War stories

[Davejb]

Ok, due to popular demand, I have been asked to tell a few old war stories related to me by my Dad and a couple of uncles. Please bear in mind that these were told to me when I was a kid so if I get a location wrong or a time period please dont blame me as I,m getting old, Thankyou

Well the one that sticks im my memory the most was when Dad was being evacuated from France in 1940. It was after Dunkirk and troops were still able to get away if they were lucky, from a couple of Ports further up the Coast. One of which was St Nazaire, where my Dad was picked up. Boats were ferrying troops out to larger ships that had to anchor further out. One of which was the Lancastria, a liner, the last boat out to her was full up, and Dad was one of a couple of hundred people, who did,nt make the liner, but instead smaller trawler type boats were getting troops out, Dad managed to get on a coal ship, which I think was French and they pulled out into the Channel. Because he was a marksman  and a weapons instructor he was told to go up to the bridge and set up a Lewis Gun on the outside railings, which he did.They were making way when some German Bombers started to bomb and strafe the ships and boats. The bombers concentrated on the larger ships especially the Lancastria. It was hit by bombs and started to sink and I think he said it went down pretty quick but it was packed with troops. the sea caught fire and still the bombers were strafing the troops in the water. Any one who had a weapon was shooting at these planes, including the old man, he did,nt know if he hit anything but a few bombs came close and covered all the troops on board with water. He was still hammering away when he heard a scream from below, he looked and saw a bloke lying on the deck rolling all the place and others trying to help.him, He thought  poor bugger he,s been hit.As he looked a load of men stared upwards straight at him. One of them shouted "Watch where your bleeding  empties are going mate, ones gone down this blokes shirt", well obviously a red hot casing had burnt this guy pretty bad, but he did,nt have time to worry about it, because the bombers were still coming in. Anyway they made it across to somewhere on the East Coast, and as they were getting off, Red Cross nurses were wrapping the injured in blankets and taking them away. One came up to Dad and put a blanket around him.( I should mention that a lot of troops were in different states of dress, some only had a vest, BD trousers and plimsoles, Dad had his BD blouse wrapped around his waist and only a vest but had  plimsoles on and a tatty pair of BD trousers  because a lot of kit had to be left behind in a hurry) He said to this nurse that he was ok ,he had,nt been hurt, she said yes you have, youve got a bullet hole right through your arm, He looked , said Bloody hell then fainted. He,d lost a bit  of blood but we reckon it was the adrenaline that kept him going, he ended up in hospital and then six weeks home leave, where I believe my sister was "made"

[HetzersGonnaHetz]

Very good story matey. I'm afraid i was born too late to listen to my relatives stories of war, if they told them.  

[Mav352]

Nice story @Davejb. Keep them coming.

[Guest Fred Karno's Army]

I read a book a few years ago on the Lancastria tragedy,I am sure I still have it somewhere.Very poignant and due to censorship wasn't made public until postwar years. 

[Steve T]

It wasn't until 2 years before he died, (in 2012), that I learned of my great uncle's role in the war. He wouldn't talk about it much but did, one day, give me some stories that I found remarkable. I tried to get him to tell me about everything, but he was reluctant, saying no-one would want to hear about his war. I was on the verge of getting him to open up when he very sadly passed away.

Anyway, this is what he told me.....

 

He landed on D-day, some hours after the first troops landed. He was a radio operator and MG gunner in British tanks. As the tank waded ashore, he said he kept hearing little pings and wondered what it was, when his commander told him it was bullets bouncing off the tank. (It was at this point my wife asked him where he landed, to which he replied, 'Well I'm sorry love, but when there are MG bullets pinging off your tank, the last thing I was going to do was stick my head out and shout 'OY MATE! Where the flock are we???' to one of the locals!'). He remembers the driver having to make his way round the dead soldiers on the beach. He said they saw lots of action, but he never had a clue where the hell he was, and left that kind of thing up to the commander. One day they were driving down a road, (he thinks they were in a Churchill, but it could've been a Cromwell), when all of a sudden he found himself in the ditch by the side of the road. I gasped and said 'Were you blown out of the tank??'. 'Nah', he said, 'I got out so fast after I heard a big thud, one moment I was in the tank, the next I was in the ditch. I looked behind me and the whole crew were there, watching the tank burn'. He had no idea what had hit them, and calmly explained they walked back to the HQ section, clambered in another tank, and set off up the same road, passing their original tank in the process!

He said he had to make lots of modifications to Sten guns. He didn't tell me exactly what, but something to do with fitting a safety bolt in the field. One of his units commanders had dropped a Sten as he was getting into a tank, and was killed when the damn thing went off as it hit the deck. He said he personally had modified 'thousands'........wish I knew how!

Later on that year he went swimming in what was left of the lake behind the Mohne dam, taking pictures with a camera he had traded off a local for a packet of fags. Cameras were easy to find, he told me, it was the film you couldn't get hold of easily. (I have two of the pictures he took.....)

He finally ended up near Belsen, and got guard duty for a couple of weeks, guarding the German's who had been captured when the camp was liberated. It wasn't until his stint ended that he found out he was actually guarding Josef Kramer, the Beast of Belsen. He told me he thought he was an 'alright bloke' until he found out who he was, and then wished he'd shot him. He then explained that's why he wasn't told who it was!

He finally got back to England in late 1945 and had lots of souvenirs. In the mid fifties the police were cracking down on firearms, and he got the jitters, so he took his Lee-enfield No 4, Sten Mk 5, Luger, MP40 and Walther pistol to the bridge over the river Soar in Abbey Park, Leicester, and chucked them in!!! I know which bridge it is.....maybe I'll go magnet fishing there one day

 

Not a huge story I know, but as is typical for many veterans, they didn't want to talk much about it.

 

 

 

[Steve T]

I've dug the pictures out for you and taken quick copies. Please do NOT re-use these.........  

Uncle Ted, with what he thinks was a Bren gun, a Yank helmet and a 250 round 30 cal belt. He was having 'a giggle' with some American soldiers he'd befriended.

 

One of his pictures of the Mohne dam. This copy was taken from the original picture he had.

Uncle Ted in a Jeep

 

 

And off Skiing. That was his 'new' tank behind him, or so he thought, but the bogies look like a Comet, not a Cromwell. He could have been wrong

 

His original tank, in which he landed on D-Day.

 

[Davejb]

Yes, Dad told me that Stens had a habit of firing off if you either knocked it or dropped it, they were produced in mass numbers and quickly so there were problems that they never did solve. He said that you never cocked the weapon unless you were going into immediate action, and you never just walked around with it cocked. what Regt and troop was he in, because that incident sounds very close to the carnage at Villers Bocage

 

 

[HetzersGonnaHetz]

I remember you telling me that story the other week Steve, I love the part where your wife asked him where he landed.

My Great-Great Granddad who served in the Sherwood Foresters fought at places such as Passchendaele. The only time he ever talked about it was when my Grandma, I believe, was very ill. The doctor said she had scabies. When my Great-Great Granddad found out he fist his hand on the table and shouted 'That's not bloody scabies, we had scabies in the trenches' or something along those lines, he about shook the whole room he did.

[Steve T]

He never told me Dave, and I can't make out the markings on the Churchill

 

[HetzersGonnaHetz]

My Great-Uncle served in an RTR, not sure which one, do you have your great Uncles service number Steve?

[Guest Fred Karno's Army]

Okay couldn't resist ,it always makes me smile when he says that no matter how many times you've heard it before.

[Davejb]

Ok, heres another that makes me laugh. During Dads time on the coast, he was with some AA batteries, but not the big guns, I think it was bofors and MG units. There was a type of brick or rock jetty that stretched out into the sea and there was a gun site at the end. Every day they had some form of quick raid, mainly fighters strafing the area and flying off, or bombers heading inland. There was an old guy who was part of the Naafi services, and each day he would walk up to the gun site with a barrow with a tea urn and some tin cups. he was always dressed in a boiler suit and wore a helmet, and apparently was in his late 60s. He used to wait until a raid was over then took his barrow up to them. One day he got half way up the jetty and a fighter plane came in and strafed. He dived for cover, but there was.nt much, so he rolled off and fell into the sea. Anyway the plane flew off and some of the guys helped him out. As he got up he saw that the Tea urn was shot to pieces as well as the barrow. He grabbed what he could and went back to shore. He carried on taking tea up the jetty for a few days, until he was caught out again, Another plane came in very low and fast which apparently they did to help avoid AA and MG fire, The old boy jumped and again found himself in the water, this time with the tea urn sinking beside him. After he got out he went back again, with the barrow being dragged behind him, swearing blue murder. Later on that day,with a new urn he got caught out yet again, but instead of taking cover he stood his ground waving his fists at the plane and shouting at the top of his voice calling them everything under the sun, there were two planes, one after the other, this old boy took his helmet off and threw it as hard as he could like a discus, it went nowhere near the plane but the second german pilot must have seen it, because he did a large circle and came back and waved at the old boy and waggled his wings, before flying off even though he was being fired at.He actually managed to deliver the tea afterwards. He was taken off this duty and some of the lads would go and get the tea urn as they did,nt want to see the old boy hurt, Dad said it was one of the funniest and downright acts of defiance he,d seen.

[Manu Della Valle]

Too late to ask...my father passed away in 1992 and his older brothers in 1982 and 1986 respectively.I seldom if ever asked (I'll regret that forever!) for they had many stories to telleven if they'd rather keep them to themselves.After the September 1943 Armistice the three of them joined the Allies to fight against the Germans.My father and the older of his three brothers "got a job" within the USAAF (they were both Cavalry NCOs) while his middle brother joined the Canadians after a real odissey.They were sons to a well known person and an anti-fascist,and Carlo,the middle brother (who was a cavalry officer turned into a tank commander when his unit swapped horses for tanks)managed to get a "cover letter" to give to the first Allied high-ranking Officer he had met.After stealing a car he drove South until he managed to reach a unit of the Canadian Dragoons.At first they were obviously a little suspicious but in the end he got his own armoured car!He nearly lost an eye when his AC hit a German mine which destroyed the front right corner of the vehicle...no other damage but the driver,a 18/19yo lad bailed out in panic,my uncle tried to stop him because he knew that the Germans laid anti-personnel mines on road edges,but the poor boy jumped off the AC and landed on one of them,he died and my uncle was hit by splinters and debris.In spite of that he kept soldiering on wearing a "pirate" eye patch until Italy was freed!
He fought his way until Italy was liberated and when the Canadian commander asked him whether he'd have rather stayed with them or go back home he replied that HIS war ended at the Italian border!The commander said that he perfectly understood his feelings,told him that he could have a jeep,gave him another letter and they parted company.
He had to travel 600mls back to the Ligurian Riviera and was asked to carry a young Italian woman with him;she was the wife of Major Widemann,i.e. the Officer who "bartered" with the British the maps of the mined field around Venice against the promise that many of his men (Russian defectors who fought with Vlassov) wouldn't have been handed over to the russians,but the promise was broken when the russians blackmailed the Allies into handing over the Russian defectors since they (the Russians) had many Allied soldiers in their hands.
Anyway,Major Widemann set up his HQ in my grandfather's villa in 1944 and my uncle was driving that woman right back where she had lived for nearly one year and none of them knew that!
Only a little story but there are many other episodes that my father told me before passing away!
Cheers
Manu

[Manu Della Valle]

A little story worthy of "The Great Escape" is about the older of the three brothers!He had escaped from one the round-ups by the German troops in Rome and took an empty train wearing only his uniform's trousers.He fell asleep and when he woke up he saw that the car was full of civilians and a few German soldiers but nobody seemed to care about this tall,blue-eyed guy wearing an undershirt,a pair of military trousers and low boots.As Murphy would have had it a few seconds after the train had stopped one of the German soldiers stood up,approached my uncle and asked him in German why he was wearing a pair of Italian trousers.My uncle,who like my father and the "Dragoon" spoke a perfect German replied in his best sleepy and annoyed voice that he had taken them from an Italian soldier when he damaged his own.The German soldier nodded and got off the train with his colleagues.
I think that my uncle had been one of the luckiest guy in the World TWICE on that particular day because he left the train as a frew Feldgendarmen were getting into the car from the other side to check ID papers.The first German must have thought that my uncle must have been one of the other sleeping German soldiers and walked away while,on the other hand,the Feldgendarmen wouldn't have been that easy to fool,even if my uncle's German was perfect and like my father he may have looked like the typical Tcherman Zoldier you see in many propaganda pictures!It's funny how my late father sorta looked like Bruce Willis (see his picture taken during the Suez Crisis when he was 35),his brother Benedetto (the lucky one) a cross between Lee Marvin and Humprey Bogart while Carlo,the middle one,looked like Clark Gable with curly hair.....three handsome guys allright but the latter wouldn't have looked German at all!Oh well...while the other two were literally running for their life day after day,story after story , until they finally reached the Americans he was sitting inside an armoured car wearing a Battle Dress and in case he's fallen into German hands he'd have been considered a POW!
My father's odissey started when he first escaped from the train to Dachau when he and a several hundred Italian soldiers where gathered at one of Rome's marshalling yards with their haversacks but (obviously!) no weapons.A woman yelled "Run...they're going to bring you to Germany", my father took a look around and as he noticed that no German was looking in his direction,dropped fis haversack and sneaked uder the car and run to safety.He spent that day and a night hanging from a rain gutter like a geko with German soldiers rounding up other disbanded Italian soldiers,but that's another story!Nobody looked up,else there would have been no story!
Cheers
Manu

Edited April 6, 2016 by Manu Della Valle
Typos

[Davejb]

OK, another true war time story that this time involved my Mother. She lived in Tottenham, with my dads Mother , and it was about 1942-3. For those of you who dont know, the Spurs football ground lies adjacent to Park Lane, and during the war and for quite a time after, there were small factories that were sited under the stands, and these led out onto Park Lane and adjoining roads. One of these factories was the Thermos Company, ie vacuum flasks etc, and my mother worked there, but as a lot of people did then ,they took their babies to work as nearly everyone was working somewhere or other so baby sitters were few and far between and most did,nt earn enough to pay for them. If there was an air raid the workers ran out to a shelter along Park Lane, My sister had been born by this time and was about 2 years old. One day the sirens went off so everyone made for the shelter, There was a Police officer on the corner making sure everyone got away quickly. Just as Mum and about 40 others were about to turn into Park Lane the policeman stopped them. She said that that they could hear a plane that was pretty low, then heard the sound of a bomb falling. The policeman had by this time turned into Park Lane and telling everyone to get down. the bomb exploded and when my mum looked around the corner she saw the policeman had been killed and decapitated by shrapnel. There was nothing they could do so they all started to run to the shelter, as she got there ,with my sister in her arms, another plane came down low and started to machine gun all the way along Park Lane. there was nothing she could do, because there was a crowd trying to get into the shelter, she was more or less in the Road, so she protected my sister and hoped for the best. There were pieces of roadway being flung everywhere from the bullets and several bits hit her in the legs  and she was left bleeding, but not seriously injured. She got treated by some volunteer ambulance men and went home for the day. Everyone thought that the reason for the low level planes and the bomb was to try and hit the Spurs ground, because the opportunity presented its self, why they strafed the streets is anyones guess, it did,nt happen all that often, if at all, especially around the Tottenham area , but unfortunately when my dad heard what happened it made him very bitter towards the enemy, yet after the war he changed  and when I was growing up he,d think nothing of buying me a German helmet or anything related