大象传媒

Bill Quirk, of Widnes, served in the RAMC throughout the war, in troop ships, in the Far East, North Africa, Greece and finally in Austria till he was demobbed in January 1946 as a Staff Sergeant.

This story of the Monte Cassino campaign is an excerpt from the account he wrote for his grandchildren.

From late 1943 I was a member of 184 Field Ambulance and spent the rest of the war as a S/Sergeant i/c C Company.

We found ourselves next in Taranto, Italy where we got some mail and I found I was to be a Dad again.

The Germans made a surprise air-raid on Bari
and sank most of the ships in the harbour but at least the Italians had given up. We were constantly on the move and joined up with the American 5th Army again in the Apennines. Cassino was a great stumbling block but the weather was kind except on the mountaintops where wind and rain made things a bit uncomfortable, but we were on high-altitude rations which was a luxury. The rivers Volturno, Rapido and Garigliano were a nightmare and it was proving a long winter.

We had a stretcher chain reaching over 3 mountains with about 1000 men (Indian, British, Italian and any others that could be brought in). They were spread out 4 to a stretcher with varying distances between each team according to the difficulty of terrain.

Each group brought a loaded stretcher anything from 50 yards to 录 of a mile each and handed it over to the next group and took an empty one back with them. They slept in bivvies (small tents 3鈥� high by 4鈥� wide), two to a bivvy, it was very uncomfortable as the chain worked well into darkness in pouring rain and even snow and ice on the higher reaches. In places the paths were so narrow and steep it was a two man job, and quite a few were killed by the constant shelling.

One day a Major asked me if I had been to India and when I answered 鈥渙nly to Bombay, Sir鈥�, he said 鈥淭hat鈥檚 OK, go up that stretcher chain and find out why the Indian lot have downed tools鈥�. It took me hours to find them, only to discover that someone had sent them bully beef for their rations, nothing could have been worse.

It took some hours, but the Army managed to send them mutton, goat, rice, chuppaties and potatoes all cooked ready for them to warm up, and I spent the next few weeks walking back and to along the whole chain organising chocolate, rations and cigarettes plus relief teams to allow the bearers a few days at a time at sea level away from the shelling.

I remember lying on a hill-top one day looking at the Cassino Monastery. I saw U.S. planes fly over and I could see the bombs falling on the buildings. When the smoke and dust had blown away the walls were still standing but the roofs were non-existent.

Cassino had fallen and I was back with 184. We were in a small mountain town called Monte Fiore and I had 3 or 4 real frights before the Germans retreated beyond Rome as the Anzio beachhead was expanding.

We drove through the outskirts of Rome at 60 miles an hour until we found some buildings and dropped out of the war for 2 days鈥� rest.

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