Churchill during a lull in the fighting deciding which US General to fire next
Sept. 11/12 1943
My Diary:
Caught up with main convoy at 0500 hrs just outside Ain Milia. Breakfast amid olive groves. Bought delicious green grapes in village. Convoy is waiting for a lost truck to turn up, by midday no sign of it, so we all push on again.
I spent the whole day asleep in back of truck only waking for food. By nightfall we had arrived at Ghardimaou, it was so dark I’ve no idea what the place looked like. I went on sleeping as fast as I could so we could get there quicker, I slept all night and only awoke when Gunner Edgington said ‘Ere Rip Van Watsit’ and gave me a cup of tea.
We walked to the Wireless Truck for the 7 o’clock news about Salerno. The announcer was saying, “Three attacks by Panzers were thrown back in the night.” It all sounds dodgy.
A huge formation of Baltimore Bombers passed overhead in the direction of Sicily. “That ought to cheer the lads up,” said Ben Wenham. “If they’re American, they’re as likely to drop the bloody lot on us,” said White.
Drivers are warming up their engines, they are dispersed among the olive trees, affording ideal camouflage for the vehicles which are painted black and green.
“Prepare to move!” The order rings through the camp. Diesel fumes turn the air blue, gradually the convoy pulls onto the ‘road’, the leader raises his hand, drops it, and we pull away. This was a slow convoy pulling heavy guns, the speed averaged thirty miles an hour. We had crossed the border into Tunisia and were passing familiar battle grounds where the skeletons of German tanks lay rusting. In the fields, amid grazing sheep, Arabs are re-working the land, ploughing round the shell holes. We passed acres of cork trees and groves of eucalyptus trees, it all seemed so peaceful, yet here we were, obviously headed for Salerno and bloody hell! We passed Sidi Nsir where the gallant 155 Battery had made their stand against General Lang’s 10th Panzer and Mark VI Tanks of 501 Heavy Tank Bn17, the guns were fought to the muzzle, only 9 Gunners survived but they put paid to the German advance.
Churchill listening as troops of the 1st Army address him
Sept. 13th 1943
We have travelled 500 miles in three days, or is it three miles in 500 days? Whatever, it was bloody rough and dusty, the ending jolting and bumping, numbing mind and body alike. Everywhere now are massive American Camps and Dumps, mile after mile of shells and supplies, tanks and vehicles. Batallions of marching infantry are everywhere; our destination was a mile outside Bizerta, near the great salt Lac de Bizerta, a vast camp called Houston and Texas. There seemed to be absolutely no organization so we presumed it was ours. The country was a mixture of the flat and the hilly, covered in brown tussock grass all flattened by thousands of vehicle tracks. We put our bivvies anywhere we liked, and waited.
“Wot’s on then?” inquires Chalky White.
“I’m doing military waiting.”
“Military waiting?”
“Yes, definitely military waiting.”
“Wot for?”
“That is something I don’t know, all I know is that I am waiting in military, and by your appearance, you are also military waiting.”
“You know, I’ve been walking around here for an hour, and I didn’t know what I was doing and all the time I was military waiting.”
Edgington, Devine and Tume are approaching with military waiting.
“Got any fags?” was the query, I distributed a packet of Passing Clouds my parents had sent me. I had up till now refrained from using them, as they had been packed in a parcel with bars of soap. Smoking them was exactly like chewing a bar of Lifebuoy, however they smoked them in complete agony, but such is the power of nicotine that Edgington bought the whole packet. Thereafter it was easy to tell when he ‘d been smoking one as he went grey and his spit turned to bubbles. We found a huge NAAFI in a marquee. There was a brand new upright piano, so we gave the lads a session of Jazz, until a spoon player appeared.
Sept. 14
Thank God! Pay Parade! What’s this? It’s in lire? So it is Italy for sure. We are given a small booklet. Customs and language of Italy.
“It says the Italians are very jealous of their women, and in the South they are usually chaperoned…”
“Wot’s chaperoned.”
“Means they orlways got someone wiv ‘em.”
“OH? What ‘appens if you want to ‘ave it away wiv her.”
“Well the chaperon ‘as to be done as well, otherwise they won’t let you do it at all.”
The daily routine;
Morning Parade with small Arms.
Maintenance and training.
Lunch.
Afternoon off.
The afternoon was spent doing laundry and writing letters in the NAAFI. Usually a lorry went down to a great surf beach at Gap Blanc just outside Bizerta, which was crowded with American troops. The sea here has huge breakers and great fun was had by diving into them, or coming in surf-board style.
From the 15th to the 20th we passed the time as best we could, and it wasn’t good enough. Apparently we were waiting for landing craft from Salerno; they had stayed longer than anticipated, as at one stage it seemed as though they have to evacuate the beach-head. We played football that went on for hours with sides of up to 50, scores like 63 goals to 98 were not uncommon. Our MO described the camp as the only lunatic asylum run by the inmates. I wrote home to my brother:
Dear Hairy,
Don’t ask me what is happening. It’s whispered that the war is over and no-one has the nerve to tell us. The American troops don’t know what we are, they drive past in Cadillacs, throw us sweets and ask where our sisters are. We play 500 a side football, it’s the only way one can get a game. The NAAFI queue is nine miles long, the men at the front are from World War One. Our major wants us to invade Italy so he can see Vesuvius ‘before it goes out’. He is a brilliant soldier and can almost dress himself. It’s a very trying time. Try it.
Love to Mum and Dad.
Ever loving Brother known as 954024
Sept. 21st 1943
This evening we collected the Camp rubbish and lit a bonfire. We gathered around and sang (to he tune of Alouette)
Balls to Jumbo
Balls to Jumbo Jenkins
Among those singing loudest is Captain Bentley, the Regimental Chaplain.
We sat and watched as the embers finally died, then we retired to our tents. I lit my little oil lamp and read ‘The Persians’ by Aeschylus. I’d never been a scholar as such but had a voracious appetite for knowledge and wished to know what the Golden Age of Greece was like, and to learn about its inheritors the Romans; so my father sent me many books on the subject, though my choice baffled him, for he was reading Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill and Dead Wood Dick, and I think he still is.
22 September 1943
Battery Diary:
First Party embarked (Part of HQ 17 and 19 Batteries).
In terms of the physical it started when a crowd of our officers started to run at high speed in all directions crashing into one another and finally disappearing into the HQ Tent, shoe sides bulged outwards with the combustion of Commissioned Ranks within. Suddenly the tent flaps burst open, and out thunder the officers. Lt Pride says, “We’re off lads, as usual it should all have been done yesterday,” a great scramble ensues, and by ten o’clock we are on the way to whatever it was we were on the way to, which turns out to be Bizerta Docks. Some Hundred LST are lined up, jaws open, waiting to devour us. Through the stifling day, in that peculiar muddled British style, we load our vehicles onto the HMS Boxer, we watch her sink lower and lower in the Water, as hour after hour we pile our gear aboard.
HMS Boxer the LST that look us to Salerno
“There’s no bunks, sleep wherever you can,” said Lt Pride.
We are issued with seasick pils. I never suffer from this so I threw them over the side where fish ate them and were immediately sick.
“It’s all very excit
ing,” says Kidgell. “Wonder what they’re going to do with us.”
“First make us sea sick, and when we are vomiting at our limit, land us on a beach in Italy under shell fire.”
The ramp is being winched up. “Ello, we’re off then,” the engines throb into ‘Hard Astern’, we hear the ring of the ship’s telegraph. We pull away from the jetty, we are all lining the railing. It’s six o’clock as we pull into the middle of Lac de Bizerta.
“Well,” says Doug Kidgell, rubbing his hands with excitement, “we’re off at last,” whereupon we drop anchor.
“You were saying?” I said.
There’s a cool breeze from the sea. “Grub up,” we all troop down to the galley where containers of hot stew are opened and doled out with a mug of ship’s cocoa.
“Like a fag?” A sailor, short and squat, holds out a fifty tin of ships’ Woodbines, in those days a luxury.
“Ta,” I said with certain amount of surprise.
“Take a handful,” he said. “This is a trap,” I thought. “You’re not queer are you,” I said.
His name was Eddie Hackshaw. As darkness fell there was a feeling of frustration on board, so I got out me bugle and, down on the mess deck, blew some tunes. Eddie Hackshaw was so pleased he gave me a silver Arab ring.
“It will bring you good luck,” he forecast.
“Good luck?” I said. “What’s that.”
He wangled an extra mug of cocoa for me before we all settled for the night. Doug Kidgell and I slept on top of his Scammell. It was incredibly quiet. We could hear the lap of waves against the ship.
Gunner Edgington attempting to smuggle Gunner Milligan out of Africa in a NAAFI tea chest
As I lay, stretched out on top of the huge Scammell lorry, believing I would surely die at Salerno, I started to cogitate on my Will, the last one I had made out was when I was due to get killed in the North African landings, however, we had arrived too late. My most expensive possession was my trumpet, I wanted that buried with me in case I am buried alive, I could blow a few bars and they would dig me up again. Second most expensive item, twenty Wills Woodbines in an old tobacco tin. Then there were the women…“Listen to this Kidgell — I want you to be a witness, it is my last Will and Testament.”
“You making it out on top of a lorry?” he said in disgust.
“No better place — listen, my women — I leave Ivy Chandler and three Woodbines to Gunner Chalky White. I leave Kay of Herstmonceux to Gunner Devine, I leave Betty Ormsman and one Woodbine to Gunner Kidgell.”
“Is that the one with the big boobs?”
“Yer.”
“Smashing…but only one Woodbine?”
“That’s all you’ll have time for with her!…Now to Gunner ‘Plunger’ Bailey, I leave Shirley Wright, Mrs Eileen Leech and Molly Parkinson.”
“That’s not enough for ‘im.”
“It’ll have to do…this is an emergency…Now to my mother, I leave my brother, to my father I leave my mother.”
“Wot you going to leave your brother?”
“I’m going to leave him alone…”
Those were the last thoughts as I dropped into a sleep that would terminate in Volume IV…what time will Bombardier Milligan arise, what will be his first words to the dawn…? Read all about it in Volume IV, order your copy today. I need a reason to start writing it.
“I wonder why we’re waiting?” I said as I threw my stubend over the side.
“We’re waiting for the tide,” says Kidgell.
“That’s the best news I’ve had.”
“Why?”
“The Med’s tideless.”
Spike Milligan, Memoires 03 (1976) - Monty, His Part in my Victory
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