大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV / 大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Herbert Allan Perkins and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 14 years old when I joined the Army, I was stationed at Fort George, Inverness for training.
When I was 16 (in 1942 or 1943)we landed at Dieppe and made our way on foot to Magdeburg, almost as far as Berlin. We crossed what was left of the Maginot Line into Holland.
We were fighting all the way as we went along. The pipers always played as we went into battle.
I remember vividly being in trenches on the banks of the River Maas. On two occasions German infantry walked passed in front of us about half a mile away. Our Commanding Officer had told us to keep quiet, so the Gernams were unaware of our presence.
We were on the banks of the River Rhine overlooking Wesel on the other side. That evening there was a 1000 bomber raid by the RAF, bombing Wesel. It was daybreak before we saw what had happened. The whole city was flattened. It was very upsetting to see the damage. There was a big hospital in Wesel, but even this was flattened.
The next day we were able to carry on and marched through town after town across Germany.

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