On the rock
Early in the New Year my name appeared on Coy-orders, 14 days Embarkation leave and then return to my unit.
Although this meant an overseas posting, it was a wonderful relief from a dodgy situation I thought.
On my return to the Coy, still on Salisbury-Plain we were issued with "K.D.S." (Karki Drill Uniforms) which were still pre-war kit including pith-helmets which were used by regular troops in India and the far east. Consternation all round and rumours ran thick and fast as to our destination! After a few weeks of uncertainty we struck camp and embarked by troop-train landing up in Liverpool docks. Then straight onto the troop ship H.M.S Strathmore one of the old peace time cruise liners that crossed back and forth crossed the Atlantic in more happier days.
We sailed from Liverpool March 4th 1941, joined a small convoy in the Irish Sea with cruiser and destroyer escorts. After several Natzi U-Boats alarms with the destroyers throwing our depth charges around the convoy and later threatened air attack by a loan Dornier plus a very rough passage through the bay of Biscay, we were more than pleased to find one brighter morning the Straits of Gibraltar dead ahead. We turned off course into Algerceras Bay and then into Gib-Harbour with the rock towering above, where we disembarked on the mole the 10th March. We went into intensive training, hand grenades, mind detection and clearance.
Gelignite, Bailey, and Pontoon Bridging etc, Swimming in Catalina Bay we all had to pass 50yards minimum.
Around the end of March there was constant heavy attacks on convoys going through the 'Straits' and up the 'Meddy' to Malta by both sea and air, U-Boats, minefields, and air attacks from Italy.
I had a week in hospital with 'Imbidigo' (skin disease) caused through dirty (as issued from Q.M.Stores) blankets and bed bugs.
Shortly after that I was called out on a working party one Sunday morning to shift a compressor down a rock face. Someone holding ropes to stop it swinging, let go at the wrong moment and it trapped my right against the rock face nearly severing from my ankle. I finished up once more in King George V hospital with broken bones and a lump chopped out. As it was a Sunday and only a minimal number of staff on duty, I had to make do with the duty M.O and one medical orderly giving me jabs of Morphine while they repaired the damage, no anaesthetic!
After about six to eight weeks I was back on light duty although excused route marches for a while. When the aircraft carrier 'Ark Royal' was in port on the mole one day a party of the Coy, was invited on board for the day and we had a marvellous time exploring the great old ship and even got an issue of navy rum a great day out and a welcome break from routine a good time was had by all. Sadly early in November the grand old ship was torpedoed twenty miles up the 'Bluey', but we still had the carrier 'Argus' in the bay.
In February 1942 there was an explosion at the 'M.L.T.B' base (Motor Light Torpedo Boats) and later we heard rumours of wreckage of two man submarines and bodies being washed ashore. We later learned these to be Italians trying to sabotage an ammunition dump on the docks. If this had come off Gibraltar Harbour would have been no more.
On 1st April 1942 at 4:45am air raid sirens went and we had the only significant raids as yet in bright moonlight, they got a few bombs on the N.Front and some believed in La Linia. Most of the fleet were in harbour and for an hour the barrage coming up overhead was deafening with shrapnel coming back down like hailstones.
Early in October 1942 things began to hot up a bit with rumours of landing imminent in North Africa. Convoys coming and going, transports with cargos laden to the decks with large packing cases which when unloaded were transferred to the airfield.
These transpired to be full of sections of flights of Hurricane and Spitfire fighters which were then assembled and ready for action together with all manner of aircraft Flying Fortress, Hudson's, Lightning's, Mosquitoes, etc; all ferried further afield down the 'Bluey' to bases in North Africa and Malta who were having a hard time of it. Also a large invasion fleet in port but in treacherous weather with prolonged rain. More rumours of Lord Luis mount batten arriving and the death of Sikorsky (leader of the Free Polish forces) in an Air transport which overshot the run way on the airfield and disappeared into the depths of Catalena Bay with loss of all aboard, which I witnessed from the Rock look out.
Then suddenly the T.L.C's disappeared, air-craft were taking off up the med, and landings in N.Africa and Italy were on.
The Coy, noticed-board had asked for volunteers for R.E.Long-Range Desert Group, I put my name down but was eventually turned down on medical grounds.
Around late October 1943, after several false alarms and rumours of relief, came the day an Italian ship that had been captured in the African campaign and converted to troop carrier appeared in Algercia Bay under the British flag. This was to be our transport back home to Blighty and level arms and ammo were handed into store and I was informed on Coy.
Orders that I was detailed as Section Lewis-Gunner for the trip! This did not greatly appeal to me as the voyage through the Bay of Biscay and out into the Atlantic was at that time quite literally stacked up with U-Boats and Stuka Dive-Bombers. But an uneventful journey thankfully landed us back in Liverpool Docks early November.
Off the boat straight onto troop-train which eventually brought us down to a transit-camp at Fordingbridge Hampshire in freezing snowy conditions for a spell of acclimatisation before a railway-warrant issue and home for dis-embarkation leave after nearly three years over-seas service on the last remaining British Colony in Europe at that time.
