大象传媒

ROBERT COCKING 鈥� WAR MEMORIES

I was born Robert R Cocking in a north-eastern town in Lincolnshire called Lough. I was called up early January 1942 and went to Catterick Camp, Yorkshire for training on two-pounder anti-tank guns. I got my first acting unpaid stripe the first week I was there. Four months later we were posted to a regular unit in Hadleigh, Suffolk. After a couple of months we were told that the 56th London division, with an emblem of a black cat, was going abroad and the last four of us to join the unit were told that we were too young to go. I immediately put in for an interview with the major and volunteered, and the others did also, and after about a week we were accepted. We were now into August 1942. We were put on trains and sent up to Liverpool and embarked on the SS Franconia which carried 7000 troops. After five weeks zigzagging across the Atlantic in a very large convoy we stopped at Freetown, South Africa, and then down to Capetown where we stayed a few weeks before being put on the Niew Amsterdam which carried 12000 troops. We sailed up the east coast of Africa and into the Red Sea on our own as the ship was too fast for the submarines.

We landed at Port Tewfic in Egypt where we stayed on the foreshore for some time and then driven to depot to pick up the trucks, guns, tents, ammunition and everything else that is needed to make up a regiment. We had to check everything carefully to make sure we weren鈥檛 being 鈥榮hort-changed鈥� - two men to a truck and it didn鈥檛 matter what it was carrying we were told it all had to be there when we got to our destination. After a few more days we were told to move out in order, headquarters first, then A battery, B battery, C battery and rear echelon consisting of all the mechanical break-down trucks, spare parts and anything we couldn鈥檛 carry on the other vehicles.

We headed out across the Sinai Desert and eventually we got to a place called Asluge, about 140 miles from where we started, where there was a cooked meal waiting for us. There we were told that we were going to Iraq to guard the oil fields, through Palestine, Trans Jordan and Syria. It was freezing at night and 120 above in the day-time. Coming to Lake Habannia at the end of one day鈥檚 hard drive we thought it was the cat鈥檚 whisker until we decided to go for a swim 鈥� there were millions of mosquitoes just about 2 feet above the water. When we stood up to get out we were bitten to pieces! However we still went for our swim at night times during the two or three days we stayed there.

When we moved on it didn鈥檛 take long to get to Baghdad and then on to our final destination a place called Kirkuk approx 80 miles north of the capital. Each regiment was allotted an area to build a campsite. We had to dig into an area of very hard mud large enough to allow ten men to live and sleep together but small enough to be contained under a tent covered with a very large flysheet to keep out the heat of the day. The regiment consisted of headquarters and 3 batteries, 267, 268 and 302. Each battery had a headquarters and 4 troops, each troop having 4 six-pounder anti-tank guns and various vehicles such as half-tonners and three-tonners etc portees to carry the six-pounders and ammunition.

We spent five months north of Kirkuk near the border of Turkey on the Euphrates, Great Zab and Little Zab rivers. During that time I had been doing a wireless course, learning to read morse code at 12 words a minute and all the procedures needed when you go into action. We then got the orders that we were all moving back along the same old trail that we had come on, all the way back to Egypt where we made camp by the Bitter Lakes on the Suez Canal. We had about 6 weeks鈥� intensive training before moving again, going through Cairo and Alexandria along the coast road (which the Eighth Army had taken only a few days previously), down through the Derna Pass and through Mersa Matru, past Bhenghashii and the replica of the Arche de Triomphe in Paris, France and on all the way to Tripoli. A lot of the other regiments went on all the way to Enfeederville, Tunisia to help with the clean-up operation. By this time I had become a dispatch rider and was out of a gun team.

The next thing I remember was being put on boats with all our equipment and we were in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and a couple of days later on 3rd September 1943 we landed at Salerno, southern Italy. At last we knew what it was like to be in action. We moved off the beach and down a road inland about 4 or 5 miles just outside Battipaglia, given our gun position and told to dig in. I was now back on the gun with the boys. There was one problem, the tobacco plants were taller than the gun and we couldn鈥檛 see anything. The next night we were towed out to another position where we had a good vision of the whole area. There was a natural deep ditch behind the gun and this saved us digging slit trenches. Early one morning I had just taken up my watch for two hours in the gun pit when we were fired on by a sniper. One shot hit the gun and me on the leg and 3 others in the gun team were injured when the shots exploded on the concrete wall at the back of the ditch. The radio was also put out of action. I crawled back to the ditch and it took me some time to repair the radio, encode a message and call for assistance for the injured and also to do what I could to help them. We were all evacuated from the area that night together with the gun. Some time much later we were taken up the coast to Amalfi just above Salerno. When the articifers went to clean the gun the rags inserted into the buffer recuperator got on fire as the shells that had hit the gun were filled with phospherous and had to be diluted with water before work could begin to repair the gun.

After about ten days we went back into the line just below Naples and I was given my motorbike back. This was short-lived because after a few days I was told to report to the Major in the front line and told to take over the radios in the armoured car as both of the radio operators had gone down with malaria and I was put in charge of signals in the battery. From the moment I got into that armoured vehicle I knew that I had a job until the end of the war. Whenever we were in action I accompanied the Major and his driver wherever they went in either a seven-ton armoured vehicle or a jeep, both equipped with radios.

It was some time after this that Naples fell to our Forces and the 5th Army and when Vesuvius erupted and we were pulled out of the line again and headed across Italy to the east coast port of Bari. We were put on board ship to Alexandria, Egypt and finished up a few miles from Tel-Aviv in Israel. After some hard training we were sent back again to Italy 鈥� the big battle for Monte Casino was ongoing and also the battle for Rome. I was on the advanced party to take over the equipment of the 78th division which we were relieving based just below Rome at a place called Quidonia Airfield. We then had to travel about 90 miles south to pick up the rest of the regiment and other regiments to take them to their units. We were put onto boats and told we would be invading at a place called Anzio, just above Rome. The second 7th Queens landed at Anzio at midnight and we landed at 3 in the morning. A beachhead of 7 陆 miles long and approx 2 miles deep was established and we were backed up by the American 5th Army. We were shelled every morning and every night at dusk 鈥� we were sitting ducks. I was given a motorbike and had to take messages to the different gun positions. The second 7th Queens positioned in front of our anti-tank guns were surrounded one night and all taken prisoners - over 400 men. Our mail and supplies were brought up from a rear echelon about once a week by truck. I had just got the truck driver a slit trench that had been vacated by one of the Americans when the shelling started. I was standing on the top talking to him, he was in the trench folding his blanket on his knee when I said 鈥淟ook out, Len. These are for us!鈥� A shell burst in the pine tree near to us and killed him. I walked over to where the officers were and told the Major but I don鈥檛 remember much after that.

I do remember one instance when we got to the River Poe. The Germans had breached the banks and flooded the whole of the Pontaime marshes. We had to be taken across in what is known as a Buffulow which is like a tank but with no turret or inside and the back lets down so that a jeep can be driven on to it. The vehicle tracks act as paddles and propels the vehicle through the water. There was the Major, the Captain, the jeep driver, two others and myself on the Buffulow and luckily we made it without mishap.

We stopped at a place called Perugia and stayed for two or three days. One evening I managed to get a ticket to the opera 鈥淭osca鈥� with Maria Corniglia who used to sing with Gigli 鈥� it was wonderful. Then we moved up north into a place called Moliano. I got to know the Mayor there very well. He was about seventy and spoke seven languages. We went to his house for supper on quite a few occasions where he spoke to me in English and I spoke back to him in Italian. The Mayor was known as Sindaco of Mogliano and once he took four of us to the theatre and we sat in his box. Afterwards the Major wanted to know how we had managed it! We had quite a memorable stay in Mogliano, but it was short-lived. We had to move on and fight a war. However, I did manage to get four days鈥� stay in Florence before moving to Forli Impopuli.

We moved up to Cesena but as it was too close to the front line we moved over to Cervia just above Rimini on the coast. We had a house next door to Gracie Field鈥檚 coastal residence. I crashed a three-ton truck on night in Cesena and was in hospital for two weeks, however I was luck to get away with no charges being made. I was told to take a portable radio and join the Engineers on the Arno river. When the engineers had got the pontoon bridge across the river I was to call back with the code word 鈥極range鈥� and the guns could then be taken across. The Germans put up such a barrage that night that the Engineers never did get the pontoon across and we had to abandon the area before day-break.

We were in Cervia over Christmas and for some time after that and then things got a bit hectic. I remember dashing down the highway at about 60 miles an hour trying to be the first in Venice. We stayed in Venice for some time and went across to the Lido in gondolas. We were then pulled back to Monfalcone, then Tulio between Cervignano and Grado on the coast. I put in for a building course but was first sent to Trieste on a shorthand and typing course. Before this course finished my building course came through and I was sent down to Capua near Naples. After I rejoined my unit I was sent to Cervignano on another very advanced building course. Two weeks before the course ended my leave to England came through and I took it.

After I got back I found my regiment had been disbanded and I found myself in a holding camp at Klagenfurt where we were told to watch the notice-board for postings. I got a posting to Vienna, Austria as assistant foreman of trades with the Royal Engineers. Vienna is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. We were there to help rebuild some of the damage that had been done during the war. Our main office was in the Schonnbrunn Palace and we were billeted right in the heart of downtown. One day I had to go to the main office. The new recruits were reading King鈥檚 Standing Orders there. I jokingly said 鈥淎m I in there? No 1137553 L/Bdr R R Cocking?鈥� and walked away. A few minutes later one of the boys asked again what my name and number was. Apparently I was there mentioned in despatches for distinguished service in the Mediterranean Forces. I got quite a lot of respect after this got around and my work-load was negligible. I had a truck and driver to drive me around. When my time came up to be demobbed I was asked to sign on for another year. I declined. After four years and eight months abroad I was sent back to Woolwich Barracks and demobbed from Guildford, Surrey.

There are lots of places and other details which I could have put in here, like how we climbed the Great Pyramid at Ghiza, went into the mosques and Muzeum of Hygiene in Cairo, and many, many other things.