Percy, George C (Oral history)

British gunner served with 386 Coy, 47th Searchlight Bn, Royal Engineers and 386 Bty, 47th Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery in GB, 1939-1941; served with 112th Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery in GB, 1941-1942; served with 155 Bty, 52nd LAA, Royal Artillery in North Africa, Italy and Austria, 1942-1946

REEL 1 Recollections of background in Sunderland, 1922-1939: family background and effects of death of father, 1924; social circumstances; childhood games; family discipline; medical arrangements; education. REEL 2 Continues: education; sporting activities and recreations; work as grocer's errand boy; training in various trades; period working as factory machinist in Birmingham and Sunderland. Recollections of service as boy sapper with 386 Coy, 47th Searchlight Bn, Royal Engineers at Livingstone Road Drill Hall, Sunderland, 8/1938-9/1939: background to recruitment and kitting out, 8/1938; basic training on drill nights; training in crew roles on searchlight, generator and sound locator; organisation of unit. REEL 3 Continues: reasons for volunteering; call up and return home as boy during Munich crisis, 9/1938; mother's reactions; training on weekend camps; training on Lewis gun; annual camps including tent accommodation, acting as cook and searchlight training on 'long arm'; aircraft recognition and identification flares; reactions to call up during annual camp, 9/1939; guard duties and consequent fatigue. Aspects of period with 386 Coy, 47th Searchlight Bn, Royal Engineers and 386 Bty, 47th Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery in Ripon area, Immingham, Harrogate area and Willington, 1939-1941: tent accommodation; latrines; cooking arrangements and food rations; night duties and sleeping arrangements; searchlight exercises; water supply; food rations; routine duties; digging searchlight pit and subsequent flooding; minimal contacts with officers. REEL 4 Continues: hut accommodation and improved conditions of service; national service drafts; leave; story of dispute with officer and punishments; PT; question of selection of NCOs; gambling on cards; punishments and aircraft recognition test prior to leave; 'Phoney' nature of war; dances; move to Immingham, 1940; role illuminating German aircraft minelaying; building hut accommodation; relationship with civilians; building hut accommodation; move to Harrogate; relationship with farmers; German bombing raid on site; question of ineffectiveness of searchlights; aircraft identification flares; volunteers as Lewis gunners on merchants ship including Corporal Bert Reid GC. REEL 5 Continues: move to 3 searchlight site at Willington; volunteers for radar training; infantry training. Recollections of period with 112 Anti-Aircraft Regt, Buxton, 1941: background to formation of unit; training on Bofors guns at Buxton, 1941, including accommodation in dance hall, gun crew roles, opinion of gun and gun drill on dropping into action; gun pit defences; aspects of Bofors gun including ground role, ammunition storage, Bofors gun stoppage drill, speed of getting into action, routine maintenance, barrel life, role as No 3 traversing gun, method of firing at dive bombing Stukas, night firing, speed of getting into action; lack of action in GB. REEL 6 Continues: firing at drogues based at Stiffkey including question of use of Predictor; gun stoppage procedure; nature of shells; question of noise of gun; personal morale; question of protection from cold conditions; stories of accidents; movements and lack of action; background to overseas draft; effects of vaccinations on embarkation leave, 1941. Period at Woolwich Barracks, 1941. Voyage aboard Queen Mary to Port Tewfik, Egypt, 1942: reactions to overseas posting; cabin accommodation; duty on Bofors gun; route; being caught gambling; being caught below decks during false alarm; conditions. REEL 7 Period at Royal Artillery Base Depot, ALmaza, 1942: journey; military prisoners held in camp; sand sculptures; cinema shows; visits to brothel and necessity of VD precautions; drill parades; food rations; march to defend Farouk's Palace, Cairo; relationship with Egyptian civilians. Recollections of period 155 Bty, 52nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, 6/1942-9/1943: reception on arrival and state of unit; story of night German air raid and scorpion threat; German air raids coinciding with meal times; pay; desert lifestyle; water supply, food rations and cooking arrangements. REEL 8 Continues: latrines; fly problem; cigarettes and beer rations; ruse to get free beer; recreations; food rations; hot conditions; desert sores; question of diarrhoea; washing and water supply; desert navigation; movements; sun burn; dust and sandstorms; night conditions; desert climate, flora and terrain; gun pits; move into El Adem box and personal morale during retreat to EL Alamein, ca 6/1942; keeping guns away from casualty clearing stations; personal morale; looting canteens; travelling by night; firing at German aircraft; end of retreat on reaching El Alamein area; retreat of infantry. REEL 9 Continues: letter and parcel contact with GB; 'Centurion' newsletter; role protecting airfield in Alamein area; opinion of Montgomery; situation; local leave in Alexandria; effects of subsequent ban on visiting brothels; German air raids; importance of air superiority; ambulances and medical arrangements during Battle of Alamein, 23/10/1942; nature of advance along coast road following up behind 51st Div to Benghazi; AA barrage protecting Benghazi harbour; salvaging stores from sunk canteen ship and burning ship in Benghazi harbour; use of Arab civilians to retrieve German corpses from sea; salvaged German machine guns; advance to Tripoli; ban on visiting brothels; movements and re-equipment with shielded Bofors gun prior to Salerno landings, 9/1943. REEL 10 Various aspects of operations in Italy and Austria, 9/1943-8/1946: landing from US Tank Landing Craft at Salerno, 9/1943; attachment to US Rangers and relationship with US troops; situation and nature of fighting at Salerno; ground target role; advance to Naples; relationship with Italian civilians; US food rations; relationship with Italian civilians; nature of fighting in mountain terrain; destruction of Monte Cassino monastery; conditions of service; Allied air superiority; use in ground capacity including ground targets, assisting Royal Engineers in building Bailey bridges and use of tracer to guide infantry patrols; accidental shooting; uniform; situation; opinion of officer; relationship with US troops; move to rejoin Eighth Army on east coast; question of return to GB; local leaves in Italy; advance to Austria, 5/1945. REEL 11 Continues: VE Day, 8/5/1945; role guarding German POW Camp at Villach; attitude of German POWs; building huts for displaced persona camp; story of ruse employed in interrogation of German POWs; casualties from accidental bombing by Allied aircraft; contacts with Yugoslavian partisans and Soviet soldiers who had served in German Army; period at Military Police Academy, Rome; military police duties in Venice; black market activities; activities and cooperation with Italian police; journey back on GB leave in lieu of Python; unit war record; question of promotion; military police duties in Udine. Return to GB and demobilisation, 8/1946. Period working as labourer, 1946-1948: Service as driver with RAF, 1948-1953: comparison of service in RAF and Army; period at Ismailia, Canal Zone, Egypt, 1951-1953; problem with Egyptian sniping at lorries; dispute over extra duties.