大象传媒

Sadly my grandad died on his birthday in February 2004. A brave old soldier I wanted to know more about what his role was in the war. So shortly before he died I interviewed him and my results are below:

My grandad (Frank Hancock aka Hank) entered the Queens Own Royal West Kents (based in Essex) when he was 25 years old, as part of conscription. He was stationed in Worley barracks as a solider and was trained to fight/kill and survive. Thousands of conscripts made up the 8th Army of which he was part.

Grandad was 27 when he entered his first battle at Al Alamein in North Africa in the desert. General Montgomery was in charge of the 8th army and my grandad was proud to fight for his country.

Being in the desert they were given summer clothing to wear in khaki colouring. Grandad saw a lot of his close friends die in the battle which affected him to his dying day. He said that he was lucky to be alive. There were guns in fixed positions firing all the time to clear the minefields, with ten thousand guns at the front with Tank and Infantry behind. He mentioned that the dust storms were really bad, "it stopped you from seeing anything and the sand got everywhere." He was issued with a Tommy gun and he used it a lot to stay alive. Being in the desert, dysentary was rife and my grandad suffered badly. So badly that he was evacuated to the hospital in Cairo. Apparently there were a lot of men that ended up in hospital suffering from dysentary. He spent a couple of months at El Alamagne, six at the most. Grandad said that when you were sent to hospital you had to go back to training.

So grandad went and retrained in the Infantry Training department and went on to join the East Surrey Foot regiment (which his father had belonged to in the first World War). He went on to fight in the Battle for Monte Cassino in Italy. He broke through the Adriatic coast and went to Rimini and Bologne. Then they pulled the battalion out and sent them to Palestine for a rest. After the break they were sent to Greece where the Greeks and the Palestinians were fighting. Grandad was always positioned on the front line. Again grandad had to suffer the awful duststorms which blotted out the sun and almost nearly buried them. There was a stong camaderie on the front line and everyone looked out for one another as it was the only way to survive. Grandad would often share his hand biscuits and bully beef.

Thousands went on trains from Tarbrook to Palestine to the General hospital suffering from dysentary. This journey took a week to reach their final destination. Always on my grandads mind were the thoughts of survival. The teams always looked out for one another.

The battle consisted of:

5 companies and the HQ company
3 platoons and HQ platoon
then the sections would split down.

Grandad survived the war and went onto marry my Nan who was based in the Womens Land Army. They then had three sons. Grandad was awarded the following medals:

The 1939 - 1945 star
The Atlantic Star
The Air Crew Europe Star
The Africa Star
The Pacific Star
The Burma Star
The Italy Star
The France and Germany Star
The Defence Medal
The War Medal