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The following is an extract from my father's account of his service with the RAPC in Algiers:

'On Sunday, 8 May 1945, the German army prepared to surrender. This coincided with the feast-day of Jeanne d’Arc and brought Algiers out in a flurry of bunting and military parades. I had been Jeanne’s devoted admirer since my teens and although I despised the ‘sainthood’ thrust upon her by right-wing politicians and the Catholic Church, I went to the Cathedral. I found it difficult to approach the place... cohorts of French, British and American military had had the same idea. I took a circuitous route and got within a hundred yards of the steps where a police cordon was holding back a crowd of curious Arabs. But a uniform can often get one anywhere and I was soon close to the steps and to a small group of Americans.

Mass was being sung on the steps where an altar had been raised together with a statue of the Maid of Lorraine. At the foot of the steps, massed military bands provided the music. It was a gleaming-bright day, the sunlight picking out the glint of bayonets and steel helmets, contrasting with the glowing purple of the vestments worn by the Archbishop. Ranged along the steps were a couple of hundred children - a choir conducted by an enthusiastic deacon whose white beard reached his waist. Oblivious to all this, the officiating priest, withdrawn and quiet, proceeded with the consecration and elevation of the Host. Curiously, the inmost ring of guards were fez-wearing Senegalese askaris - Moslems to a man. Curiously, too, it was on Sunday, 8 May, 1429 that the English abandoned their siege of Orleans, defeated by Jeanne d’Arc.

That night, in spite of the usual black-out, the town was en fete. Groping along the Rue Michelet I bumped into some small obstacle, little more than waist-high. It had a voice: ‘Wull’ye hae a fecht? I’ll gie ye a fecht!’ Some members of the 51st Highland Division, heroes of El Alamein, were in town and lacked occupation now that Germans were ‘off limits’. I did not want a fight, dodged sideways and saw the little man stumbling on, still seeking an enemy. The French had staged a big military parade in the afternoon with flags, drums, bugle-bands, tanks and armoured vehicles processing through the main streets. There were Spahis too, Arab cavalry in their flowing robes. British soldier-onlookers were unimpressed. ‘French! They make a lot of bloody noise now, when it’s all over,’ said one, ‘Never saw any of ‘em anywhere near the Jerries!’

About a fortnight after the surrender I was sitting at my typewriter in 27 Area Cash Office. A wood-and-glass partition ran the length of the room. Suddenly I saw it wave! A second later came the most enormous explosion I had ever heard. Nothing in the London blitz to equal this. Silence. Then the sound of glass splintering and falling into the Rue de la Liberte. My glass partition did not splinter but remained distorted. I went to the door but could not open it. I saw that the frame was buckled. From the street came the sound of screams and running feet. Someone was on the other side of the door and, between us, we got it open. My friend Barrand stood there, very pale. Air raid? No siren. Brigadier Rabino emerged from his office, David from his corner. Outside the Arabs were screaming and running to and fro.

There were no more explosions. Calm gradually returned. We discovered that as part of the German surrender, a great ammunition-dump had been loaded on to a transport-ship and brought into our harbour. It had been booby-trapped. We never discovered the number of casualties among the dockside workers, nor those among the lads of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps who were said to have been unloading the vessel. Rumour proliferated. The shell of this vessel burned for three days, sending showers of ‘fireworks’ into the night sky. Some days later it was rumoured that an ammunition train travelling from the East had also exploded - also booby-trapped. The lower ranks of any army are pervaded by rumours - and not all are false.

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