大象传媒

I was called up Dec 12 1939, sent to Leeds for medical and assigned to the RAMC 184 Field ambulance in Boroughbridge in Yorks, billetd in "the Malt Shovel". given a palliass of straw, to kip down with about 20 lads, in a room above the pub.
We started training with route marches, and medical lectures and excercises, and became quite fit in time. We moved about all over England and Scotland, and eventually got the news that we were to go overseas.
We were taken to Liverpool, in Dec 1942 and boarded "The Duchess of Bedford" of some 20.000 tons. We sailed across the atlantic and had very rough seas for 3/4 days, with most of the men very sick, in mountanous waves.
We arrived in Algeres in glorious sunshine, and we had a 16 mile walk to Maison Carrie.We tasted our first action under fire, and we spent the next 5 months pushing the Germans back to Tunis. we ended up at Hmman Met, camping on the sea shore, it was lovely. but not to last.
We were taken to Bizerta, and there boarded an assault craft (called an LST.that was an LST on Sept 6/7 1943. We landed at Salerno at midnight to a very warm reception from the German guns. There was a some warships in the bay of Salerno fireing into the German defences it was a very impressive sight.It was touch and go for about 10 days to see if the bridgehead would hold.
We were to deal with many casualities during that time, we eventually moved away, to Naples, and started the long from mountain to mountain . up Italy. The Germans were driven from their well dug in strong holds
The most bitter battles were around Monti Casino, we had relays of stretcher bearers getting the wounded down off the mountains to the ambulances below . In some cases it took hours to get them down,some of the mountains were 15.00 meters.
The abbey was holding up the advance, I witnesed a 1000 tons of bombs being dropped on to it as well as artillery shells it was a sight. We had been in continous action for over 6 months, and the division was in need of a rest and reinforcments. We were taken to Tarranto to board a foul smelling Indian boat on March 16. Arriving at Alexandria, and then on to tented camp at ElQuassasin, the relief was very very pleasent
I went to Cairo to see the pyramids, and did a lot of swimming, and just generally relaxing.We went accross the sinei dessert to Nathanya and Damascus, but this idylic existance was not to last I was transported on another boat and we all thought we might be going home but our hearts sank when we heard we were going back to Italy