大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's war site by Jan Bedford of Kent County Council Maidstone Library on behalf of Morris Martin and has been added with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

大象传媒 People鈥檚 War 鈥� Staplehurst Library Monday 7th June 2004

Mr Morris Martin

I was called up on March 6th 1940 and I was de-mobbed on March 6th 1946. So I had 6 years in the army and I had 4 years overseas. When I arrived overseas I landed in Iraq, a place called Kirkuk which has been on the news lately and from there we went up and joined the Eighth Army with our great master Montgomery and I went from El Alamein. Now that was something that you never saw in all your life or heard. The artillery there was so deafening that really we had to have cotton wool in our ears to dampen the sound. So anyway off we went, and we pushed the Germans back and back and back. And we had skirmishes all on the way but they were really retreating and it wasn鈥檛 until we got to a place called Ishmalia that we really had a good fight with them and it was there that I nearly copped my lot. I was a corporal at the time.

We pushed on into Ishmalia and there was a ridge of sand and in that sand there was a bit of a dip and in there the Germans had a machine gun nest that was firing away and it was really knocking our blokes down. Our Bren gunner got killed so I took the Bren gun from him and after the 3rd burst I got my range and I actually got bullets going in between that gap and as soon as the first bullets went in they stopped firing. So either they turned and ran or else I got them, one of the two.

I had a small pack on my back and I when I took that Bren gun he probably lined me up as well, because that night when I took my pack off it was all full of bullet holes. I nearly copped my lot .The billy I took out of the pack was all full of holes, all shredded, the mess tin was full of holes, and my emergency rations were all gone to pieces. So I didn鈥檛 have much to eat that night.

Eventually we got further on than that, and then right up to Tunis and we were disappointed there because we wanted to do the Germans what they did to our boys at Dunkirk to drive them into the Mediterranean. But they all surrendered and we took thousands of German prisoners there.

For my next escapade, after the campaign in the Middle East we had a holiday, then we went into further training and I finished up in the invasion of Italy at Salerno. There was a very big, big battle there and on the landing. And I remember climbing down the side of those ships with all my ammunition and packs and everything else on to the landing craft and away we went into the beach. And I stood up and I watched it all, it wasn鈥檛 a pleasant sight. We had 2 naval ships there that caught the artillery barrage and when they opened up, Gordon Bennett, it was a terrible sound and sight.

We reached the beach, down went the flap and over we went, into the sea, flung up the beach but unfortunately we had a lot of 19 year old boys that came in as replacements to make our numbers up and the poor devils they got down in the sea and they wouldn鈥檛 come out, they just lay there in the water too frightened to come out. They had to be 18, they were called up, they did their training, then straight over. By the time they got to us in the desert they were 19, too young. Of course I wasn鈥檛 too old myself, when I was in the desert I was 24. Of course we had more experience by then so we knew what it was all about and what to do. But those poor little kids, we had to shout at them to get out the sea.

With one of my buddies, Jim Lardener his name was, we crawled up the beach and we removed about 7 mines all the way up the beach and we put white tape down so that they could run up, run between the tapes up into safety, up in the top. Then we pushed them all back, we went about 10 miles inland and we got to a town called Battipaglia and there we had quite a battle royal there with the Germans.

I went into a house on the outskirts of Battipaglia, all the civilians had gone, and I ran upstairs to the high window in the front and there was a road dead opposite me and I could see down that road. It wasn鈥檛 all that far. And there was a tree there and I noticed there was 5 Germans up in that tree, they were spotting us. And I shot them all out. Honest. As true as I鈥檓 sitting here. God鈥檚 honour, I shot them out of that tree.

And then we were trying to make progress but a German tank, one of the Tiger Tanks, came around the corner of that road opposite me and troops behind it. I took one look out and thought I鈥檓 going. And I ran out to the back bedroom and I jumped out of the window down into the garden, not very tall buildings there, but I dropped right down into the garden. And then I picked up my own friends in the field at the bottom of the garden and we all discussed what to do when the Germans did one of their famous pincer movements and they came round either side of us and that鈥檚 why I was taken prisoner. I was taken prisoner, I didn鈥檛 have a bullet left, all I had was my rifle and bayonet, which is no good to a Tiger Tank.

I was 2 years a prisoner of war in Germany. It was quite an experience. I went to Munich first in Stalag-80 and from there we went up to the Polish Corridor to a place, we called it Thorn but they called it Torun and that was Stalag-357. I was there for a long time and then when the Russians started pushing the Germans back from Russia they moved us out. And we were living on the earth, living for what we could grab and when the time came for the potato clamps we raided all of them.

In the prisoner of war camps during the nights we would be asleep and then all at once the doors burst open and in come the Germans 鈥渞aus, raus, raus鈥�, dogs as well, everybody out. We had to get outside, some in their underpants for roll call. One of our things in the prison camps was to cause the Germans as much trouble as possible. Like just strolling to get out to parade, and they鈥檇 come up and push you to get you out on parade, and then we had to stand, and when they called attention we wouldn鈥檛 move. Anything to annoy the Germans. And they used to take reprisals out on us. They used to tell us that the German prisoners-of-war in England were being terribly treated so we鈥檙e going to take vengeance against you. And they鈥檇 come and take blankets away from us and keep us locked in our huts. Anything to annoy them, because they couldn鈥檛 take it, they hadn鈥檛 the humour that we had. That鈥檚 what we scored over them. When we were on parade the German officer would often say we鈥檙e going to do this to you, we鈥檙e going to do that to you we all used to hooray, and they couldn鈥檛 make it out. We stood up to them.

Talking about being missed by bullets, I had a very close one when I was still a prisoner of war. As the Russians came down towards Germany they took us all out of the prison camp and we had to live off the land and when we got near a place called Crecy and there was a Red Cross dump with all Red Cross parcels for the prisoners. And we all made our way there and we were all issued with a parcel. And of course we ripped it all open and going for the biscuits and the chocolate and all that. And they took us down what was a narrow country road with trees on either side and there was a ditch there as well.

I was sitting on the edge of the ditch, eating away and we heard aircraft and when we spotted them it was three Spitfires circling all overhead. And the next thing we knew, they came down and machine-gunned us under the trees, they thought we were Germans. A lot of the lads caught it obviously. But I was one of the lucky ones because I鈥檓 still here. I fell back in the ditch and others fell on top of me. But the bloke on top he got shot and he died. So I had to fight my way out of that.

And then the order came, run out into the fields, which I did, Red Cross parcel under one arm, running like mad, and I remember I looked up and I saw the Spitfire coming round, coming straight down towards where I was. I went flat on the deck and his bullets came right across the front of me. Missed my head by inches. And I thought to myself, good God what a narrow one I had there. But I still lived, I still lived to eat the rest of that parcel.

I finished up then in a camp called Fallingbostel(?) in Germany, near the frontier with France. We were released there and it was quite an experience, because one day we were all standing there in this farm and we had to billet down in the barns. This morning we woke up and we got outside and there were only 2 guards about, no officers and all the others had all gone. And we were standing not quite knowing what to do when we heard a motorbike coming up the drive into this farm and he told us to stay where we were, the officer will come and tell you where to go and what to do. So we stood there and off he went. And then the jeep came up with about 4 officers in it and they told us we had to make our way back to Nuremberg. How we got there was up to us. So we picked up lorries that were going that way, and we all clambered on and away they went.

Eventually we arrived at Nuremberg and of course there we had to prove who we were, because Germans were infiltrating to get away from Germany. But they found several that had sort of infiltrated us. And then of course we were flown home from Nuremberg in the Lancaster Bombers.

We landed at what is now Gatwick. And then I was taken to a barracks in Haywards Heath where we were all debriefed again, we had to prove who we were, we had a jolly good shower, medical all that sort of thing. But they wouldn鈥檛 allow us out though, and we couldn鈥檛 鈥榩hone our home, we couldn鈥檛 鈥榩hone our wives to tell them we were back in England, we couldn鈥檛 write a letter, we just had to stay put and wait. And then eventually they told us that we could now all go home and I was all completely kitted out in a new uniform.

At Haywards Heath station I phoned a relative of ours in Thorn Heath where we lived and she went round and told Cath that I was on my way home. And then of course she had to go in and start like women do, fuss about. She phoned my brother and he came over.

My wife didn鈥檛 know where I was for a long time because of communications then, but she did know in the finish when she got my Stalag address. She used to write to me and I used to write to her, but a lot of it got lost. For a long, long time she didn鈥檛 have any news at all, only what was on the wireless. But when we got to the first Stalag, they gave us like a card to write to say I was a prisoner of war. And she got that before the British authorities notified her that I was a prisoner. She was greatly relieved I was still alive because such a long time went without any letters, she didn鈥檛 know where I was. When we wrote home we weren鈥檛 allowed to say anything like that. It was all blacked out. But we had a little code word. When I knew I was going to move, on the bottom I put 鈥漺ell cheerio darling, bye bye, love, bye bye鈥�. I put 2 bye byes and she knew then I was on the move. She was worried all the same because she had the three boys. She didn鈥檛 know anything till I knocked on the door.

And then I came home. Of course the part that really, really sticks in my mind was the day I knocked on the front door. And I shall never, ever forget that. The family came running up and opened the door and you can imagine what happened. Of course there were the children and I had to break away then and I picked up all the three boys because they were only small. I had 3 boys and hadn鈥檛 seen 2 of them at all. They鈥檇 forgotten who I was. So it was a very exciting story, that was.

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