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This story is taken from an interview with John Caviston at the Dublin WW2 Commemoration, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Claire Small, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I joined in 1940, January 1940, and I thought the war was going to be over in 6 months — but I didn’t get home for 7 ½ years.
After we came back from Dunkirk and all the rest of it, we were in England for about a year, a year and a half. Then, funny enough, we were in NI for about a year, then we went to England, then we went to Africa. Then we were in Africa for a few years, and we went to Italy, Greece … and we went back to Palestine AFTER the war had finished. We went back after the war had finished, and I didn’t get back home here until june of 1947.

[what was the reception like when you returned home?]

Oh, grand. But I made my business — there was a few fellows, when I came home on leave in 1940 and 41, a few locals — and I won’t mention their names. They used to have swastikas up, to have swastika belts on and all the rest of it. But when I got home in 1947 I made it my business to see a couple of them. And I said “where’s your swastikas now?” They were gone.

I joined the Royal Artillery. I wanted to join the Irish guards, but luckily for me, when I was in Belfast the recruiting sergeant said “no, the Irish Guards are full. You can join the RASC — Royal Army Service Corps — or the Royal Artillery. So I plumped for the Royal Artillery. Then, after anzio, I joined the 9 Commandos. So I was an artillery man, actually.

[can you tell us about Dunkirk?]
It was pathetic! I was lucky, we got out on a boat. I don’t know who it was. We were very lucky, very lucky. Absolutely. And do you know what we got afterwards, after Dunkirk? I know people laugh, but when we came back after Dunkirk we were on Ascot racecourse. I’m not making this up. And there was a fellow, a Dublin fellow, there with me. And the next thing was, the Sergeant Major said “anyone here know anything about horses?”
I always remember his name, his name was Tommy Duff. And he’s a member of the central branch of the RBL here in Dublin. And he said “Come on, Johnny. You know what’s going to happen.”
“N´Ç.”
“We’re going to be sent up to clean the officers’ mess or something like that.”
We were sent off to Beaufort Camp on Salisbury plain, and we got horses! Would you believe it, horses! Horses that were intended for the French army. And to this day, I’ve been asking people how - these horses were called “Australian whalers” from Canada. Now, why these horses were called “Australian whalers” nobody’s been able to tell me.
That was the “First Field (Horsed) Regiment”. There was already a “First Field Regiment” of the Royal Artillery.
I was with those for about a year. And the next thing was, they decided to make us into a pack regiment. You got mules, you see? And you broke up these 2.3 in guns, and you put the guns on the back of these 10 mules.
If you had anything to do with mules … I got out of there!
I got out of that crowd. And I managed to wrangle myself into the 56th Field Regiment. And it’s amazing. It was a pottery regiment! And the things you pick up. They were a territorial regiment. And we finished up in Kilkeel in NI. That’s a fact! Oh yes, lovely! Up in kilkeel. And I slipped down here.

The lads were “when you coming up, John? When you coming back, john? Bring us back some silk stockings! Bring us back some silk stockings! Or bottles of whiskey”
Would you believe it?

[I was made] Captain, Acting.
That was the proviso when it came up in Part 2 Orders, to be told I was going to be made a Captain. “Captain, Acting? Temporary?” and I said to him - “One condition. Paid!”
He looked at me and said “Yes. Get out of here!”

When I joined up I actually thought the war was going to be over in 6 months!

I certainly was very much an anti-fascist. I was very much an anti-Nazi. And of course, my mother was an out-and-out Royalist. Now what my father was, to this day I don’t know. For the simple reason, my father was a policeman, he was in the old DMP [Dublin Metropolitan Police, pre-1921] here. I don’t know what his politics were. And the one thing that used to annoy my father was the fact that, I think it was about 1936 or something, people in mental asylums — lunatics, in other words — got the vote, and the police didn’t. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the Garda Siochanna — and they still have to do a postal vote, they’re not allowed to go into a polling station. They’re not allowed to go in and vote. They’ve got to do a postal vote. And that’s the one thing that used to annoy my father. My father was a very quiet man, but he had a devilish sense of humour. He really did. And he was a big tall man. He’d be pulling peoples’ leg, and his eyes were dancing.
He got killed when I was away in Anzio, and they didn’t tell me. He got killed by a horse here. And that’s it.
I never thought I’d come home, but I did come home in one piece.

June 1947.
It was great! Well, it was all right. I went back to doing medicine, but I was too old. And then I went back to England, and in the meantime I met my wife, who I’d known from the time I was a young fellow. I’d met her at the coronation of George VI in 1937. My mother was an out-and-out Royalist, you wouldn’t believe it.

And [my wife-to-be] was coming back from England, to visit her grandmother. Her 2 sisters and herself. And the last thing her mother said to her was, “whatever you do, go and visit the Cavistons when you get there”. And I put my eye on her, and that was it. I packed up medicine and I went back and I took up engineering. And I became a navy engineer for AV Hardy, and we came back. I couldn’t get a job when I got back here in 1951. So what did I become? A fishmonger! Would you believe it?

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