Description
Object description
British NCO served with 5th Bn Black Watch in North West Europe, 1944-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Edinburgh, 1925-1939: social circumstances; education; sporting and Boys Brigade activities; various jobs, 1939-1943; approach and outbreak of war, 3/9/1939; brick communal air raid shelter; German air raids; blackout; rationing; call up, 4/1943. Recollections of training at Black Watch Depot, Queens Barracks, Perth, 4/1943-11/1943: reception; vaccinations; kitting out; barracks room; food rations; drill; PT including assault course; rifle training.
REEL 2 Continues: weapons training in Bren gun, Sten gun, hand grenades, 2" mortar and PIAT; gas mask training; move to dyeworks billets; tactical exercises; relationship with recruits, instructors and officers; fire piquet and guard duty; kit inspections; canteens; visits to Perth and relationship with civilians. Period with 10th Bn, Black Watch, Locherbie, ca 11/1943-10/1944: story of endurance exercise in snowstorm; promotion to lance corporal and role as instructor; camouflage and night exercises; posting with draft to France, ca 11/1944. Recollections of operations with A Coy, 5th Bn, Black Watch in North West Europe, 11/1945-5/1945: situation; reception.
REEL 3 Continues: move to counter German offensive in Ardennes, 22/12/1944; story of taking two Germans prisoner; slit trenches; winter conditions; skirmish with German half track; iron and compo food rations; hospitalisation with frost bitten feet; rejoining unit; barrage prior to advance into Reichswald Forest; story of shrapnel wounds from panzerfaust during house to house fighting; hospitalisation; movements prior to rejoining unit; VE Day, 8/5/1945. Periods in Hanover and Hamburg, Germany, 1945-1946: guarding German POWs; relationship with German civilians; problems with displaced persons; break up of unit and transfer to 1st Bn, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 1946; question of posting to Scottish unit; football activities.
REEL 4 Continues: Demobilisation and demob suit, 8/1946. Post-war career: various jobs; question of effects of service; membership of veterans associations.