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My active service in the field came to an end with the action in Sicily on 19th July 1943.

Our orders at the time were to keep pressing forward as hard as possible to prevent the German troops from ‘digging in’ and so ensure that Sicily was taken with the least possible casualties. On this occasion, my troop and one other were to advance over an abandoned air field towards a village called Gerbini. I remember thinking at the time that it was not suitable country for tanks and we were well forward when I observed some enemy tank movement and reported this over the radio, but we were told to push on. A short time later all six tanks were out of action and all crews killed or wounded. I have dealt with this action previously, but having since read the regiment’s diaries, it became apparent that at some time the village area was supposed to be in friendly hands but must have been retaken by the Germans. It would account for my radio call being ignored.

At the end of the action, I was collected by the German troops with one other survivor. They called, ‘Come, Tommy’. I was half expecting to get shot as I could not raise my left arm and shouted ‘Wounded!’, which fortunately is similar to the German word and we were taken in to their lines. The soldiers were quite friendly except for one SS officer who tried to get information from me by threatening me with his pistol. I could only play stupid, ‘I’m just a simple soldier.’, etc. Anyway, I held out long enough for an Austrian officer who spoke good English to arrive and he had a good argument with the SS officer. Though I didn’t know German then, at all events, he saved my bacon and took me to the dressing station where my wounds were treated. We had quite a chat about the war. They asked why Britain fought the Germans and not the Russians, etc. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to get a bit of propaganda in and told them it was only a matter of time now.

From the dressing station, I was moved to a field hospital where I was left free to walk about. I stood at the edge of the compound wondering whether to chance running for it, but the hairs on my neck were prickling and I thought that the odds were against me. The next day, I was taken to the ferry, crossed to the mainland and was put aboard a train of cattle trucks with straw on the floor. This was to be my place two to three days through the length of Italy and over the Alps to Regensburg in Germany. I did not see the other prisoner after Sicily. On route, we were inspected by a doctor who offered to release me to the Italians for treatment but I preferred the Germans. One bit of humanity I remember, I was in the truck with a number of wounded Germans and there was no bad reaction from any of them. I had no food and very little clothing, and I’ll always remember one German digging a lump of pork out of his tin and giving it to me, with a few biscuits.

When I arrived in Regensburg, I was put into a combined hospital, sanatorium and lunatic asylum, peopled by some four to five British PoWs but mostly French hostages, Italians and Serbs etc. The doctors were French plus one Hungarian. With my bit of French, we managed to communicate reasonably well. My wounds were a bit ‘niffy’ and my shoulder had not been set so I was sent for initial treatment to a German military hospital in the town, where the shoulder was set and the wounds cleaned and various injections for wound fever administered. The nursing was done by German monks. I was in a small room with two other PoWs, a Pole and a Canadian soldier. As usual, the Germans had a large Messerschmit factory close to the hospital, but as our bombing became more accurate with the advent of daytime bombing, this was no protection. Every time the sirens went, the monks would come to lock us in with a cheery word (to us only) — ‘Churchill coming!’. They wanted Hitler beaten. One day, a large flight of US Fortresses flew over and at first I thought that they were passing on until there was a sound like the old express trains in a tunnel and I knew this was carpet bombing of the factory. I shouted to the others to put pillows over their faces in case of flying glass. The hospital was not hit though glass was broken in the blast. The civilian staff cleared up and we got a few surly looks, but not unduly so. One other small item I remember was being served with a plate of cooked meat and gravy which on closer inspection turned out to be lights. When I queried this with the monk, he said it was delicatessen and roared with laughter when I said it was our cat meat (cats being the same word in German).

It was while I was receiving treatment for my wounds that I had what I am not sure even now was a vision or an hallucination for it was so real. I was awake (or perhaps I thought I was) in a lighted room, when all my crew plus my troop officer appeared to me in a group, all smartly dressed and looking happy as if trying to reassure me. Naturally, I was still grieving for them and it could have been my sub-conscious at work. I just don’t know. After two or three weeks, I was returned to the Regensberg PoW hospital, where I was put into a ward with an Australian prisoner and an English lad. The Australian was paralysed and of uncertain temper and who could blame him? The English PoW was reasonably active and was able to help me adjust as I still had an enormous wire and plaster cage around my chest and shoulders with the left arm on a platform at right angles. The wound was still open so you can imagine my difficulty in getting to bed and out again. I learned how to play chess and bridge to pass the time away and also became quite friendly with the French medicos, and spent many evenings in their quarters playing cards and teaching English. In return, I was given a little extra food, as they got occasional parcels from France. It was during this time I had considerable trouble with abscesses due to bone splinters and in one instance in particular, I was really feverish and in some discomfort. The doctor said he would have to put drains in my upper arm to get rid of all the pus. Unfortunately, they had little in the way of modern anaesthetics and all he could do was to spray with ether which at least froze the surface a bit. Anyway, I was laid out on a the table with a German guard present as usual when the doctor practised the English I had taught him and said quietly, ‘For the honour of the Eighth Army’, with a glance at the guard. I presumed he meant not to cry out or show weakness to the guard. Whatever, it worked and I gritted my teeth and held on. I remember the rubber tube passing through one hole and down the arm about four inches and coming out the second hole. Safety pins held the tubes. It drained the abscesses well and eventually they healed up, though the wounds did not heal entirely until my beloved wife, Evelyn, sorted them after the war, with the assistance of my daughter Anne.

Whilst at the hospital, I was visited by a PoW representative from a nearby PoW compound who arranged for me to get a few bits of uniform and an occasional Red Cross food parcel, and also got me organised for PoW letters to home. I had quite a long stay as the treatment was slow and the frame was not removed until about March 1944. The only tangible souvenir I have from this period apart from the scars is a small wooden cigarette box, polished and with a hand-carving of a deer head on the front and the year 1944. This was made by Italian workers from scraps and exchanged for a few cigarettes or English soap.

I was then moved to a transit camp for a few days where the only thing I remember was getting hammered at chess by a Russian and negotiating an artist’s copy of Anne’s photo on a piece of card which was really good and is now treasured by Anne.
It was here that the news caught up with me that my brother John had been killed in action.

My next and final PoW camp was Hammelburg, Stalag X111C, where I really got down to business, with long boring days with little to do. There was no escape committee as our situation was impossible. Deep in Germany, the British compound was in the centre of a large complex with Russians, Serbs etc all around us. We were given a roll call at random. Food was scarce, an average of two to three small potatoes in their skins with a small slice of black bread with a smudge of ersatz margarine. Sometimes we had a small ladle of thin cabbage soup (I think). To be fair, the situation was getting bad for the Germans. Without the occasional Red Cross parcel, we would have been in a really bad way. The first month or two were quiet with nothing of note to mention. I got used to the routine, played chess and bridge and got the news from an illicit radio. The German radio was getting interrupted with air raid warnings even more regularly so we knew things were going well for our side on the war front and the desperate shortage of labour finally drove them to try to get us at least to work on the farms.

One morning we were turned out as usual expecting a head count, but instead we found the commandant and a line of armed soldiers facing us. He demanded that we should go to work or be shot! If we had been privates, we could not have refused but as NCOs, it was a court martial offence to assist the enemy in any way. (That’s if our own lads didn’t get at us first!) The bulk of prisoners in my compound were Aussies with other Commonwealth troops so you can imagine a deathly silence — not one volunteered. After further threats without result, the Commandant marched us off under armed guard to a punishment block. We had no shaving or washing things and we were allowed out of the hut to the toilets at restricted times. We were given no washing facilities or radio or parcels. This went on for about four days when the German medical officer came round to inspect everybody for infections. When he came to me and one other chap, he blew his top. Apparently, the visit by what was called the Swiss Commission was expected. They were supposed to ascertain that the Geneva Convention was respected and PoWs were treated properly, also to recommend the repatriation of wounded which included me and the other chap. A short time later, we were treated to hot showers and marched back to our huts. No doubt the commandant was glad of the excuse to release everybody.

A month after this incident was Xmas. I volunteered to sing a song on the concert organised by the PoWs. I’d never sung before such an audience in my life, but for the Aussies chose to sing ‘Little Grey Home in the West’ which was one of their favourites in those days. It brought the house down! This made me more confident and I sang ‘Silent Night’ solo at the carol service, with tears running down the cheeks of the German guards and I suppose they wanted to be at home as well.

On the following New Year’s Eve, I was in sick bay. We were starving as usual, and only had some glucose and something like Ovaltine left over from medical parcels. (We mixed this with other odds and ends and made it into a passable cake cooked on a ‘Smoky Joe’, ie an arrangement of tin cans to make a small stove fuelled by twigs, cardboard and bits of paper. It’s surprising the heat you can develop. Late on, as it was a moonless night, I rashly decided to creep out and raid the cookhouse. (I must have been mad!) Feeling round in the dark, I eventually found my way to a cellar or something but all I found was a cabbage. I sneaked back to the hut and cooked it straight away on the Smoky Joe and shared it round the squad. It tasted lovely! We had to ensure that there were no traces left so every scrap was eaten.

A week later, I was sent to an assembly area for repatriation, where I found quite a lot of Americans and Commonwealth troops. After a few days we were loaded on to a train which took us through Germany to the Swiss border. We could see the devastation the bombing had caused and it was obvious it couldn’t last much longer. When we reached the border, a train the other direction with German wounded crossed the border at the same time. Our guards were taken off and replaced by Swiss nurses who looked after us until we reached Marseilles where a hospital ship was waiting to take us to England. The staff and orderlies were mostly American as were the food and stores. The first thing they did was to spray DDT dust under our clothes and I got an anti-diphtheria injection. It was a lovely voyage back home, being looked after with good food. Unfortunately, we weren’t given much money so I only managed to buy enough sweets to fill a haversack for Evelyn and Anne.

We landed at Liverpool and trained to a hospital at Loch Neigh which was rather a gloomy old place but it was home! Evelyn was allowed to come to see me but I was not allowed home until we had been vetted and examined. I’ll never forget seeing Evelyn for the first time and later seeing Anne run down the path to meet me. Happy days!

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