大象传媒

I volunteered in 1943 at the age of 17yrs because I wanted to avoid being sent down the mines as a Bevan Boy as I was afraid of going underground. I had heard that conscripts whose number ended with a certain figure were automatically sent to the mines, and I thought that if I volunteered then I would be more likely to go into the army than underground. After initial training in Scotland we were posted to Cumbria. The regiment was then moved south, supposedly to embark from Tilbury, in May 1944. We drove in convoy at 15mph and each night we stopped and made camp at the side of the road. It took several days to make the journey even though we drove for about 10 hours a day.
At Tilbury, we parked at the ferry and the whole regiment stretched back about 2 miles. Our guns were self propelled on an armoured car and I was at the front in the leading vehicle.
We embarked at Tilbury on a landing ship tank which was a large landing-craft, and we set off, still thinking that we were going to India. While up on deck, I noticed that the ship's wake was not going in a straight line but was curved, and from this I worked out that we were circling. The next day it came over the tannoy that the second front had started, but we didn't know where. Three days later we moved up the Channel and we moved into the area where the mulberry harbour was, but we still didn't know where we were - just somewhere in France because we could hear all the military activity. The mulberry harbour was in sections and floated independantly on the waves, despite being cast in concrete and reinforced with steel. They were towed into position specifically to provide a harbour where there wasn't one in order to assist with the landings of heavier equipment. I was driving a 16 1/2 ton vehicle and when I was trying to get off one pontoon, there was a Royal Marine standing on the corner of the next one specifically to indicate when it would be safe for me to proceed in my vehicle. He was waiting for his pontoon to be lower than mine so that I could drive onto it. There was a Marine on every pontoon and there were a lot of pontoons to negotiate - to this day I still have a lot of respect for those Marines, they got the whole regiment across safely. I eventually landed up in Cannes.
We were sent into Germany on a patrol, but the German troops closed in behind us and we had to hide. Because we didn't return to the regiment they assumed that we had been killed. We were hidden up for 48hrs, five of us in the armoured car which was used for advanced patrol. The wireless would have given us away so we just had to wait it out. I was reported missing believed killed and the telegram was sent to my parents. This had never been rescinded. After the war ended, I was in Germany doing a training session when I was approached by someone who recognised me from our own regiment but who looked as if he had seen a ghost. After the training was over, he took me to a wargrave cemetary and told me to walk along the line of graves. I did as requested and at the end of the line I found a grave with my name and regiment on it! I wrote to the war graves commission and they changed it to an unknown soldier. My dogtag had disappeared from me and must have been picked up near someone elses body. I was never a good letter writer, and my parents were very surprised indeed when, one Christmas, I knocked on their door. Obviously they thought I was dead and I can only imagine how they must have felt when they found me very much alive on their doorstep.

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