大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War web-site by Heather McGrouther on behalf of John Docker with his permission. He understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was in the army in Venice Italy, my company the DWK (the DWK's used to take the troops from dry land through water)were waiting for orders to invade Japan.

I was on Lido Island, and remember the night the Van Guard went to Naples to prepare for the invasion. I was on duty that night, when I heard gun fire, lots of it, I didn't know what it was, but then I saw about a dozen Yanks coming down the road, firing off their revolvers into the air!

I stopped them and said "Hey - what's going on?"
They told me they had dropped a great big bomb on the Japs, so they were celebrating.
We found out later that it was the Atom Bomb that they had dropped on Hiroshima.

So effectively, they saved my bacon, because it meant that my company no longer had to go to fight in Japan, and I'm sure if I'd have gone there I would have been shot.

However, later on I was posted to Palastine on the Gaza Strip - out of the frying pan and into the fire!

Whilst in Palastine (I think it was in Beth's Sheba) the camp was raided nearly every night - in search of guns and ammunition. Whenever I was on guard duty at night, I used to sit a good 10 yards away from the lanterns, as I would have more than likely been shot at if I had been lit up by one of them.

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