Description
Object description
British private served with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Infantry Bde, 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Div in GB and North Africa, 6/1940-10/1942; served with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Lorried Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in North Africa and Italy, 11/1942-12/1943; served with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in Normandy, France, 6/1944-7/1944
Content description
REEL 1 Background in GB, 1920-1939: family; education; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939. Aspects of period with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Infantry Bde, 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Div in GB, 6/1940-6/1942: call-up for military service, 4/1940; initial training at Stoughton Barracks, Guildford; role fortifying Brooklands Racetrack, summer 1940; construction of coastal defences at Sutton Bridge; sight of practice flying by Polish pilots at mouth of River Nene, 1940. Recollections of operations with D Coy, 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Lorried Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in North Africa, 1942-1943: voyage from GB to Egypt, 1942; role as reinforcements prior to Battle of El Alamein, Egypt; attachment to 7th Armoured Div; use of white tape to mark minefields; working with American personnel in Tunisia, 1943; story of how Americans troops paid after children injured in accidental shelling of convent in Tunisia; period aboard hospital ship with sandfly fever. Recollections of operations as private with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Lorried Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in Italy, 9/1943-12/1943: crossing of Mediterranean; repelling of landing by German 88mm Guns.
REEL 2 Continues: landing at Salerno, 9/1943; reasons for volunteering as stretcher-bearer; role as stretcher-bearer; sight of child's hearse at Salerno, 9/1943; sleeping in flooded ditch at Salerno, 9/1943; behaviour of Germans towards stretcher-bearers; contact with Italian civilians; crossing River Rapido; withdrawal from front line and return to GB, 12/1943. Recollections of operations as stretcher-bearer with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in Normandy, France, 6/1944-7/1944: landing in Normandy, 7/6/1944; German looting of farmhouse; effects of drinking Calvados; destruction of German tank; sight of vertical burnt-out German tank at Jerusalem; question of how design of British helmet saved his life; stretcher-bearer work during by-passing Caen, 7/1944.
REEL 3 Continues: Recollections of wounding and medical evacuation to GB, 7/1944: wounding by shellfire whilst carrying stretcher; first aid received at Regimental Aid Post (RAP); description of wounds; further injuries received when stretcher collapsed; evacuation by Canadians to GB. Recollections of hospitalisation and rehabilitation in GB, 1944-1950: amputation of right leg in Swindon; convalescence at Cardiff; problems with artificial leg; post-war career; opinion of counselling; lack of effects of experience; attitude to having served in Second World War. Aspects of operations as stretcher-bearer with 1/5th Bn Queen's Royal Regt (West Surrey), 131st Infantry Bde, 7th Armoured Div in Normandy, France, 6/1944-7/1944: firing on German NCO; British soldier who had unusual abdominal wound.