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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by John Hughes, for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Ken Derrick, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

LOST PROPERTY

In the Western Desert, my tank was hit by an armour piercing shell and caught fire. As radio operator, I was in the turret and luckily able to get out, although I was in a hurry. Jumping to the ground, I felt a violent blow to the groin and was convinced that I had been hit by a bullet or shell splinter, and very seriously wounded. Having scrambled well away from the tank, I took stock and realised that in my descent, the lanyard of my service revolver had become tangled in the fittings on the tank hull. The lanyard went round the neck and was intended to ensure the revolver stayed with you, even if you had to let go of it for any reason. In that event, the gun would just drop down in front of you. My lanyard had reached the limit of its length before I hit the ground and the revolver on the end of it had made violent contact with me, before the lanyard snapped and stayed, with the revolver, on the now fiercely burning Sherman.

Even in the heat of battle and the fog of war, one had to give account for the War Office’s property and, despite the circumstances of the loss, I had to pay £7 to replace the weapon. In similar circumstances in Europe, I had left a greatcoat in a brewed up tank. This cost me £3 and on another occasion I had to pay 1/- (5p) for a broken plate. These were significant sums of money for a King’s Corporal, earning only a few pounds in some of the toughest working conditions imaginable.

The last time I had to stump up for lost property, I asked how much a Sherman tank cost. On being told it was £30,000, I thought it a bit risky to say that I must owe the War Office £120,000 because I’d been blown out of four of them in my time.

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