大象传媒

This story was told to Bruce Funnell in the Sheffield Open Centre by John Hackford.
While the boat was coming into port at Algiers we were dive bombed by the German aircraft subsequently the propeler on our ship (Jarvis Bay) was blown off.
The jarvis Bay was supposed to take us to front line, however due to this bomb attack we had to disembark, and get onto another ship this boat took us up to Bone. We travelled up through open fields and lay up in some tents, after a few hours we were shouted out on parade, we were told to March up to a ridge known as Banana Ridge.... It was one big rush we were told nothing, Trenches occupied previous by British forces were to become our new homes, It was late at night we could see something was about to happen, the air thick with anticipation. My friend Pte Hedley was along side me in the same trench, when all of a sudden, all hell let loose... Pte Hedley was getting rather excited and was eager to confront the enemy, in his exhuberhance he jumped out of the trench and started to fire his enfield rifle towards the enemy, about twenty rounds, when there was a pause he was hit in the nose, he fell where he was lain. I was shouting to him to get back in the trench, all the while, to no avail, I could see he was in a confused state so I reacyhed up to him and grabbed and pulled him back.

The bullet had entered his nose and crossed side ways across his cheak. He was in shock and was noncoherant. We placed all the wounded into one seperate offset dug out to treat and comfort.

Five or Six members of the Dukes had been wounded on this attack, there was a lull in the Battle. Rumbling was heard in the distance, I peared out over the trench to see 4 American tanks heading towards us, naturally we thought they had come to give us an hand, so we didn't open fire. The tanks opened fire on us, catching us by surprise, and they hit the dug out with the injured Dukes in, all gone in one blow.

The tanks continued to move toward our position, when they spotted a trip wire alined across the front of our position with cans on each end as an early warning system. They stopped. And did a retreat as they must have thought they were mines,,, if they had carried we would have had no chance, our lives were spared by the wire and tin cans....

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