Description
Object description
British fitter served with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 1st Bn Royal Scots, 8th Infantry Div, Palestine Command, 1938-1939; served with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 14th and 16th Infantry Bdes, 8th Infantry Div, Palestine Command in Palestine, 1939-1940; served with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 16th Infantry Bde, 6th Infantry Div in North Africa and French Syria, 1/1940-9/1940; served with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 16th Infantry Bde, 70th Infantry Div in Tobruk, Libya, 9/1941-1/1942
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Exeter, GB, 1920-1938: family; education; employment. Recollections of period as fitter with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 1st Bn Royal Scots, 8th Infantry Div, Palestine Command in Palestine, 1938-1939: background to enlistment in Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 1938; attachment to battalion as fitter; unit casualties; Arab use of elephant gun to shoot into camp at weekends; contracting typhoid, 12/1938; question of behaviour of battalion personnel in raiding Arab villages. Aspects of period as fitter with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 14th and 16th Infantry Bdes, 8th Infantry Div, Palestine Command in Palestine, 1939-1940; story of accident to soldier; relations with individual Arab and Jews; use of 'minesweepers' on roads; degree of threat in Palestine; move to Jerusalem.
REEL 2 Continues: impressions of holy sites in Jerusalem, 1939; formation of 16th Infantry Bde at Jericho, 1/1940; purchase of anti-mosquito shorts; how Royal Scots Greys horses were released for a prank. Recollections of operations as fitter with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 16th Infantry Bde, 6th Infantry Div in North Africa, 9/1940-6/1941: move to Western Desert, Egypt, 9/1940; role maintaining elderly vehicles during advance; sight of aerial battle between Italian fighters and Royal Air Force Gloster Gladiators over Bardia, Libya, 1/1941; sight of Italian prisoners of war and thousands of condoms in Bardia, Libya, 1/1941; in defensive positions at Mersa Matruh, Egypt, 4/1941; presence of salt in well water.
REEL 3 Continues: failure of battalion to get to Crete, Greece aboard SS Glenroy, 5/1941. Aspects of operations as fitter with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 16th Infantry Bde, 6th Infantry Div in French Syria, 6/1941-7/1941: his following up of unit; injury whilst under Vichy French artillery fire, 6/1941. Recollections of operations as fitter with Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to 2nd Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 16th Infantry Bde, 70th Infantry Div in Tobruk, Libya, 10/1941-1/1942: return to North Africa for defence of Tobruk, 9/1941; probing of German strongpoints; under German Air Force attack whilst repairing vehicle; relations with Australians in Middle East; Axis artillery shelling of Tobruk; character of Polish troops serving with Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Bde; Italian use of explosive bullets; death of comrade carrying explosive bullets.
REEL 4 Continues: following up of Allied advance, 12/1941-1/1942.