大象传媒

This story has been transcribed and published by Mark Jeffers, with permission from the author.

I joined the army because I鈥檇 had a row with my father. I鈥檓 from Dublin and I travelled up to Clifton Street in Belfast and signed up in January 1940. Funnily enough, the recruiting officer was from Dublin! They sent me to Heysham on a boat. We arrived in Mask-by-the-sea near Redcar. At that time I was in the 42nd Light and Heavy Artillery. There were three squads all together and two of those squads had ninety men in each of them.

We went on parade in training and it turned out that 85% of the soldiers were from the Free State Army. We were sent to France with the 30th Field Regiment.

Dunkirk was utter chaos. We had gone to Belgium with 1st Division British Army. We were chased all the way to Dunkirk and we fought all the way. We got out on a boat which took us to Dover. We got the train to London and went to Ascot Racecourse. 30th Field Unit was all broken up.

I was then sent to Royal Ascot Racecourse where I was teamed up with a guy called Tommy Duff. We were doing routine duties when one morning our sergeant major approached us. 鈥淎nyone know anything about horses?鈥� he asked us. We were sent to Salisbury where we joined the 1st Field (Horsed) Regiment in 1940. We had old WW1 guns!

The 56th Field regiment was a territorial unit from Staffordshire. We caught a boat to Kilkeel and went here on leave. We were told, 鈥淏ring back some silk stockings and whiskey!鈥�
When we were there one American soldier got very drunk. He was lying in the middle of the square in the town when the US Military Police came. He was a Red Indian. Four MP鈥檚 beat him up with their batons. I went to step in and a local man stepped in front of me and told me to keep out of it, mind my own business. They threw him in the back of the jeep and away they went.

The Middle East was fabulous.

I caught Interic Fever. The visiting physician was called Lord Moron and he was the king鈥檚 physician. I complained about being hungry so he told the nurses to give me whatever I wanted. I got rice pudding and everything!

I was made an officer in 1943 in the 9th Commando. It was only because all the other officers had been killed!

We were given our rations by the Americans. They had ration packs which were the same for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Inside them there was a tin of spam, two cigarettes, soup, jam, two biscuits and a bar of chocolate.

We were on a huge landing ship on one occasion, an American ship. We were sailing from north of Naples to Ansio. I was walking up and down the deck and I felt something hot hit my elbow. There was a tap sticking out of the side of the ship. I turned it and you鈥檒l never guess what came out. Hot coffee! There was a queue for that a mile long very quickly!

I got my wings for parachuting with the 9th. I was given ten and six pence a day.

I went home during Christmas 1940 for leave and there wasn鈥檛 really rationing in Dublin. I got steak and egg no problem but they were very expensive.

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