´óÏó´«Ã½

We were the first British troops into El Aroussa…assault troop and two anti tank guns. The French reported that the Germans were about 1,000 yards away…it turned out that they were a German Recce unit. And we came under heavy machine gun fire while we were by a haystack with our gun alongside of us. The German’s had a go at us twice… they wanted to let us know they’d surrounded our position.

We were at El Aroussa 2 or 3 bloody times, we were all around that area Sidi Nsir, Medjez el Bab, Mateur putting our guns in position and taking them out of position going somewhere else with them. We were moving all around being shot at bombed, strafed. Long before I was wounded I had seen plenty of bloody action.

The Germans were trying to cut us off… that’s when we came under heavy machine gun fire. We was only a few feet from the ground. We were by a haystack and there was a brick wall. I could see the bullets hitting this bloody wall… chunks were flying out all over the place. We drove them off at first but they came back.

I remember one night we’d moved the gun into position and there was a mortar attack going on. The Germans were using their mortars and we were using ours and I was stretched out on the front seat of the Portee trying to get some kip as I’d done my job when all of a sudden a flamethrower opened up. The Germans had crept up on the bloody gun to try and destroy it. Our Bren then opened up and it was quickly over. Sgt Robinson was in charge of us then. Old Robbo then moved another gun into position. The 2 pounders were so light one man could move them into position.

We had to get out of this place (El Aroussa) rather quickly as we came under heavy machine gun fire, Robbo was signalling us to leave everything under the covering fire of 2 Bren’s. We disabled the gun by removing the firing pin which the number 1 or 2 kept on him. At Dunkirk we spiked guns here we only disabled them. We had to get out between bursts of machine gun fire. When I left the Portee I had to jump over this bloody big cactus (approx 3-4 ft high), I jumped that bastard, I don’t know how I did it but I jumped it, and that is when I see this Bren gunner (Robbo) under a little tree, signalling us to cross the road. When you crossed the road in those days you crossed in a bunch not on your own that was part of our training. We’d been trained for this street fighting business, how to cross the road in a bunch, if you crossed singly a sniper could pick you off. I could see these bullets tearing into this bloody brick wall, bloody great chunks of mortar flying everywhere. The cordite the smell of the cordite got up your nostrils. I’ve never smelt cordite as bloody strong as at that bloody place. The bullets were going right over the top of you hitting this wall where the Sergeant had told us to leave the gun.

We had to make for a railway cutting that we could see in the distance and there was all open ground from where we were. I could see this open ground where we had to go and there was a small tree and a Bren gunner under it giving us covering fire as we ran over this open ground and I stumbled over a bloody big stone you’d think I’d been hit . I think the Jerries must have thought because they were firing at us. Bloody bullets were whizzing past my bloody ear hole from both ends. As we got to this railway cutting it seems there had been some road works going on as there was these bloody big concrete pipes that you could almost walk through. I thought here would be a good place to get under cover. So I get one end and when I get to the other end there was this bottle lying on its side. I don’t know if it was whiskey or brandy in it, the only thing that put me off was all these bloody flies in it. I was so thirsty at this stage as I had no water. Then I saw this Jeep and it had an officer in it and he asked who I was, I replied anti tank gunner sir. You come with me he said , it seems that his batman didn’t know how to load this bloody Bren gun. So he handed this gun over to me and I got into position on this slope. This young Lieutenant asked what’s that, I replied I can’t make out if they’re ours or jerry sir, they’re a long way off. And that’s when this German fighter came overhead and we started banging away at it as it was circling. It didn’t fire on us. A truck then came and picked us up and took us back to a farm. In a shed a Sgt Major came up and we gave particulars as to where we were from and he said righto lads we’ll go back and organise a truck to go back and get your gear any volunteers. We got in this Truck and goes down this road where we were stopped and I heard voices telling us we can’t go any further as jerry had taken over the area. That was when the enemy took it over in strength. This was disappointing to me as I wanted to retrieve my Portee. I eventually got it back later. I had been having trouble with the starter motor at this time. This would have been 30 miles from Tunis.

Another time at El Aroussa a lone jerry plane flew overhead. Everybody started firing at it and I nearly got my bloody head shot off. It was so close to my ear.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.