Description
Object description
Photocopy of a ts account (11pp, written May 2006), with no dates, and slightly confusingly written and at first mainly anecdotal in nature, about his service as a Corporal with the 7th Reserve Company Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), with details of being billeted in Nantes, France, during the phoney war (early 1940), having to get a drunk friend back to barracks and being punished for being drunk and disorderly, tales of drunken fighting, moving out to the forward area on the Belgian border, retreating to Arras, having to wait for someone who then disappeared and getting split from the rest of his unit, seeing lines of refugees, moving towards Dunkirk, German strafing, reaching the cost and re-joining comrades, being told to stop ambulances passing through as the hospital was full, but allowing them rather than letting the men die, coming under fire, his truck being allowed through to Dunkirk, a dud bomb landing by his truck, freezing with helplessness during air raids, seeing the effects of fear, stress and tension on young soldiers, a staff officer staying with wounded men, meeting an old friend from home, the confusion and lack of command, moving in an orderly fashion to the beach, finding a place making tea, reaching a pier and having to jump a gap caused by bombing, boarding a little ship, landing in England, the contrast from the welcome they got in 1940 to the lack of welcome when he returned from Burma in 1945, based in Exeter and his parents meeting him from Wales, moving to Woolwich and finding men from the 7th Reserve RASC, bombing raids on London, and missing out on a posting to North Africa with stomach troubles.
Content description
Photocopy of a ts account (11pp, written May 2006), with no dates, and slightly confusingly written and at first mainly anecdotal in nature, about his service as a Corporal with the 7th Reserve Company Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), with details of being billeted in Nantes, France, during the phoney war (early 1940), having to get a drunk friend back to barracks and being punished for being drunk and disorderly, tales of drunken fighting, moving out to the forward area on the Belgian border, retreating to Arras, having to wait for someone who then disappeared and getting split from the rest of his unit, seeing lines of refugees, moving towards Dunkirk, German strafing, reaching the cost and re-joining comrades, being told to stop ambulances passing through as the hospital was full, but allowing them rather than letting the men die, coming under fire, his truck being allowed through to Dunkirk, a dud bomb landing by his truck, freezing with helplessness during air raids, seeing the effects of fear, stress and tension on young soldiers, a staff officer staying with wounded men, meeting an old friend from home, the confusion and lack of command, moving in an orderly fashion to the beach, finding a place making tea, reaching a pier and having to jump a gap caused by bombing, boarding a little ship, landing in England, the contrast from the welcome they got in 1940 to the lack of welcome when he returned from Burma in 1945, based in Exeter and his parents meeting him from Wales, moving to Woolwich and finding men from the 7th Reserve RASC, bombing raids on London, and missing out on a posting to North Africa with stomach troubles.
History note
Cataloguer SJO