大象传媒

My unit had only been in the front line for about three weeks,at Faenza,15 Killometers south of Bologna,my unit,the 2nd Battallion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, (Loyals), had taken over that section from the Maharatas, part of the Ghurka Regiment, (we were in the 10th Indian Division), things were pretty quiet up till then with just a bit of 'stoncking' (mortar fire) going on, we think the German unit on the opposite side of the valley to us, decided to find out who the new unit was that had replaced the Maharatas.
It was about 1.30 A.M., the first I heard was a commotion, and a great deal of shouting, in German, and gunfire, going on over to my right, I raised myself in my slit trench to see what was going on, and saw a group of German soldiers running in a crouched position behind our position, these were soldiers of the crack German troops, the Herman Goering Paratroop Regiment, I was a Bren gunner, but my Machine gun had been condemned as unserviceable by R.E.M.E., which meant that I could only fire single shots, cocking the gun after each shot, a very slow prceedure, on seeing the Germans behind me, I thought it was all up anyway, so I decided to go out fighting, I stood up with the Bren gun at my side and fired a shot and cocked the gun and fired another shot, whether I hit anyone I don't know,at that point,one of the Germans who was about 6 yards from me,turned and fired his atomatic gun at me, and I remember thinking that it was peculiar that when you were shot you didn't feel anything, (except fear).
After that, I stayed in the bottom of the slit trench, after all we had been over run anyway, and I was just waiting for the inevitable, one of the Germans jumped over my head shouting a destinct "ein moment", and placed an explosive charge against the wall of the ruins of the small house next to our position which exploded after only a few seconds after the Germans started running down the hill towards the valley, we learned later that they had taken one of our number back with them for interrogation, but we heard that about two weeks later his captives unit had been over run and he was in England on repatriation leave.
Five of our company had been killed by that German patrol, including our company seargent, seargent Maxwell, who had run forward to challenge the patrol and was shot and fell on his own hand grenade.
At daylight we returned to the rest position, behind a hill, and I was told to leave my Bren gun next to the company tent as it was going to be replaced that day, as I took it to the allotted position, I saw that in the side of the breech block of the weapon were two very deep indentations, obviously made by two bullets fired by the German soldier, I was very thankfull that I had had the Bren gun across my front during that action. Apart from the five dead comrades, I noticed that the young man who had been in the same slit trench as me was keeping his great coat on despite the warm weather, and was nursing his left arm, when I persuaded him to let me look at it, i saw that a piece of shrapnell had passed through the crook of his arm severing the ligaments, he was taken to a rear hospital for treatment, his injury was sustained when one of our own officers thinking the Germans had taken our position, threw a hand grenade into our trench, nobody ever moved as quickly as I did at that moment, leaping in one bound out of the slit trench, but the unfortunate Parker was still in the trench when the grenade went off, he was very fortunate not to have sustained more injury than he did, I'm just glad I survived, --- Eric Kirsop