Lt H N Beadle 67th Field Regt.

Discussion in 'Royal Artillery' started by Uncle Target, Dec 8, 2021.

  1. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Having posted threads regarding his meetings with Merlin Wickes (Glider Pilot), Capt Bert Webster RA MC and Lt Roy Hewitson.
    I have decided to post a few excerpts from his letters every now and again. If only to **** ** the editor of a well known publisher who told me that :
    "Soldiers letters are invariably poorly written and heavily censored so would contain nothing of commercial interest."
    We will begin in December 1941 when he was sent to 123 OCTU Catterick.(There is already thread about 123 on the forum this continues his story).

    L23 Catterick 18th December 1941
    Dear M,
    I haven’t been out for a fortnight and the opportunities get less and less as the work piles up.
    Things are becoming more and more interesting however. I’ve been out on the moors nearly every day this week, map reading, motorcycling and manoeuvring and so on. The motorcycling is particularly pleasant, we are being taught to ride over everything rocks, streams, moorland, mud and woodland. Here of course my past experience has put me well in the fore; and at the moment I am rewarded with the role of D.R. in the event of a “stand to” (i.e invasion).
    Another bit of fun of the last week was throwing hand grenades – real live mills bombs at old tanks. They made handsome bangs and the spice of danger gave the outings a good zip. There were plenty of safety precautions of course but one or two blokes were rather nervous and hurled their bombs so short that we in our observer’s trenches were deluged with quantities of thick mud and other odds and ends.

    Last week it snowed hard for our Commando exercise and though we eventually captured the parachutists it was a bitterly cold job particularly as my role consisted of entirely of sitting in the back of a 30cwt nursing my rifle and arriving just too late to see any action.
    For tomorrows Commando I have a guarantee of action being this week in the ranks of the enemy.
    In other words I shall be transported at crack of dawn to some desolate and blasted heath and from thence under the leadership
    of an intrepid lieutenant Johnson - a real tough- shall march rapidly across country for several hours until we are captured or finally demolish our objective (usually a bridge across the Swale).
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
    Owen and 4jonboy like this.
  2. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    2/Lt HN Beadle 232839 266/67 Fd Regt RA Fakenham 19th May 1942
    During the last week we have been out on some strenuous exercises designed to put us in fighting trim for practice camp. Most tiring of these was a Battery Night Occupation last Thursday when I was up to my ears in work from 2.30 in the afternoon until eight the next morning under a hedge on a very cold and frosty night. Yesterday we went up to a range on the shores of the Wash to fire at calibration targets to get our sights corrected according to the latest ideas of tank shooting.
    It poured with rain and by getting too near to the muzzle on one occasion I gave myself earache but otherwise everything went according to plan.

    I am writing from the midst of the practice camp from which we depart on Thursday. It will take us two days to get there and on the evening of the second day we go into a night occupation on the ranges at Sennybridge.
    All that night we shall be at work on barrages and so on. Which will be fired at dawn. We shall be there for ten days, not firing the whole time but making pretty heavy weather with the whole gamut of targets that artillery has ever fired on including a gas shoot.
    If a minimum of mistakes and the rain holds off, it should be very good fun and doubtless excellent practice.

    I am now appointed Battery Signals Officer which in the near future will involve a two months course at Catterick (blast it!) When I go there I have to be at a standard of a 2nd year signaller and able to read and send morse at the rate of 12 words a minute, which alone is going to take up a lot of my spare time.

    Catterick School of Signals 23rd September 1942
    Despite the number of hours we spend on our backsides listening to the expositions on the behaviour of electrons and magnetic fields, we still get out quite a bit (for we work long hours 8.30 – 6-0) on the moors on Sunday “Schemes.” I know the country like the back of my hand which all tends to make things easier and often we bump into gangs of cadets from 123 doing “dull orders”. I remember when we used to go out as cadets we used to rail at the supercilious “school of sigs crowd” who so blithely laid cables across our gun positions and set up signalling lamps at our O.P’s Now the position is reversed and I join the supercilious ones in looking with amusement on these poor scared looking boys with white bands on their hats. So quickly does one lose the power of sympathy.
    When we go out on these schemes the officers have to lump it with the rest (we are outnumbered 6-1 by NCO’s) and grovel around in the mud digging ditches for cables or climbing trees to make “overhead crossings”. On such a day this week I was “maintenance B” a poor stooge who runs behind the cable laying truck making the line safe and secure. The route was diabolically planned to run across main roads, bogs and tank runs with dozens of Churchill’s pounding remorselessly over the cable. I haven’t sweated so much in a long while as I did making these crossings, digging up sods to protect the line, mending breaks and “reeling in” to test the line- and all this with a telephone, mattock, coil of wire and a pair of pliers hung all over me like a Christmas tree
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2021
    Owen, minden1759 and 4jonboy like this.
  3. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    “King of the Balkans” School of Signals Catterick
    Our barrack room is a very friendly place now that we all know each other well enough to be rude to each other. We have the most interminable arguments about electrical theory, geography, religion, politics and what to do after we’ve won the war.
    One of our number, a dignified and rather silent gent, who seldom joins in unless he has something very important to say, is now known as the “King of the Balkans” from a lay dissertation he made one night on the subject of the Holy Roman Empire.
    Another a large jovial Canadian who walks 30 miles every weekend is known as “Flash” a soubriquet which puzzles him continuously. In fact it was only given to him as an ironic comment on his solid and honest good humour. So every time someone says “how’s it going Flash” he looks up and says “I can’t make it out why you fellers call me that” or “Say where do you get that Flash stuff” or “you got me all wrong”. I shall always remember his comment on Fountains Abbey which he visited in pouring rain last Sunday. “Jeez in all my time, I’ve never seen anythin’ so goldamned beautiful.”
    I never met anyone more appreciative of English scenery. He says “When I came over here two months ago I had the heebie – jeebies. Now I reckon I’m on top of the world. I never thought England was as good as this.”
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
    Owen and 4jonboy like this.
  4. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Thanks for the rapid forwarding of my course result It was a satisfactory end to a good course and normally I suppose, been worth a drink or two in the mess.
    But bigger things are afoot.
    My fears of being recalled from leave were very nearly justified because tomorrow the Regiment moves to Scotland which is as much as any of us knows at the moment.
    Consequently I’ve had a wild day packing and unpacking and rushing about in the rain supervising the loading of vehicles. We start at dawn tomorrow.
     
    Owen and minden1759 like this.
  5. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    SS Duchess of York
    I have to consider carefully every word I’m saying and that makes writing a much more laborious and less spontaneous exercise.
    My first safe topic is therefore the food on board ship, which is superb. Ever since our first meal we have been feeding like kings with unlimited butter and sugar and vast helpings of every kind of meat and savoury. Not to forget ice cream with the emphasis on the “cream”.
    On the second safe topic is the weather which has been reasonably kind, is growing sunnier every day. Our first days were spent in fairly high seas which caused great destruction amongst the sardine packed troops and made the decks so slippery with seawater and other more human materials that PT was cancelled for two days until fatigue parties with brooms and buckets had restored order. I was amongst the few who continued to knock back a four course breakfast, five course lunch and dinner throughout the confusion though this was probably because I had a good steady job which kept me on deck most of the time.
    My job is that of “Subaltern Officer of the Defence Watch” which I share with four others of the Regiment.
    My duties consist of attending to the efficiency of those parts of the ships defences which are manned by our gunners. We do normal ships watches which keep us fairly well employed and in the meantime we sleep, read, eat and write and do our turn of PT.
    It is an interesting job in that one has access to the bridge and to all the guns which are of course at the best vantage points on the ship. When I’m not touring around or talking to the gunners I go up on the bridge and watch the horizons or read the morse messages which are continuously flickering between the ships of the convoy. These are of course a great source of information and make me feel part of the intricate organisation which guides us so safely and uneventfully on our way.
    This is a dry ship which originally caused loud lamentation from our happy family of Majors and Captains who painted the town red for a week before we left and who therefore started this trip with appalling thirsts! However everyone has settled down happily now to orangeade and ginger beer and doubtless we shall all disembark in a state of magnificent health.

    Photograph Menu Duchess of York and Embarkation Liverpool Courtesy Tom Averill Collection.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  6. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    We came here of course via the wide open spaces of the Atlantic and passed through Gib on a glorious sunny day. We landed in N.A., in a heavy air raid which made things exciting but did no damage either to our persons or spirits.
    We are now awaiting further orders in a wine factory set in the middle of wide acres of vineyards and orange and lemon groves. We marched here mostly by night, a long march which caused havoc in the regiment but once again did me no damage-thanks to my practice in the Hope Valley.
    Strangest impressions so far are vivid green–ness of the fields; the immense areas of vineyards, the appalling squalor of the natives, the friendliness and hospitality of the manager of the wine factory and his wife and the abundance of oranges, lemons, figs and dates. And of course, the rain. It doesn’t rain for more than 50% of the time but when it does it comes down like something out of Hollywood! Everything is teeming with water and covered with flowers and when the sun comes out the colour of the countryside hurts your eyes. The most common tree appears to be eucalyptus which line all the roads and makes a pleasant hygienic smell to counter act the odours of the native dwellings and the open sewers!
    We’ve been over more mountains and through more gorges and “waste lands” than I can count, through vast areas of twisted rocks and barren scrub with vultures and buzzards overhead.
    On our travels we have seen some magnificent country and I can honestly say I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole adventure. We’re living hard of course though at the moment we’re snug in our burrows with plenty of good deep wadis to fight in. It’s a dream land for soldiering in fact. The O.P’s are perfect, the weather isn’t at all bad though thunder storms make things very damp once in a while and Camouflage is easy. So one can watch the Stukas and ME109’s sailing away overhead without the least fear.
    These mountains are a vivid red like nothing you’ve ever seen with dense scrub and quite a lot of cultivation in between. The Arabs around here have mostly gone until the battle has been settled but many remain with their flocks and hens. With these very happy and ingenious people we trade cigarettes for eggs and sometimes buy a kid for the pot. Rations are as good as one might expect in the fighting line but much better than we had feared. And sometimes comes a glorious day when we get more than we can eat – for now eating and sleeping are the great luxuries. We have white bread about three times a week – a slice a man and for the rest of the time we eat biscuits. But besides the inevitable bully there is Spam and Prem and canned steak kidney all excellent stuff. And very good canned bacon and sausages.

    Apart from my technical role of shooting the guns and doing my turn in the O.P. (I’ve already had a crack at several targets and destroyed an enemy ammunition dump) I have a 24 hours a day job of keeping the troop well fed and cheerful. It’s an engrossing job and I’m learning more every day about the art of managing men, which as usual, I think I’m doing pretty well thank you.
    As I write, the wild yellow dogs in the hills are yowling and yapping, which means the patrols are out. Very soon now the MG’s will start rattling in the distance and we’ll be watching the verey lights, in case some hard pressed gang of infantry want a little pre-arranged assistance. It’s a full life and I don’t have the time to think, worry or get scared
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  7. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Today it is 90 in the shade though we are getting used to it and have only one request, tropical kit and full water bottles. Neither are forthcoming!
    Then there is the glorious expanse of green corn and poppies and marigolds in which we now fight, pitted with thousands of craters from the barrages of recent weeks. Mountains in the distance clouded with pillars of smoke by day and fire by night. Sweating men with brown bodies unloading ammunition which is slowly but surely grinding Jerry down. Souvenir hunting parties, main object, Jerry arms and water bottles. Wild rides over appalling roads on motorcycles and the horror of getting lost at night!
    The rattle and suspense of clashing patrols .The blue sky pock marked with thousands of Bofor’s shells. The wonder of men rising unscathed from their holes after a big barrage. The speed at which two men can dig a 6ft trench in rocky ground-when needs must!
    And apart from all this, the spirit of comradeship, which is the one fine thing that danger and hardship brings forth.
     
    Owen likes this.
  8. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    The most exciting night of the campaign as far as 1 Div, the 67th and C troop were concerned.
    On this night 1 Div artillery was handing over to 4 Div and was in the process of moving into the Medjez sector, right up forward behind a series of ridges in no man’s land. The first of these ridges was Banana Ridge a stony, scrubby hill about 100ft high, shaped as its name suggests enclosing on our side of a narrow valley and looking out on the enemy side across cornfields to the next range of hills where Jerry’s main defences lay in that sector. During darkness we dumped ammunition on the new gun site. On the next night we were to move in one section per troop and on the final (zero) night the remaining section. As darkness fell we pulled out of our old position and handed over to another battery. One section set off for Banana Ridge. The other went onto a scrubby hill forward of the old gun position to lie up for the night and the next day. I remained behind to finish handing over and was to remain until the following evening. My Troop Leader went off with the Banana Ridge section. Later that night, my troop commander arrived down from the O.P. and lay up with me in the wadi which had been our home since we came into action, after our trek from Algiers. Almost his first words were “I hope Jerry doesn’t start anything tonight. The infantry up there don’t know whether they are on their heads or their backsides.” The reason for this remark, being that our infantry were also handing over to 4 Div on a rather complicated bit of front.
    We handed over to another regiment, when we were taking over, the Jerry’s attacked with shock troops and his famous Herman Goering boys.
    The troop was split in half, one near the Djaffa position and half at the forward position at Banana Ridge. Both sections were surrounded and both fought throughout with flying colours.
    I was in both actions having been detailed early in the proceedings as an L.O.
    I finished up at Djaffa and in the melee was captured but escaped almost immediately.
    The rest of the day the battle raged on our side of the hills. We had plenty of Churchill’s but they’d got some Tigers in good positions and we couldn’t get them out. Also their mortars were plastering us all the time. I spent most of the day dodging between Bty Office and the old wadi and forward of that where our two guns were stranded in the middle of no man’s land. The Jerry tanks shot up our towing vehicles but in the end we dashed in with some borrowed ones under a smoke screen and towed the guns to safety.
    Away at Banana Ridge our other section was fighting all night against the Herman Goering’s.
    They too held their own ground and when dawn came they shelled the Jerry’s all along the Ridge at point blank range and took 30 prisoners by which time our counter attack had gone in and relieved them.
     
    Owen likes this.
  9. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    I’ll go back a few weeks and tell you of the second of our big nights. The first was Djaffa –Banana night (which has given us an orange and banana as a troop symbol) This second night occurred a day before the final bust up.
    We had moved well forward a couple of days before, up into a field of Barley in the Medjez- Tebourba plain We were tucked under a long ridge, which had cost three weeks of bitter infantry fighting to take, under a hill known as point 187 where we had an excellent O.P. Away in front of us was the “Bou” feature, still held by Jerry and for those few days he could bring observed fire down on us from his 88mm’s, away over the other side of pt 187.
    On the night in question, we were warned to be ready for a bit of trouble and sure enough just before dawn it started. First a barrage (though nothing like ours) then a tank attack, then infantry infiltration.
    We started shooting back as soon as the OP could see enough to observe all of shot and we fired continuously throughout the morning . The Jerry’s worked right up within a hundred yards of our OP with mortars and both sides went at it with hammer and tongs for hours. Gradually the range we were firing at decreased, until we knew if it dropped another hundred yards, it would mean that the Jerry’s would be right on top of point 187 commanding the whole plain, where masses of guns were ready for a big barrage to crack open the door to Tunis. However that drop never came.
    Further away in a pass called the Gab-gab the enemy tanks were split up and beaten back by our 25 pounder concentrations and by a good screen of anti-tank guns. And so shortly after lunch, the firing suddenly slackened and we heard from the OP that the German infantry had cracked and retired in disorder.
    During this affair, as in all others, information was very scarce and one could only guess what was happening. On one occasion I dashed out on a motorbike to a spot just this side of the Gab-gab to investigate the very serious news that two Tiger Tanks had broken through and were lying hull down in hiding waiting for the next phase of the attack. However after a very gingerly approach, I discovered they were Churchill’s and returned with the glad news for the doubting Brigadier who had demanded the investigation.

    My rough sketch map of Medjez/Goubellat April/May 1943
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
    Owen and Derek Barton like this.
  10. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    There were many rumours that the campaign had ended but in the end the official ceasefire came through when we were up in the hills, enjoying ourselves near a distillery in the Cap Bon neck. Here we did a few days salvaging and returned to camp near Tunis. Most of us saw Tunis and had a daily bathe in the Gulf of Timis.
    The town is a shambles at present, an empty shell full of sightseeing soldiers in every uniform you can think of. The French there seem to be pleased to see us though our bombs must have knocked them about a bit in the last few weeks. But the Italians were not so enamoured and one see’s great crowds of them lining the POW camps, where they take wine and food to the friends they made while in the Italian Army. Our advance was much too rapid for any complete destruction of equipment by the enemy and so one see’s huge dumps of material and literally thousands of enemy vehicles, most popular of which is the Jerry Volkswagen with which equivalent of our Austin 7. His officers must have been very well supplied. However things are getting very organised now
    and all enemy transport has been called in, so the roads don’t present such a motley appearance.
     
    Owen likes this.
  11. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    At the moment we are in another recuperation camp miles from anywhere, in the inevitable olive grove
    (About half the cultivated land is covered with olives). We’re still near the sea however and the daily dip in the warm
    Italian Lake still remains routine. We get up early, work till it gets too hot then bathe, sleep, write or read.
    Two nights ago, who should turn up but Bert Webster Captain RA, fresh from hard fighting in the forefront of his brigade. (including the NZ’s left hook) all the way from Mareth to Tunis.
    He’s just the same, though he has “desert eye” and plenty of tough experiences to harden up his personality and conversation. Having chatted hard for an hour, our ways parted once again.

    BNAF 26th May 1943
    Still using up my store of loot. I’m getting down to the dregs but it never the less it gives me a certain satisfaction, that I have got something in return for all the stuff I lost at Djebel Djaffa – probably my most irksome of which was my writing compendium, address book, letters from home and notebooks, including a non-military diary.
    Other small but annoying losses, were 600 cigarettes a bottle of gin and sixteen bars of chocolate, carefully hoarded for the battle (when if they had survived they would indeed have been a godsend).
    However that was a long time ago now and I’ve acquired enough kit to carry on with, though cigarettes have been hand to mouth since then. And while on the subject – tonight I was down to my last fag (NAAFI rations having failed us for the second week running) and what should have arrived by tonight’s post but Dad’s first consignment of cigarettes. Never could they have been more welcome both from my point of view and from my fellow officers. So from three smoke hungry men come clouds of appreciative smoke tonight!

    Today has been unpleasant, owing to a gale which grew stronger and
    stranger as the day went on, until by five o’clock it had ripped most of our
    tents up and filled everything, including our diner with sand. Then it suddenly dropped and gave us a welcome hour before dark to rebuild our little village of bivouacs, ground sheets and mosquito nets. I am writing this in “The Mess” where I’m alone at the moment. This consists of a 3 tonner canvass cover slung up over poles between two olive trees and furnished with a folding table from the Tp. command post, three empty petrol tins for seats and a miscellaneous collection of water bottles, whiskey, penguins and old newspapers. I sleep here with “Bully” my Tp. Commander so there is also a motley array of our personal kit hanging on the walls and hiding in every corner. For light we have an accumulator from a wireless set, connected up to an ingenious German lighting attachment, clipped to a wire which supports the roof! And as I write through the end of the shelter, comes a constant relay of night flying insects most of which hit the lamp with a bang and fall to my writing paper: So that this letter is constantly interrupted, by muffled oaths and scenes of slaughter.

    My Sergeant Major, a most excellent worthy by the name of Hawkins suddenly showed up. Having been missing since the day of Djebel Djaffa. Nobody knew where he had got to, though it seemed unlikely that he had been killed or captured. Our theory that he had got lost in medical services proved correct. On the night in question he had gone out to Banana Ridge with two of the guns. When they were surrounded he got separated from the main body and joined some infantry on a ridge. Here he took over a dead man’s Tommy Gun and grenades and fought with them until the Jerries got a mortar ranged onto them. After a while he was wounded in the head and right eye and managed to get back to an ADS. By this time he was blind and they sent him back for further treatment. Eventually he was flown to Algiers where they took the shrapnel from his eye and he recovered rapidly. But it took him a month to get back to us via many transit and training camps.
    In the meantime of course we had acquired a new TSM who was doing very well- this unfortunate has of course had to return to Sergeants rank. And below him a Sergeant has gone back to L/Sgt, a L/Sgt to Bdr a Bdr to L/Bdr and a L/Bdr to Gnr. That being one of the implications of “War Establishment”.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  12. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    I promised to let you have another short battle picture, being as ‘ow you seemed to enjoy the last so much. So here goes for the Mock Battle of Djedeida. The day after the breakthrough of the Indians and the Hussars, the whole battle, which after the turmoil of Banana Ridge had slowly settled down, once more became confused.
    It was known only that the Germans were retreating and were split into hundreds of groups each fighting more or less fiercely according to the initiative of their officers. Obviously a rapid deployment of all available Brigade groups into mobile columns was the quickest way to destroy the enemy before he could improvise communications and make an organised stand in Cap Bon. So that night we went out to recce and chose positions as far forward as seemed safe in a big olive grove called Tenict in which for many days previously we had been putting down concentrations on enemy tanks.
    No one knew how near the enemy was. Some said one thousand some as much as 5000 yards. However we knew that we would have to be quick if we wanted to keep in range of him and at dawn the next morning we brought the guns up through the wreckage and minefields of the previous two days fighting. I had my troop on a stony hillside in which the Germans had dug beautiful deep slit trenches and excellent pits for their 75mm guns. We used these thankfully, for digging is one of the most thankless tasks when trails are only on the ground for a few hours. All that day it rained. We huddled in the Command Post cooking Jerry rations over Jerry primus’s, and didn’t fire a single shot. Then very suddenly new orders came through. Still nobody knew where the enemy was and we with a column of motorised infantry and carriers were to do a rapid night march, gain contact before daylight and block his crossing of the Madjerda at Djideida. The object of this move was
    to cut off all Jerries West of us from Cap Bon, to allow the Americans at Mateur to catch them up. It was still raining and pitch black and the maps were bad. But we eventually got going nose to tail. Every man armed to the teeth with Tommy Guns rifles, German Lugers and MG34’s and piles of grenades.
    We had enough ammunition to wipe out a division!
    But misfortune soon cut our operation short. The leading infantry got stuck in the mud and everyone was wandering off the road at the slightest bend. It was so dark that a man with a torch was needed to lead each vehicle. There was the sound of much swearing, wheel spinning and the roar of low gears. After half a mile no-one knew where we were on the map. So the infantry disembarked and set off on a night march by compass while we lay down at the side of the road and waited for enough light to catch them up. It was all very peaceful. No Mg’s no flares, no mortars…just a constant flashing and bumping from far away as the Jerries blew up their ammunition. At first light, on drying roads we bounced away to our rendezvous and the French farmers came running out as we passed, dancing in the road, pointing to Djideida, giving the thumbs up and “V” signs. When we stopped we were short of Djideida by a thousand yards, well covered by low hills and once again well in front of the infantry, who after their forced night march, were lying exhausted in the bean fields waiting to force a crossing behind our hastily laid out guns.
    The weather had changed back to the usual white heat with deep blue sky and dusty distances. And the infantry were a sorry sweaty crew when they formed up and plodded off through the hills to the river. We fired an impromptu “fire plan” at the town. There were a few desultory bangs and the odd sounds of tracer sizzled high up over our heads. Then the range suddenly increased and the targets became “G.F.” (Gun Fire) and we knew that the good old Jocks were in the town and the Jerries scuttling away on the other side.
    We stayed there the rest of the day putting down bursts of shells to cover the mopping up of each farmhouse and cactus patch. Then that evening on we went again for another recce; and at dawn up with the guns again –threading our way through the hordes of prisoners to a pretty little village called Chouat, with a spired church set on a green vine covered hill.
    Here we established ourselves close to a Jerry Q Stores, so it was just as well that we did no firing at all, for that would have interfered sadly with our investigation of German rations, wines, weapons and miscellaneous stores.
    Right in the midst of our looting, a stray Jerry 105mm (never located) dropped two rounds very close to our position and that was the only action we saw at Chouat!
    It was in fact the last action we saw at all for though the chase continued next day through Tunis and into Grombalia, we never caught Jerry up again.
    So ended the Mock Battle of Djideida, a fitting piece of light relief, with which to end the much more exhausting and dangerous battles of the first and second phases.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  13. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    I’m glad my Banana Ridge exploits met with such general approval. As you remark, I was lucky to get away with it. Though there were many equally and more lucky than I and many others, who had a shade of bad luck, which makes all the difference between high adventure and an untimely end!
    I hope I never have the opportunity of writing another episode quite so exciting, though of course when such things do happen, they happen at such a pace that one’s fears never have time to make themselves particularly objectionable.
    The worst moments are in the brief minutes before the actual operation starts.
    There was one occasion when after the battles and adventures of the first three days, I returned from my first under fire, back to the troop position for a night’s sleep. I had not closed my eyes for the whole of the previous three days of tremendous activity and I was seeing double when I could keep my eyes open to see at all. I just lay down and slept the moment I left the Toc Truck (Carrier). However three hours later, I was roused with considerable difficulty and told I had to go out immediately as F.O.O. on another attack.
    The rendezvous was way out near no man’s land and in the dark it was going to be a tricky job finding it without running into the enemy.
    However I got the Toc Crew together and we rattled away in the dark, all of us feeling I think, completely scared.
    We found the rendezvous and was told the attack we were supporting was a do or die suicide raid to drive a wedge into the Jerry positions, by capturing a hill known as 168 in a dawn attack. That of course made us even more dry in the mouth! However just as we were about to move off in the attack, a last minute order was received cancelling the show, because it was not considered to be worth the price that must be paid in putting it in.
    I don’t think I was ever so relieved in my life!
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  14. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Today I am recovering from a wild night in Tunis with a wild lad called Geoff. France and myself, took a Humber “P.U” in yesterday for a day’s merrymaking and having sampled most of the towns various liquids during the day, set of back here at about 9.30. Almost immediately the rotor arm broke and we were stranded for the night in the outskirts of Tunis. It was a horrible night- all smells and mosquito’s, capped with signals troubles which prevented us getting in touch with the Battery. In the end I hitch hiked back here and Geoff stayed with the truck until I had dispatched a fitter with a spare rotor arm. I am now very tired and completely covered in bumps, though these are everyday troubles and borne with much more nonchalance than they were in England!

    I am now training to be a C.P.O. commander of HQ Tp. And responsible for co-ordination of the gun tp’s. barrages, concentrations etc. This position I shall only fill when and if the present C.P.O. is promoted to Gen tp. Commander.
    It would not mean a third pip for as you know the subaltern in Field has more responsibility than many a captain in other arms.

    I don’t think I’ve told you before that I met Merlin Wicks recently under the most extraordinary circumstances.
    I was in the middle of the Mare Nostrum on my way back from a wrecked tramp steamer to a jetty when I saw a
    brown and elfin face bobbing up and down a few yards away. I studied this with vague recognition for some time and it dawned on me who it was.
    We duly made contact, spluttered greetings between mouthfuls of salt and confirmed the conversation on the jetty. He was on a few days leave after Sicily and had good tales to tell.
    I don’t suppose Mrs Wicks knows( broad hint) but he was in the party that was mentioned on the wireless as having defended a bridge before Catania to the last round.
    He was captured by Italians and recaptured by the 8th and made his way back to Africa in the usual independent way of the airborne boys.
    He had landed his glider in the middle of a wood and ripped it to pieces; but his gang of Tommy Gunners were unhurt to a man and they all went off to the objective shooting up everything they saw.
    Apparently the airborne troops caused tremendous confusion although (this being their first action) many of their plans went astray. They should be pretty deadly next time. I arranged a further meeting with Merlin but though I kept the appointment he wasn’t there, so I lost contact. His base is too far away for social calls but I may bump into him again. One seems to in this country!
    I’ve not heard from Jack since just after the battle but imagine he’s a long way away now. Bert I suppose is in Sicily though not necessarily and Roy I think is guarding the skies over Pantellaria.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Dec 12, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  15. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    At the present time we are undergoing a severe attack of inspections from every spare general and brigadier who has a few hours to fill in. Bad enough
    if we were in England but out here swept by dust storms it is truly exasperating. Tomorrow for example, we have the CRA (new edition, much disliked) upon us.
    Yesterday we spent a full day polishing and scrubbing and cleaning, hoping to spend Sunday in idle recuperation. But during the night a great
    gale arose in the hills and has been covering us with dust the whole day. So all day we’ve been cursing and growling and re-spitting and re-polishing in a
    vain attempt to keep ahead of the dust. But the wind shows no sign of abating so at five tomorrow morning we shall have to start all over again.
    Next week there’s another, this time a Divisional Ceremonial Parade which will be even worse. And so it goes on, allegedly to maintain our esprit de
    corps and regimental pride. All it does of course is to make everyone completely fed up with the higher ups who after their staff work in the battle had
    regained a certain amount of prestige amongst the men.

    Our activities lately have been confined to training, inspections and sport.
    Last Saturday we were inspected by Eisenhower in a tremendous Divisional Ceremonial Parade probably the most impressive of its kind that this war has ever seen.
    Newsreels will be seen in England soon; so watch out.
    Last week also were our Regimental Sports attended by many brass hats which 266 Bty won. I was second in the long jump, so there’s life in the old
    dog yet! Tonight I played CF for the troop in the football league and next week I’m organising the Regimental Cross Country. So as you can see we keep pretty fit!
     
    Owen likes this.
  16. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    I’m writing from the bottom of a mountain, a lovely situation and most enlivening after our long and sluggish existence in the olive groves.
    Above us a great pile of rock rises almost vertically fifteen hundred feet from our camp making the tents and guns look very small and harmless.
    In front of us the land rolls away across stony ploughed land down to a winding and bush lined wadi which twists away down to the sea. Beyond that the vineyards and plough switch back upwards to the mountains where a few red roofed farms hide away from the winter rains under the rocks. All the horizon on three sides is a jagged line of blue black peaks, while on the open side the door opens to the green coastal plain with a glint of sea in the distance and the clean white clusters of Arab villages-whited sepulchres with a vengeance!

    I’m very busy these days and a good stretch of beautiful clear weather has made our training very enjoyable. My Troop, after the results of competitions, is now established as the best in the Regiment and bracketed with a couple of others, as top notches of the Division.
    The 67th is the best of the three Regiments, most satisfactory considering they are both regulars and inclined to look down on us as amateurs. Also I led a troop of officers to complete victory over similar troops from the other two Regiments. We’ve also had a taste of infantry fighting and were put through it for 24 hours footslogging and assault, without food or water.
    In our spare time we carry on with our football, cross country and boxing, with the odd day in town on the spree. I was there on Sunday to see a
    Divisional boxing contest at the Garrison Theatre which was very good entertainment.
    Recently we had a ceremonial parade for the General for the pinning on of the MC’s and MM’s won in the battles. There were three in the Regiment and
    all in our Battery.

    Last night I went out to a local hotel for dinner and fell in with a gang of Fighting French Officers. We drank Cognac and sang songs of the French Army (which they enthusiastically taught us)
    until we were turned out. It was a grand evening, though today my innards have let me know sympathetically, what is their private opinion of Tunisian Brandy!
     

    Attached Files:

    Owen likes this.
  17. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    We still train assiduously but our battle machine is so well run in now, that we learn little fresh. As before, the next phase of training can only be
    completed with real bullets!
    Our little encampment by the sea is now a very luxurious settlement with electric light and water laid on. The men have more tents than they can use and a huge brick building complete with bar and piano as a canteen. Here one may buy, apart from wines and spirits, eggs, almonds, grapefruit and oranges. Ironically nearby are the ruins of an ancient Roman camp where many dig up pots, mugs and pieces of plates, used in some soldier’s canteen some 2000 years ago! Everywhere there are these Roman ruins, thousands of them, complete with inscribed pillars and stonework which anyone
    can take away for nothing. Most French farms have a gatepost or two or a stone palisade made from Roman pillars.

    The hospital in which I find myself is a very handsome place, albeit rather crowded with Italian battle casualties. Before the war it was a new civilian hospital and part of it is still reserved for the local population. It’s a big ferro-concrete flat roofed building with tiled floors , fine big fly proofed windows and excellent lighting. But large though it is, many of the corridors are lined with stretchers and all the wards are packed. I am in a small officer’s ward containing ten of us, all except one suffering from the same trouble. The tenth man, who has pyelitis has the distinction of being known as
    “The Blue Man” in contrast to the rest of us who are “The Yellow Men”. He lives on Sulphanilamide which has turned him bright blue. We with our bile ducts blocked are the traditional lemon yellow of jaundice. We are all very well looked after by very cheerful and hardworking sisters and equally cheerful Italian prisoners. We get as many cigarettes as we can smoke and a bottle of Scotch Ale a day to raise our spirits. The place is alive with padre’s who like busy ants bustle around with little bags of books and chewing gum and other palliatives to boredom.
    My choice of companions is limited but on the whole interesting. Next to me (on the other side being a wall) I have a blasé and regular Major with fine cavalry moustache who is amusing in his way. Though yesterday tempers became rather frayed when he launched into an attack on Low, of whom he thoroughly disapproved as an inciter to class hatred. My defence of one of my great Pink Heroes took him rather by storm. Obviously he had not imagined that an army officer would take up the cudgels on behalf of such a notorious intellectual and peered at me with mild interest when he enquired “You a journalist or something?”
    My answer left him in no doubt that it takes more than three years in the army to make an officer and a gentleman!
    Another similar character is a Lieut. RNVR named Shakespeare who might have been dropped by fairies straight from some Mayfair salon. His accent is so ter’bly tak’d that everyone has the greatest difficulty in discovering what he says. The burden of his speech is usually a fretful complaint against the prevalence of peas and prunes in his diet. But as one of the sisters brutally told him
    “You’re in the Army now my lad.”
     
    Owen likes this.
  18. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    This letter comes to you from the Mediterranean Millpond, upon which placid pond I am at the moment cruising, in search of pastures new.
    You may have gathered from previous letters that I was moving somewhere pretty soon and this, with my new address confirms those suspicions. (though I expect you already know from your own sources of information!) At the moment we are slogging (or slugging) along at about 6mph somewhere off the Italian coast, on a calm blue sea, with the sun overhead. Our transport is an L.S.T. an ungainly barge of a boat crammed full of vehicles and twice as many men as it was built to hold. But the overcrowding has not yet been very irksome because the weather has been so fine that sleeping on the deck has not been a hardship. Never the less calm though the sea is, the ship rolls astonishingly and the first day hard on bad sailors and made even me feel a bit squeamish (though my appetite remained excellent).
    They say that in a rough sea you have to lash yourself into your bunk or you run the risk of being badly bruised.
    Yesterday we passed gently by Sicily, shining mistily on the horizon like a fairyland forlorn, with the huge pale cone of Etna rising mysteriously white against the dusty blue sky. Going so slowly as we are, there is plenty of time to look at the view and Sicily seemed as big as a continent.
    Even Pantellaria seemed magnified tenfold by the time it took to pass it by. So you will see that even short journeys in an LST seem like world tours; and on this jaunt of ours we seem to have been at sea for weeks!
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
    Owen likes this.
  19. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    We crept into port on the morning of Boxing Day under a weeping grey sky and landed in the usual noisy crowd of infants and loungers. By mid-day we had sorted out our draft of odds and ends,
    marched them away to the transit camp on the edge of the town and established ourselves in the officers lines with a roof over our heads. (when I say “we” I refer to myself and my friend Jenks, the mortar captain who was my constant companion since the first day I went to hospital ). Since arriving we have done the usual round of the movement control authorities to try to speed up the process. This produced a piece of luck for Jenks who found the Colonel of “02E” (responsible for postings) to be an old school friend. So he wangled a special authority to proceed direct to his unit but didn’t manage to get me in the same metaphorical boat. So off he went yesterday morning promising to ring up my Bty to tell them where I was. I still have the three subalterns who gave me a lift to Bizerta as my travelling companions. They left by an earlier convoy but I caught them up here a week later. We are all waiting in a muddle, for a camp further up the line to sort it out before we can get orders to move a stage nearer the Div.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
  20. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Anzio
    I’m writing from a good deep dugout with the wireless pipping away in onecorner and my table full of maps and message forms in another. While on a sandbag, a primus roars away merrily, for the next “Tea up”. It’s 0300 hours and a fine night, though frosty and apart from the occasional boom in the distance you’d hardly know there was a war on. It’s like that for 20 hours of the 24 and in other 4 things happen so fast that you have to go all out to keep up with them! During the calm 20 we dig, dig, dig and under the many returns demanded by RHQ sometimes we even shave. In other words we’re well back into the rhythm of battle again and those lazy months in Tunisia might never have been. Of the two lives I’m not sure that I don’t prefer this one, for if one has to be uncomfortable, one might as well feel that one’s discomfort is being put to good use!
    The whole troop is back together again now. Capt. Jupp escaped from hospital just in time to join us and Gerald Lewis is still pottering around annoying all and sundry but getting things done in his own earnest way.
    The food situation is excellent. We’re living mainly on American rations which give a most astonishing variety of small delicacies all sealed up in little airtight cellophane bags. Every meal comes packed in a cardboard box for
    each man and opening them is like Xmas Day, for they are packed with dozens of oddments including of course chewing gum, cigarettes, and a tiny packet of soluble coffee.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

Share This Page