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Memories 3b

1943/4

December 3,1943

Load the Regiment’s guns and trucks, including “Patricia”, my pride and joy (an Austin Light Utility Truck), on to the Liberty Ship “Noah Webster”, at the port of Bizerta, Tunisia.

December 6 to 10.

In a convoy of 70 vessels by the scenic route to Italy — Pantelleria, Malta, Etna, “looking like a Japanese fire screen”, Stromboli in eruption, Isle of Capri, Vesuvius, Naples. Drop anchor in Naples harbour, cluttered with half-sunken bombed ships.

December 13

Patricia unloaded at 0500 hours. Drive to our temporary home, the Potato Market, to kip down in the back.

December 16

Drive over the hills to Avellino and Foggia, to end up at Minervino Murge, quaint and ancient. Put up tents in the public park. Patricia handled the 160 miles very well — much low-gear work.

December 24

Load up Patricia with huge turkeys and take them to the town bakery for roasting. Crowds of sinister-looking men in the town square, in cloaks and black hats — the male smugglers’ chorus from “Carmen”?

Christmas Day

Officers bring us “Gunfire” (buckets of hot tea laced with rum). Collect turkeys from the bakery — fabulous smell. Sergeant stabbed, not too seriously, down town — what was he doing there, by himself, in the middle of the night?

January 2, 1944

Driving the Regimental Sergeant Major back over the hills, to Salerno, convoy moving agonisingly slowly, get sleepier and sleepier. “Can I have a break, sir?” “No, drive on!”
CRASH — through a stone wall into someone’s back garden. Patricia’s front wings drooping on to the wheels. Take a turn round each sidelight with a piece of rope, heave the wings up, giving the poor girl a look of surprise, and drive on.

January 8 to 15

With REME help, replace Patricia’s wings and give her a general bulls**t

DUKWS arrive — looks like we are going on an amphibious assault somewhere.
Landing exercise offshore Salerno. Cock-up — about 30 DUKWS go straight to the bottom.

2

January 16

Move to Embarkation Camp — maximum security, surrounded by rolls of barbed wire. Somehow, a friendly Italian girl is smuggled in, and proceeds to earn almost the whole Regiment’s ration of bully beef.

January 19

Embark on LST (Landing Ship, Tank). Crew is American, and the ice cream dispenser works 24 hours a day.

January 20

Move off, and get briefing. We are to land on the beach at Anzio, a few miles South West of Rome, and heavy opposition is expected.

January 22

Anchor off Anzio. Down the companionways to the hold at 0100 hours. Climb on our DUKW and wait. The bow doors open, the “traffic light” turns green, and we inch forward down the ramp Our DUKW puts its nose in the sea, water surges up to the windscreen, at last we have “lift off”, and are wallowing in a calm, black sea. DUKWs form single file, passing a line of purple lights on the sterns of anchored warships. Five-minute barrage of rockets from two British landing craft lights up the night sky, but otherwise we just chug quietly towards the beach. Get to the line of breakers, to bob up and down at the back of a traffic jam — “Clearing of mines not complete” Shells start bursting around us — sound like 88 mm. Sitting on the side of the DUKW, feel about 10 feet tall. Our American driver says “I didn’t sign up for this” and starts heading back out to sea. Our lieutenant draws his Smith and Wesson 38 — “Turn this bloody thing around or I’ll blow your head off.” Hail from the beach - “Beach Clear” — we chug up the sand, drive a few yards through a hedge into a field, and empty all the gear out of the DUKWs. Elegant Italian officer watches us — apparently he is the local Commandant, and was in bed with his mistress when our infantry came knocking on his door — asked them to give him half an hour to pack his bag and say a proper goodbye.
Get out my survey gear and survey in the Regiment, to make sure that all the guns are pointing in the same direction. Solitary Messerschmidt cruises over, pilot waving — wonder if he thinks we’re German troops on an exercise.

January 23

Survey in the 19th Field Regiment — the people who shelled us by mistake on Banana Ridge. Hear that our recce units have been all the way to Rome, and met virtually no resistance.

January 26 to February 8

Flashspotting (taking bearings on enemy muzzle flashes) from an Observation Post in the ruined “Anastasia tower” every day. Gerry bringing more and more guns into action.AA shell explodes over the cookhouse. Cook wounded, but can still cook.

February 13 to 16

Heavy air raids each night, and daily shelling intensifying. Cut down trees, and turn my slit trench into a World War 1 type dugout.

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