive up to Rome and find a glass warehouse that I was able to have it changed, until then I had to drive with my head out of the window particularly when the sun was low making the pitted windscreen glisten.
It was pitiful to see houses collapse under the shear weight of the hot ash, after seeing that it did not take a great deal of imagination to realize the extent of devastation caused by the eruption which took place in AD 79.

Whilst in that region we were billeted at a place called Caserta, which is roughly twenty miles from Naples. Caserta boasts one of the great palaces of Europe. The Neapolitan Kings who ruled at the time of Nelson bankrupted the country by building the palace, which has to be seen to be believed, and is reputed to be second in size to Versailles in France.

When we passed Rome we also passed Anzio, which had proved a terrible testing time for the Allied forces landing there in an attempt to create a second front. The reason being the American General in charge of the force, General Lucas, took a terrible long time in making up his mind as to what to do next after the troops got ashore, enabling the enemy to bring to the front extra holding forces, which were able to position themselves on the hills above the landing beaches, and there being no proper cover the landing forces took a terrible pounding, causing the attempt to fail.

We were able to move forward thanks to the Eighth Armies push up the Adriatic side, as the Germans on the Tyrhhanin sea side of the country had to withdraw to keep inline with the advancing Eighth Army on the Adriatic side of Italy.

It is amazing what lengths some people will go to in the line of duty. One instance brings to mind the time I had to look after for a short period, an Officer by the name of Palmer, a man who could easily have elected to go home, as he had stepped on a mine and lost half of his face, but opted to carry on in the battle zone. The reason I think of him is because when ever I see any of Huntley and Palmers products on display in the shops Mr. Palmer comes to mind, as he was a member of that well-known family.

It was in this area we began to notice the change in the nature of the landscape, we were now entering the area known as Tuscany, which was destined to become a favorite tourist venue. The air superiority enjoyed by our air forces was much in evidence by the pounding of the airfields and any worthwhile targets presenting itself to the Allied pilots.

It was around this time our company was drafted into General Alexander鈥檚 own private car pool, the result was for the time being all our work was staff work, we were camped by the side of lake Bolsena. Our Sargent Major one day said 鈥淚 want you to smarten yourselves up today as you have got an important visitor coming and we want you to be proud of the fact, his name is Mister English鈥�. When the time came for the visitor to show up it was non other than King George the sixth, you couldn鈥檛 get a visitor much more important than that, except maybe our next visitor. We found the King most agreeable and helpful. We had some American soldiers billeted nearby they owned cameras something we hadn鈥檛, even if we had we could not obtain films, where they could get films from the PX their equivalent to the NAFFI. The Americans had a great time taking photos of one another shaking hands with Mr. English to send back to their folks in the USA, regretfully the British soldiers had only memories of the visit to cherish.

Two weeks later we had another important visitor arriving who traveled under the codename of Mr. Bullfinch, when the gentleman duly arrived he turned out to be none other than Winston Churchill. We were delighted to see him, for to think that a man approaching eighty could spare the time from his many duties, to come and visit soldiers at the battle front, and thank them for their efforts in overcoming all their many hardships. For relaxation he had brought along his painting equipment, and when he had a half hour or so to spare he would go along with General Alexander who shared his passion for painting and enjoy their free time together.

As we approached Tuscany we entered the city of Sienna, which boasted a large manner house reminisant of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Fortunately the Germans had vacated the mansion only an hour or so earlier enabling us to explore the place in comparative safety. We found great cellars containing massive casks, which they stored, wine and olive oil, the products with which the farming tenants, paid their rents. Predictably before the German troops evacuated the house they had knocked the bungs out of the barrels leaving the floors awash with a sticky mixture of wine and olive oil the smell of which lingered a long time. I saw battle hardened men actually crying at the waste of good wine.
On one of the turrets was a clock that the locals told us had never worked during their lifetime. One of our group who hailed from Sunderland by the name of Ernest Mountain, who鈥檚 army trade was a dispatch rider, in civy street he had been a photographer, he also happened to be a very talented instrument repairer, so was more use to the unit repairing the many delicate instruments brought to him than riding a motor bike, the job of a dispatch rider was a very dangerous one especially on these roads without taking into account enemy action, many of the roads were dirt roads with vehicle convoys going each way, the DR was sometimes caught between the two sets of convoys, many were killed an injured because of the clouds of dust the vehicles kicked up, he liked to specialize in watches and clocks. Ernie one day climbed up the turret to the clock and made it go, the result was the locals came in droves from the surrounding countryside to see this miracle and stared in awe at the clock that had never worked in living memory. It is worth recording the fact that the date on the clock was1769.

It seemed that in these local areas every small township had its own brass band and were very musically inclined, I well remember one incident when driving across country the General I had with me was not quite sure of his bearings and told me to go into a building and enquire as to were we were. I opened the door and on entering I received quite a shock, the inside reminded me of a great barn, and attached to the walls were innumerable selves holding hundreds of piano accordions in different stages of manufacture, it seems that just before the start of the war accordions were a very popular instrument and this was one of the local factory which produced them.

In these areas the terrain was so steep that the only way to move supplies was by mule train, as a mule could get were no other transport was possible, not even a Jeep, and mules had to be brought in from all over Italy as losses were very high both by enemy action and accident. It was here that men who came from mountainous areas in other countries proved their skill, and we were able to keep up the arrestment of the enemy rear. We must not forget the efforts of the Royal Engineers during this phase of the campaign, as there were many gorges and rivers to cross, these situations were overcome thanks again to the Bailey Bridges, but it took great skill and courage by the engineers as they were constantly under fire to erect them.

In Florence I remember a sight which has stuck in my memory even today, I was looking out of one of the windows at the rear of the offices at a place where the waste food was stowed ready for disposal, there was a poor man hardly clothed sorting over the food which had been thrown out and putting what he thought was the best scraps into a basket, and went away an happy man with the knowledge he would not starve that day. This occurrence happened time and time again and there were hardly an army unit that wasn鈥檛 feeding poor people who at that time were absolutely dependent on them. It gave me great pleasure to witness that human needs were fulfilled by such generosity.

There were also some very bizarre things which cropped up from time to time, for example I had occasion to take my officer to an outlying township, as he had some business with an army unit and whilst I was waiting a soldier came over to me and I noticed he was constantly nervously fiddling with his revolver. He asked me I was receiving mail from home, I told him I had not experienced any real problems, he went on to inform me that he had not heard from his wife for weeks, I inquired where he lived back home and was amazed to find he hailed from Thryber a small village not far from my own home. The next time I wrote to my wife I asked her if she would make some enquiries. She wrote to the lady and informed her that I had seen him and he was in good health and was currently working for Allied Military Government Of Occupied Territories, whose job it was to look after the general public. My wife wrote back saying the soldiers wife was over the moon to know her husband was alive and well after no word from him for quite some time. I told the General the story and as we were in a quiet period could I find out more as to why the chap was not receiving his mail. I was given the day off to make my enquiries and went along to a town which now figures in the holiday brochures called La Cisteine. It seems the town derives its name from the fact that in the town square is a well, which has never run dry. I called at the hotel he said he was billeted and was told he had left two days ago I asked if he had left a forward address. 鈥淥h no he wouldn鈥檛 tell anyone as he was a deserter鈥� I was informed. I never did here from him again and never did follow it up after the war as I thought he would be in enough trouble.

As a driver I was able to see lots of places of interest, for instance whilst in Rome I visited the Spanish steps and saw where John Keats the poet had lived, it was so called the Spanish steps as the local houses had been built a century ago by the Spaniards and derived its name from the stairway leading up to them. I also visited the villa where Shelly had lived; it was been used as a conference centre by the allies. The thing I remember mostly about the villa was the lawn, mostly as there weren鈥檛 many lawns about in that part of Italy, it seemed that no one wanted to. take the time and trouble to cut and tend grass.

When the Roman Empire collapsed and was over run by the Huns in the early fifth century A.D. the nobles who escaped Rome retired to retired to a marshy area of the Adriatic and conducted their cause as best they could, away from the Huns who didn鈥檛 seem to think it worth while going through the marshes chasing after them. Later I visited that district called Ravenna where Byron stayed before he journeyed to Greece to join the gorillas to help in their fight for independence.

One of the best kept secrets of the war was the fact that a few years before the war started, an English company installed a phone line which was buried well bellow ground, and ran from Pisa to Sicorum, Florence down to Rome, and Rome to Naples were it joined up with the sea cable, which meant the allies could phone all the way to those cities from Britain quite easy, this went on during the war and the Germans never twigged what was going on. For example as the army advanced up Italy Churchill could talk to his Generals quite easily. Funnily enough the chap in charge of our signals unit at the time had been a foreman with the company who had installed it and knew all about it.

When we reached the leaning tower of Pisa which I always think of it as the ringing tower of Pisa, the reason being that as the tower is actually a bell tower, and as we reached it there was a terrible cacophony of sound, there was no other way to describe it, when I got inside there was a great big circle of space and stood on the ledge surrounding it was dozens of Yankee soldiers, and as a bell told they were jumping across, grabbing a bell clapper and swinging backwards and forwards on it. It wasn鈥檛 just one doing it, there was half a dozen at a time, of course it was the initial day they had arrived at the place and there were no civilians about, I looked on in horror thinking of what would happen to them if one of was to miss the clapper and drop down into the inside of the tower. Luckily nothing occurred of that nature, and the incident was one of the many times when fighting men let go of pent up feelings and do things that seem dangerous or plain stupidity looking back.

We had our heroes and one of mine was a cricketer called Hedley Verity and before the war I had seen him bowl at Bramall Lane Sheffield, who tragically died of wounds he received fighting in Italy. To give the Germans credit they gave him a full military burial, and when we reached the place we had a service ourselves. Sport had a big influence on the lives of fighting men, and when we reached Ratallo a lovely place on the coast, the South African Division sent out a challenge to the British Army to a game of rugby. Rialto was ideal for the challenge as there was a rugby stadium in the town, and well before the kick off the stadium was packed out by service men and civilians, alike to witness what turned out to be a great game of rugby.

On moving up to a town named Verona the place on which Shakespeare based his play called Hamlet, we saw the Roman Coliseum which would house up to fifty thousand people for music festivals and other events. Verona has a main cross road and it was there where I realized just how business like the Americans were, they set up a shed there and started making hamburgers where, we were informed, it was nothing for them to get through sixty thousand of them in one day to troops passing through both on foot an in vehicles.

In a small town three mile up the road from Verona we came across a small woolen mill still being powered by water fed by a stream running through the village. The village also boasted a little tramway I am sure the tramway museum at Crich in Derbyshire would have loved to have one in their collection.

After we reached Verona the Germans were on the run and the powers that be decided it was time some of the troops who had been in the thick of the fighting since arriving in Africa deserved a spot of leave in Britain. The biggest problem was the fact that the railways were not running and getting them to the troop ships would be difficult, they were taken down to Naples where they could board the ships now getting through the Suez canal and across the Mediterranean. I got the job of driving three times a fortnight with a lorry load of soldiers from Verona to Naples. I kept that job practically until the end of the war until they got the railways running

One of the unusual things that come to mind was up by the Braymer pass towards the end of the war the Germans had an holding station, they must have run short of tires as there were thousands off various vehicles all without wheels. I remember thinking at the time how in a relatively short time the might of the German armies, from being a superbly equipped fighting machine, having to retreat in disarray in vehicles on miss matched, stolen wheels.

One of the last jobs I was given before it became my time to return to England for demobilization came about in a rather curious way. I was ordered to meet an aircraft on a small runway, as the door opened the first person out of the door looking very smart was the same French soldier I had given a lift to whilst delivering the post way back in North Africa. Following him down the steps was the imposing figure of Marshal Tito. After the usual French greeting I was introduced to the Marshall. My orders were to drive him and his party into Croatia.

Unfortunately Eric鈥檚 account of his story had to end there for after a short illness he sadly passed away in Rotherham Hospital.

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