Chapter Ten

Termoli

It was a dark night, and we had hardly started on our journey towards Termoli, when black clouds began to blot out the stars and the rain to fall softly. There was a feverish activity aboard the small craft, as we made every effort to find out for ourselves, and to pass on to our waiting sections, any detail which might prove to be helpful.

As usual our briefing consisted of an essentially simple plan. This time the plan was so vague, in fact, that we were hardly told anything, and realized that our actions would have to be decided for us by the way future events developed. As it was, Harry was able to tell us the following.

The whole brigade would land at a point about three quarters of a mile beyond the town, and there No.3 Commando would stay, to clear the beach and form a strong beachhead. No.41 Commando would attack the town of Termoli itself and attempt to capture it before dawn. Meanwhile we would push on rapidly inland to try and capture, and prevent from being blown, two important bridges which ran across a small river that flowed about 2 miles south-east of the town. No.3 Troop would deal with the bridge which carried the main coast road across this river, while No.1 Troop was responsible for the bridge further inland, by which the main lateral road crossed it. If we could capture these two bridges, unblown, and hold them until our main forces arrived, we would have done a useful job indeed.

Overlooking the town and the two bridges was a ridge of high ground which it was essential for us to take if we were to hold on to our objectives once these were won. This then was No.2 Troop’s task and, avoiding the roads, we would make our way across country to these hills, clear them, and take up good defensive positions upon them. Harry, with troop HQ together with Derrick’s section and Tony’s section would be responsible for overlooking the bridges, while I was to be behind them, overlooking the small country track which connected the village of Castel Benito with the town of Termoli, and thereby ensuring that our west and south-west flanks were covered.

And that is all we were told. No information about the probable enemy strength had been given and thus once again, the job was no more than a gamble. If the place turned out to be strongly held, we would have a very tough time, while on the other hand, if it were only lightly held, we would hardly be able to say that fighting for it had been necessary. Which would it be this time we wondered? Murro di Porco had been a walkover, Augusta, rather more tricky, Bagnara really rather unpleasant, and now Termoli?

Several pointers made us feel that this time we would not be so lucky, and that this would be just the spot that the enemy would be likely to want to defend strongly. For one thing, as already mentioned, an important lateral road, running across Italy reached the Adriatic coast at this point. The country was much flatter than we had hitherto found in Italy, and thus the enemy might well decide to make a stand for it here with his armour. And finally the presence of that river which ran 3 miles or so south-east of the town, and which was the first decent sized stream that had so far been encountered in Italy, seemed very ominous to us. If the enemy were looking round for a temporary defensive line, it seemed likely that this river would immediately attract them, and they could therefore be expected to be found in the area in comparatively strong numbers!

That was the worst thing about these landings we had to do. The mental strain which went with them was intense, and was often far in excess of what the job warranted. It was all such a gamble. Even though we carefully weighed up all the pros and cons in our minds that we could think of, the ultimate outcome and success of the operation depended so much on luck, that it was well nigh impossible to make a satisfactory prediction. We might capture all our objectives without firing a shot. Or we might take a small enemy by surprise and polish him off. Or we might be met by an expectant and alert enemy and have to fight for every inch of the way. And worst of all, and what we all dreaded more than anything else, was the grim possibility that the enemy might be able to mount a powerful counter-attack upon us and wipe us out before our main forces had caught up with us.

Before every operation we prayed that we would be able at least to get ashore under cover of surprise. And once we had a secure footing on the shore, the thought of a possible counter-attack was never far off. How lucky in some ways it is, that we cannot foretell the future, for had we known then, as we prepared for this landing at Termoli, that that little town was to be the scene of one of the bitterest battles many of us were ever to experience; that a very powerful German counter-attack was indeed to develop, but by the grace of God a few hours after the leading elements of the main forces had reached us; and that even then the situation would be extremely critical for the following 48 hours; we would have gone ashore on that landing filled with all manner of fears, which would probably have adversely affected our fighting qualities.

Through the blackness of the night we were just able to discern the blacker line of the Italian coast, as it slowly unwound itself past us. There we waited with our equipment on, completely ready for the slight bump that was to tell us that we had landed. All was silent, save where a rifle accidently clinked against the side of the superstructure.

We looked towards the shore. There over on the port side was the little outcrop of land on which we knew the town was situated. We were being landed in the right place this time. Although we were in the same landing craft which had landed us at Bagnara, and which had then come in for so much criticism from us, we had nothing but the highest praise for the way the navy were carrying out the job on this occasion.

In complete silence we edged our way in towards the low cliffs of the shore. The ship shuddered and was still. We were there. Nervously we hitched up our packs and prepared to go off. But there was some delay and the disembarkation seemed to be being carried out with ominous slowness. We had touched down on a low sandbank about 20 yards from the beach and the ramps were not long enough to span the gap. This was where the LCAs which we had been towing came in useful, for as quickly as possible, these were made ready, and soon they were ferrying us speedily and silently over the intervening stretch of water.

At last we were ashore, and I quickly got my section together and struck off inland until we came to a railway cutting. Here we stopped in the friendly shelter that this afforded, while Harry sorted out his troop, and checked that all were present. I looked at my watch. It was 3am: only two hours before dawn.

The railway cutting seemed full of troops, as No.3 Commando and No.41 Marine Commando were also there, and a fevered ten minutes was spent in sorting out this mass of men into their respective units and sub-units. Many were the challenges whispered tensely through the darkness, as a sub-unit of marching men came upon another. Brian Franks of No.3 Commando, was busy getting his unit together and happened to come across John Tonkin’s section. The password we had adopted consisted of the usual challenge and answer. This time the challenge was ‘Jack Hobbs’, the answer to which was to be ‘Surrey and England’.

Brian Franks wanted to establish the identity of the section of troops he could vaguely see in the darkness ahead of him, so he approached and whispered the password challenge to John Tonkin. ‘Jack Hobbs!’ ‘Sorry sir,’ came the immediate reply from John who had quickly recognized the challenger, ‘he’s not in this section. This is the S.R.S. here!’

Meanwhile Harry had got all our troop together and without further delay we set off on our journey inland, towards the ridge of high ground which we knew to be 2 or 3 miles away, and which we had to reach before dawn.

The going was bad; the light rain which had fallen earlier on in the night had made the ground very slippery, and the loose soil was quickly churned up into a sticky mud by the countless stealthy feet that passed over it. We were wearing rubber soled boots, to ensure that all our movements were carried out as silently as possible, and it was with considerable dismay that we found that these afforded absolutely no purchase on the slippery, muddy ground over which we had to go. Under the weight of our heavy packs we struggled up the far slope of the railway cutting. There were many delays as one man after another found himself slipping down that treacherous incline, and it was only with considerable difficulty that we were able to reach the top at all. Each man, once he had reached a suitably secure position had to help the next man up to it, before he could again proceed.

Thus, when we had all eventually reached the top of the cutting, a good forty minutes had elapsed from the time when the LCI had first touched the shore. In scarcely an hour and a half it would be light, and the one thing we did not want, was to be revealed by the light of the rising sun plodding across the 2 miles of open ground that separated us from our destination.

So on we struggled, the urgency of our position lying heavily upon us, as with the sweat pricking out all over our bodies we fought our way forward step-by-step up the gentle slope of the open country we were crossing. Continually a man would slip and fall headlong. He would be helped up by his neighbour, and then with increased exertions would strive to make up the gap that had grown between him and the man in front.

We came upon Alec’s mortar section who were suffering even worse difficulties than we, for they were loaded to capacity, and even under favourable conditions would not have made easy progress. Each of the ‘carriers’ was loaded with twelve 10lb bombs, so that with over a hundredweight on their backs they found that the treacherously slippery surface was almost too much for them. But they struggled on, realizing that if they did not reach cover before dawn, there would be little hope for them and the utter urgency of the situation gave them added strength. How pathetic it was to see one man in particular, who was small and slight in build, bent double by the weight of the enormous load he was carrying, and almost with tears of desperation in his eyes straining every muscle to try and accomplish something that he was physically incapable of doing. But he had guts and nothing would make him say no. Every minute he would slip and fall, to be helped to his feet by Tony, to stagger on a few yards again and then repeat the process.

The strap of the pack belonging to a mortar bomb carrier broke and as I brought up the rear with my section I found this dejected man standing by his now useless load, wondering what to do. I bade him leave the pack behind and attach himself to my section.

As we plodded on, we began wondering how our other two troops were faring. For even if we did consider ourselves to be having a rough time of things, we realized that they were certainly worse off. For the two bridges which were their objectives lay almost twice as far from the point where we had landed, as the ridge towards which we were bound. We knew that they had started off before us, but fervently hoped that they were making better going, for otherwise they would never reach their objectives under the protecting cover of darkness.

We crossed a road and realized that we were about half way towards our ridge. At that moment a few ragged shots rang out from the direction of the town to our rear. They were followed immediately by a wild burst of firing, which continued spasmodically for the next fifteen minutes. Obviously the marine commandos had run into some sort of trouble, but from the sound of the firing it seemed that our side were holding their own without trouble, for the quick-firing bursts from the German light machine-guns were rare, and were almost drowned in the rattle of the Brens.

We had now lost our precious surprise and had to proceed with more care than ever. The eastern sky was rapidly paling, and already our range of vision was being uncomfortably extended. But to our good fortune, there was a light ground mist which we knew would remain until the heat of the sun had grown sufficiently to dissipate it. But it was an uncomfortable sensation to find it getting brighter every minute, and yet no matter how much we strained our eyes, nothing could be seen all around save the monotonous flat plain of grassland over which we were passing as quickly as our tired legs could carry us. Not a tree, not a hedge, or small wood loomed up to give us a feeling of security against the ever increasing brightness of day, which left us feeling exposed and vulnerable as we scurried forward towards the cover which we knew lay somewhere ahead.

Eventually, just as it was becoming most dangerously light, we topped a small rise, and there to our joy, right in front of us we saw that the country had taken on an entirely different aspect. For 200 yards, an undulating scrub-covered stretch of rough country rolled away in front of us, its outline broken here and there by sparse copses of dry, aged trees. We entered this welcome cover just as the golden rim of the sun rose up over the horizon to our left. Straight in front we could see, indistinctly looming through the mist, the vague form of the ridge towards which we were aiming. The presence of this high ridge in the hitherto flat and open country seemed rather unnatural, as though it had been arbitrarily placed there by some almighty creative hand.

And even as we rapidly covered the intervening space which separated us from the welcoming, vine-clad slopes now clearly visible in the light of the growing day, a shower of sparks seemed to rise into the air from the crest and in a graceful parabola slowly curve down towards us. They were tracer bullets and the sound of the firing reached our ears a few seconds later. We dived for the nearest available cover and with thumping hearts glued our eyes to the spot, in an endeavour to sum up what was now happening.

It did not take us long to realize that although the bullets were scattering all over the area, they were not being fired at us. Indeed so dispersed and uncoordinated were they that we soon concluded that the bullets were ricochets off the top of the ridge. What is more the tracer was red. Obviously one of our troops, almost certainly No.1 Troop, whose objective we knew to lie somewhere on the other side of this stretch of high ground, had bumped into a detachment of the enemy, and their fire was passing high onto the ridge and falling in a cascade of red sparks into the area in which we were. We learned later that Bill Fraser’s troop had ambushed a stretch of road and caught a half-track and motorcycle combination, which they had succeeded in blowing off the face of the earth.

Doubling through the hail of spent tracer bullets, we reached a sunken track down which we proceeded until we came to the point where two tracks crossed. We had a field of fire of several hundred yards from this spot, and since these tracks would very likely form the route along which the enemy might possibly come, this junction seemed the obvious spot in which to take up a temporary defensive position.

So my section dispersed and took up their various concealed positions, and we sat down to await further developments while the growing heat from the rising sun gave warmth to our bodies and comfort and confidence to our hearts. All was now quiet; not a shot was to be heard – not the slightest sign of battle broke the peacefulness of the pastoral scene.

Soon my radio operator informed me that he was in contact with troop HQ. They had reached the top of the crest without incident, and had been busy rounding-up several surprised and rather dazed Germans who had offered little resistance. They had now cleared the whole eastern half of the ridge of the enemy and were firmly established along the top, in excellent positions. I was told to remain in my present position, and in the meantime to make sure that the valley in which I was, was clear of all enemy.

It was scarcely possible to believe that we were still technically behind enemy lines, so peaceful was the surrounding scene. The Italian peasants were carrying on with their normal daily tasks, just as though nothing unexpected had occurred that preceding night, and as though our presence were completely taken for granted.

Soon after 10am I took out a small reconnaissance patrol with which I wandered round the area to see if anything was developing. We made for a white farmhouse which was situated on the top of a slight knoll, which looked as though it might be in a dominating position. The farmer was in the middle of his yard busily crushing grapes with some type of primitive wine-press. Mostly by sign language we obtained from him the information that there were no Germans within 4 miles of us, and so were able to proceed towards the road with some degree of confidence. An Italian came rushing up to us and confidentially pressed into the palm of my hand a small round brown loaf of bread, not unlike that made by the Arabs, together with a piece of strong smelling farm cheese. He also confirmed the report that there were no Germans within 4 miles, and moreover informed us that on the road junction which lay about 400 yards away, over the crest, a detachment of British troops was installed.

We quickly made our way over to the spot in question and made contact with a section of Marine Commandos who seemed to be having a lovely time. Concealed in the ditches, they covered not only the main coastal road with their fire, but also the minor road leading to the village of Castel Benito which lay somewhere beyond the ridge of high ground in possession of No.2 Troop. Every ten minutes or so, a small German car or motor-cycle would be seen approaching. The ambushers waited until the last moment and then opened up on it. They had already captured several vehicles in this way, and those which were no longer serviceable after the rough treatment they had received, were quickly manhandled into a small dip in the ground that lay nearby, from where they would be invisible to the next unsuspecting Germans who approached. Apparently, as the officer in charge gleefully told me, the Germans seemed to be very slow in realizing that something was up, for the ambushing party had been at their game ever since dawn, and still the German vehicles came along singly or in pairs at regular intervals. Even as we were speaking, the cry was raised that another motorcycle had been sighted coming down the main-road, and a few minutes later its battered remnants were being dragged onto the refuse heap, while its riders were led over to the dejected group of prisoners that were sitting nearby.

They were having a roaring time, those Marines, and how we envied them, when we compared their lot with the relatively dull position in which we had found ourselves.

Eagerly I asked the marine officer how the general operation had succeeded.

‘Oh very well,’ he replied. ‘I believe that over 300 prisoners have already been taken! Our lads found that elements of a parachute battalion were occupying the town. Actually, just as it was getting light they heard a lot of shouting and found a company of Germans neatly lined up with their sergeant major calling the roll. They lost no time in opening up on them and managed to put nearly every man of this particular company in the bag. Other odd parties were mopped up here and there, and we have had very few casualties. There was some pretty stiff fighting round the station though, for some of those Jerry paratroopers were billeted there, and it took us quite a time to dislodge them. However, the town is in our hands all right now, and Jerry seems to have pulled right out, for there is not a sign of him anywhere in the area. It was rotten luck about that section of yours though!’

These last words cut short my jubilation at the excellent news the commando officer had given me.

‘What section?’, I stammered in amazement.

‘Oh didn’t you know? I don’t know myself how true it is, but I heard that one of your sections, complete, walked straight into the bag. Still, don’t take my word for it, as I only heard it by chance.’

I could get no further information on this point, and so slowly took my patrol back to the section position, pondering over the information I had received, and wondering which section could have suffered the described fate. It certainly wasn’t one of our troop sections, and all I could conclude was that either No.1 Troop or No.3 Troop had been caught by the all too early arrival of daylight, in a vulnerable position still some distance short of their objective.

When I arrived back at the spot where my section was established, I was greeted by a grinning Sergeant Storey.

‘We’ve found a prisoner, sir,’ he shouted. ‘Some “Itie” kids came up and told me where he was hiding, so I took a couple of the lads and followed them. They led me to a farm shed, and there we found young Fritz hiding. He wasn’t half mad at those kids for giving him away. Spat something out at them in German real nasty like. Must have said that he’d do them if he got half a chance.’

I looked around for young Fritz and found him sitting sadly about 20 yards away, all by himself. I went up to him and questioned him. He was very young, nineteen and a half he said, but I doubt if he was much more than eighteen. He had the long eyelashes and the finely modelled features of a girl, and a pretty one at that. But for all his good looks, he was without a doubt one of the Nazi brood. At first he kept himself arrogant and haughty, answering my questions with an unwilling monosyllable. But where he differed from the British soldier was that after I had been working on him for about twenty minutes, asking him friendly questions about where he came from, where his family were, and all that, and telling him of the parts of Germany I had visited before the war, he suddenly opened up and in a torrent of speech, far too fast for me to be able to understand he poured his heart out.

It seemed as though he was so surprised at finding someone willing to talk to him in a friendly way that his natural reserve and suspicion fell away from him on the spot. He talked like one unaccustomed to much speaking, as though this outlet to his mind had been suppressed for many years, so that now once the floodgates were opened, out the torrent came.

On he chatted in his boyish voice, his words blurred and clipped, and made almost incomprehensible by his excitement. His home, his parents, his fiancée, his army training, his parachute course, were described at length. He told how he and a friend had been surprised in the town when the Marine Commandos attacked it, how they had made their escape and swum across a river, he carrying the magazines and his companion carrying the machine-gun. They had been fired upon and he feared his companion was dead. Eventually he landed up in the farm where we caught him.

I also learned from him that there had been about 800 troops in the area that morning, that he was not at all happy at the idea of being taken prisoner, and that Russia had invaded Germany!

I gave him a short pep-talk about German aggression in general, trying to convince him that Germany had invaded Russia as well as most of the other European countries. But I might as well have saved my breath.

‘You must in any case admit,’ he said proudly, ‘that the German campaign in Poland was a model feat of military skill. Why in merely 21 days we had conquered the whole Polish army.’

I couldn’t control my disgust, and called out to the lads telling them of what this cheeky young devil had said. He was greeted with a roar of derisive laughter.

‘Shoot a line at him, sir; tell him about Sicily: it hardly took us more than 21 days to conquer that!’

So I let young Fritz have it, telling him that any country that prepares for war over six years will have an initial advantage over one that did not. I reminded him that there were no Germans left in Africa or Sicily, and that even now we were nearly half-way up Italy.

‘Do you really think that Germany will win the war?’ I asked at the end.

He hesitated a moment. ‘It’s possible,’ he said dubiously. That coming from a young and arrogant Nazi paratrooper was in our opinion a sure sign that the German morale was becoming dangerously low.

I contacted Harry on the wireless and told him that I was changing our position to the farm we had passed when I had taken out the patrol. This was on slightly higher ground than the neighbouring valley and offered a more commanding position over the immediate vicinity than the low-lying and rather too sheltered spot in which we were at present.

After we had moved there, and chosen the best possible defensive posts, I reported having contacted the Marine Commando road-block, and mentioned the rumour about one of our sections having been captured.

To our great disappointment Harry confirmed this report. John Tonkin’s section had been surprised by strong German forces and had been compelled to give themselves up. It was only later that we learned in greater detail exactly what had happened. Following the lessons learned at Bagnara, they had been at great pains to avoid moving along the road, and as far as possible had kept to the open country. But in view of the fact that they were pressed for time they kept close enough to the road to be able to use it as a rough direction indicator towards their objective. They came across a small party of Germans on or near the road and opened up on them. But it was no small sub-unit they engaged, but a whole company spread out along the upper side of the road as it wound its way up the hillside, and almost before they knew what was happening, they were meeting with fire from all sides. By the most extraordinary ill fortune when they bumped into these Germans they could not have been placed in a more unfortunate position. For they were on the lower side of the road, in a sort of shallow valley. In the darkness they had not realized that the road, climbing in a series of sharp hairpin bends, surrounded them on three sides. Thus the Germans only had to seal off the entrance to the valley in which they were, and the section was trapped.

From their positions above the road, the Germans were able to pour into the small area of that shrub-strewn valley a murderous volume of fire from three sides. After trying to get out by the way they had come, and finding that the Germans had effectively sealed this off, there was nothing left for the section to do but surrender. John Tonkin himself, with one of his men, was in the process of laboriously crawling along a ditch in an effort to get away, when a guttural voice behind him said softly, ‘Come out you naughty boys,’ and there scarcely 2 yards away from him and above him he became aware of a section of grinning Germans.

All the section were captured with the exception of two or three who with extreme bravery lay doggo in the undergrowth ignoring the warning shouted by the Germans that they would spray the whole area with machine-guns unless they gave themselves up immediately. It must have been hell for them as they lay there, not daring to make the slightest movement, and watching the twigs and shrubs being torn to pieces around them and wondering if there was a slight chance that they could be missed by that tornado of fire. Two, I believe, did survive it, but a third, Lance Corporal Fassam, was not so fortunate and was killed instantly.

Towards three that afternoon, my signaller came up to me with a wireless from Harry.

‘Take patrol up western end of high ground near Castel Benito and push southwards to try and contact our main forces advancing from that direction. Keep in wireless communication and report if you can see our forward troops. Derrick patrolling the ridge to the east of you. Keep clear of Castel Benito, as enemy possibly in vicinity.’

That was all, but we welcomed the chance of being at last able to do something more active, and quickly made ready. I preferred to take a small reconnaissance patrol of four or five riflemen with me, which would be easy to control and which would have more chance of being able to move about undercover, than would a stronger force, such as my whole section, which might prove to be too large and cumbersome.

It was not hard to pick four good men, and within ten minutes we were at the road-block to inform the Marines of the route to be taken and to ask about the whereabouts of our nearest troops in the area.

From a youthful and friendly officer whom I later discovered to be Lieutenant Colonel Manners, CO of the Marine Commando, I obtained all the information about our own troops’ positions I required, along with several amusing stories about the fighting that had taken place that morning. Brian Franks had had a brainwave. He wanted to know the strength of the enemy forces in Pescara, the next town up the coast, and started questioning an Italian he had found in one of the houses. The Italian surprised him by picking up the telephone and ringing-up a friend of his who worked in a hotel in Pescara, from whom he was able to obtain the required information, despite the fact that there were Germans sitting in the lounge of the hotel the other end, according to the veiled remarks to that effect coming over the wire. Brian Franks was so elated at his success in tricking the Germans in this way, that he entirely ignored the fact that the Germans would be able to try out exactly the same dodge, as regards finding out our strength. In all probability that ‘Itie’ rang through to his pal and told him how strong we were, as soon as Brian had gone!

Colonel Manners gave my patrol a lift up the hill in a truck his unit had captured at the road-block. We went up the little country road that ran inland to the village of Castel Benito, and my section got out at the crest, about half a mile short of the village and from this point started our patrol.

We passed a small detachment of No.3 Commando who had a 3-inch mortar position up on that high ground, and from then on we were alone. Keeping in single file, we made full use of the plentiful cover and headed eastwards along the ridge until we came to a small white farmhouse standing high on that peaceful hillside.

From the farm we took out our glasses and scanned the neighbouring countryside. Behind us was the broad coastal plain, which we had crossed so laboriously the preceding night, while to our front the ground rose gently to a smooth crest which cut off our view scarcely 200 yards ahead.

The ridge on which we were continued over to our left, and it was somewhere over there that we knew the rest of our troop to be. But it was divided at the point where we stood by a deep and densely wooded valley which, cutting it at rightangles, ran away to the south. Across this valley we could discern another ridge, as smoothly undulating and as bare as the one on which we stood, and running parallel to it, which also rose gently to the south in a gradual, uninterrupted curve.

Suddenly we became aware of three little black dots which broke the regular line of one of the crests on the opposite ridge. That they were men, and furthermore troops, we could not doubt, but the question was were they enemy or were they some of Derrick’s patrol which we knew should be somewhere in that area? Soon the figures moved, and this was just sufficient to allow me to recognize through my binoculars the blue-grey Indian shirts with which our unit had been issued. They were Derrick’s section all right, and for the next few minutes we watched with considerable amusement the great show of caution they exercised when they caught sight of us. The three figures suddenly bobbed back into dead ground as soon as we moved into the open, and then proceeded to study us through their binoculars with the utmost suspicion. Meanwhile we had contacted them over the radio and introduced ourselves formally to each other with such words as ‘Peep-bo! I can see you!’

Our route now lay to the south and led us across completely open ground. Always about a hundred yards ahead of us ranged a crest, beyond which we could not see, and as soon as we reached this point, it was only to find our vision blocked by a similar crest just ahead, and so it went on. It was heart-breaking as the purpose of our patrol was to reach a point overlooking the main road which we knew to be somewhere in front, and up which our main forces were approaching.

It was a great comfort to have Derrick on our left flank, for while we scanned his ridge, he was covering the one on which we were, and in this way we were both able to know much more about what was going on around us.

Once Derrick told me over the wireless that a section of unidentified troops was digging in just above us, but as the slope on which we were was convex, we could not see them. I imagined they would be some party from the No.3 Commando mortar section we had passed about half an hour previously, so did not let the news worry me unduly. Derrick told me later that they were definitely Germans.

Somewhere to our front and over to our right the tearing burst of a quick-firing machine gun rudely shattered the silence. How well we knew that sound! Our experience at Bagnara had permanently drummed it into our minds. A Spandau or an MG 15. We looked at each other significantly. So there were Jerries somewhere in front of us, and within half a mile at that! The willpower that was necessary to look over each crest as we came to it became more and more of an effort.

But nothing occurred to justify our fears, and as the red rim of the sun touched the horizon to our right, we realized that we would have to think about returning, if we did not want the rest of the section to report us as missing.

So I contacted Derrick on the wireless telling him that I was packing up, and with relief we turned about and made our way back to the section position. When we reached the farm that we had passed on the upper slopes of the ridge, we descended straight down into the valley below, and by this shortcut were able to reach the others just as the first stars were beginning to appear in the sky overhead.

We decided to spend the night where we were, and Sergeant Storey got busy arranging the sentry roster while I went off to let the Marines know where we were sleeping, and to arrange for us to be fitted in with their general defence system.

Young Fritz was sent over to re-join his comrades who were safely out of harm’s way on an LCI, and after we had fed, we established ourselves in a barn full of fresh, clean straw. We spent a comfortable night, undisturbed by any unpleasant interruptions. The straw in our barn gave us good protection from the cold, and most of us were able to sleep soundly. Sentries with Bren guns had been posted in what were considered good positions, where they lay quietly with ears pricked for any sound. They handed over automatically at the end of their two hours’ stretch, while the rest of us slept as soundly as was possible in our communal bed of straw. All of this shows that we did not take very seriously the possibility that the enemy might be up to no good that night.

Once or twice during the night I woke up – probably on account of the cold – and went out to see that the guards were acting properly as had been arranged. It was a clear cold night, with no moon to aid the straining eyes of the sentries. Just before dawn, I was on one of these rounds when I lost my footing in the darkness and came rolling down into a clump of brushwood, setting up sufficient noise to waken the dead. Any doubts I may have had about the sentries doing their work properly were quickly dispelled, for at the noise, Stalker swung round in a flash, his rifle at the hip, and pointing straight at my stomach. I do not know which of us was the more scared – Stalker by the thought that some marauding Germans might have stumbled on our positions, or I, at the thought that Stalker might be a trifle ‘trigger happy’! Needless to say, I lost no time in introducing myself.

We awoke to find the sun streaming through the chinks in the walls and roof of our barn, and to our joy we found the coastal road covered with a stream of transport pushing past our position westwards up the coast. The army had arrived, and our worries were over, or so we imagined. Carriers, 3-tonners, PUs and ambulances all went past us in a steady stream, while we stood watching, filled with relief.

‘Well, that’s just about the easiest operation we’ve ever had – almost beats Murro di Porco,’ commented one of the lads.

‘Yes! If all operations were like this one, I wouldn’t mind fighting at all,’ answered another.

We threw all caution to the winds – we moved about openly and without attempt at concealment, and lit a huge fire over which we cooked our breakfast. Singly or in pairs, we roamed the neighbouring countryside in search of eggs and other foodstuffs which would make a good meal.

Since there was obviously no point in our staying where we were any longer, for the army were by now all around us, I decided to move out about 10am and make our way to the coastal road, where we would be most likely to contact Harry.

No thought of war was in our minds, as we moved about unconcerned, collecting our kit and putting on our equipment. We never dreamed that we might be being watched by unfriendly eyes from the very slopes up which we had climbed that previous evening. The Germans had been at least four miles away then, and were by now probably over twice that distance from us – or so we thought!

But even as we were completing our preparations to leave, we were amazed to hear the whine of a shell interrupt the silence of that morning, in which all thoughts of battle were so far from our minds. A second later a shattering explosion shook the ground, and a column of dust rose up no more than 75 yards from the farmhouse. The women in the farm screamed and the civilians who, until then had been working so peacefully on their normal daily tasks, were all of a sudden gone.

We certainly could not explain that shell away as being one of our own. But where had it come from? That shell had been so obviously aimed at us, but how? Our own troops were all around us, and our patrol of the previous afternoon had established beyond doubt that those overlooking heights were completely clear of the enemy. No! We just could not be under enemy observation. That shell must have been fired blind from a range of several miles and had probably been aimed at the road junction behind us. This was the only solution which presented itself to our dulled and over-confident minds, for so secure did we feel that we never even contemplated the possibility that the enemy may have moved since that preceding afternoon.

Even as we looked at each other aghast, and wondered what lay behind this unpleasant diversion, there it came again. Once more the tearing, roaring whine of a shell compressed the air over our heads and sent us flat onto our faces. This time it burst further away, almost out of sight in the valley immediately below the steep wooded slopes of the ridge.

‘Never mind,’ I shouted, ‘they are probably having a crack at shelling that road junction, from miles away’, and these words were no attempt to mislead, but were the real expression of my true opinion.

So we decided to disregard the shells, and as soon as we were ready we moved over towards the road, in accordance with our previous plan, in a formation only slightly more extended than it otherwise would have been. But we had hardly ventured out into the open, when something which sounded very like a mortar bomb, tore a hole in the earth barely 50 yards behind.

Public gardens, Termoli and monastery forming regiment’s billets, 3–5 October 1943.

We could not understand it. If the Germans were firing blind as we imagined, their shells were falling uncomfortably close to us. It seemed almost as if we were being followed by the wretched things.

It did not take long for these doubts to materialize, for when two more bombs landed immediately behind us, even my confidence began to be shaken and I was forced to admit that this was no coincidence, and that we were actually being shelled or mortared. So we spread out in extended order, and doubled across the remaining few hundred yards which separated us from the road, as hard as we could go.

We reached an orchard on the roadside and here, panting from our exertions, we settled down to discuss this extraordinary occurrence. We looked around – our troops were everywhere, going about their normal tasks entirely unconcerned. As we arrived breathless at the edge of the road, a section of Marines lying beneath the trees looked at us with surprise and barely concealed amusement. Traffic streamed along the road, groups of men were cooking around smoking fires, and, in short, no one seemed the least concerned about the shellfire of a few moments ago.

The shells were not aimed at them though, we thought bitterly. But it did seem so incongruous. It was as though, despite the fact that the army had relieved us, we were still on our own, and still had to fend for ourselves!

We moved off to a group of farm buildings near the road, and here in the clean cool cowshed we had our lunch, washed down with a brew of tea made with fresh milk we had obtained from the farmer.

A small German truck came up and stopped just by us. Out of it stepped Harry Poat, looking as spick and span and as emotionless as ever. He told us that the rest of the squadron had been relieved the previous evening, and had spent a comfortable night back in the town in billets which they had taken over. He would arrange immediately for a truck to come out and pick us up. Eagerly we asked him for news about the landing operation and from the account he gave it seemed to have been most successful. Of the 800 enemy troops who were in the area when we landed, over 50 had been killed and more than 300 taken prisoner. They were the remnants of a parachute battalion stationed in Termoli, and had been taken completely by surprise. Both No.1 and No.3 Troops had reached the bridges which had been their objectives without too much trouble, but unfortunately these had been blown before they had been able to reach them. Except for the unfortunate loss of John Tonkin’s section, casualties had been extraordinarily low among our unit, although the Marines had had a rather tougher time of things.

We were most sorry to learn that Bob Merlot, who in spite of his age and value had stubbornly insisted that as intelligence officer he should go forward with the leading section of No.1 Troop, had been wounded, how seriously nobody knew, save that he had received a bullet in his shoulder. Bill Fraser’s troop had had a pleasant time strafing a road down which German vehicles were moving, and had sent many of these up in smoke and flames. Even squadron headquarters had taken part in this Hun-hunting, and the story was told of how Casey, one of the batmen, single-handed had captured a whole section of Germans. Apparently he had rushed about shouting “‘A’ section on the left, ‘B’ section on the right, and ‘C’ section follow me”, to such an extent that the Germans believed in the dazed and surprised state in which they were, that they were up against a whole company at least, and so surrendered willingly!

After Harry had given us this welcome news, he enquired after how we had fared. I told him about the shelling of earlier in the morning, and this he was inclined to pooh-pooh as indeed we also were by that time, for ever since the day had been completely free from sounds of battle, so that our confidence which had been momentarily shaken was fully restored once more.

Harry then left us to fetch our transport, and about an hour later we were driven into the town to re-join the rest of the squadron.

An enormous monastery right in the middle of the town, flanking one side of the main square, had been taken over as billets for the men. On the ground floor of this, with its bare stone passages and empty halls, the squadron was installed, and space and food were immediately procured for my section on their arrival.

Paddy came up to me, and after a few preliminary enquiries asked me if I had heard anything about a powerful counter-attack which according to rumour was developing. I told him about the shelling of the morning, but added that thereafter everything had been peaceful, and nothing had occurred to suggest the possibility of a counter-attack. Paddy told me that one or two Tiger tanks had been seen, and that No.3 Commando had claimed to have knocked out one of these, and so we were able to attribute the shelling of that morning to one of these tanks which had probably managed to penetrate to a point from where it could overlook the coastal stretch of flat country.

From then on rumours about the enemy counter-attack came pouring in, with ever increasing incoherence and urgency. By tea-time Paddy had received at least three messages from the brigadier commanding the leading infantry brigade, requesting that we should at once go out to strengthen the line against the oncoming enemy. Paddy was loth to permit this, partly because, like the rest of us, he found it difficult to believe that the situation was as serious as these messages made out, since we had been able to wander around the whole area only the day before without the slightest interference, but also because he considered the unit as his special charge.

To Paddy his men had been trained to such a pitch that they were not easily replaceable. They had to be of a high standard of efficiency, in view of the specialized tasks they might be called upon to do, and thus Paddy refused to allow some strange infantry brigadier, who had perhaps been flustered and worried by coming up against fairly strong enemy forces for the first time, to assume command over his valuable little unit and maybe cause it to suffer numerous and excessive casualties unnecessarily. In addition to these arguments, Paddy also considered that the men had done quite enough, and he refused to send them into action until he was himself sure that the need for them was fully necessary.

But by the time we had had our evening meal, there was nothing more we could do about it. The demands for our men in the line had by now become so frantic and irresistible, that it became imperative for three sections to be sent out that evening. Which sections were to be chosen? That was the question! It was generally accepted that our troop had had the lightest time during the initial landing operation, so it was decided to send out Tony’s and Derrick’s sections. But in view of the fact that my section had spent all the previous night out and had only just been brought back to the town, while all the rest of the squadron had been relieved the previous evening, we were spared, and instead, Sandy Wilson with his section from No.1 Troop were sent out under Tony.

A feverish fifteen minutes were spent in getting these sections ready and then they were off, cheerful as always but naturally rather sceptical as to the actual need for them. We watched them go with mixed feelings, wondering what lay ahead for them in the immediate future, and whether they would soon be allowed to return, unneeded.

I was tired after my two almost sleepless nights, and so went to bed early, where I slept like a log until dawn.

I awoke with the awful realization that something was wrong. What was the matter? What had I heard to cause such apprehensions in my mind. I sat up in bed to listen. Yes, there it was again. Clearly over the morning air the slow steady rattle of a Bren gun rang out, to be answered immediately by the roaring burst of a quick-firing machine gun which I recognized too well as being German. That was not much in itself, but the alarming feature of it was that both guns sounded as though they were less than half a mile away! And even while the horrible consequences of this fact were slowly sinking into my sleep-stupefied mind, my alarms were still further increased by the sound of a shell tearing the air overhead, landing nearby a second later with a deafening explosion.

The implications of these sounds were obvious. The enemy were within half a mile of the town, and evidently had command of the high ground on which we had been two days previously, and from which they would be able to observe every movement in the town. The rumoured counter-attack which yesterday had seemed to us no more than a few scattered alarmist reports, was now, beyond doubt an established fact, and everything pointed to our having to face a very sticky reception during the course of that day.

Early though it was, I found everybody up and about by the time I reached the mess. The atmosphere was strained and oppressive, for no one failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation in which we were, and to all of us, it was merely a matter of time before we were called out to take our place in the line, and help stem the German attack.

All that morning we hung around while rumours and reports came flooding in. Without a doubt it was a powerful counter-attack, and an all-out effort to recapture the town of Termoli which the Germans evidently valued very highly. They were attacking on at least a divisional scale, with tanks and artillery, and crack paratroop units as infantry. But the most serious aspect of it all, was that it looked extremely doubtful whether our troops would be able to hold them, for besides being outnumbered, these were for the most part inexperienced and green, and untrained in actual battle conditions. Previously the advance up Italy had met with little resistance, and had entailed no real fighting, beyond mopping-up and by-passing small rearguard elements which had been left to hold up our progress. But now, for the first time, our troops found themselves against a powerful enemy line, and for this they were obviously not prepared.

We had nothing to do all that morning, save wait in the mess, in an agony of suspense, listening to the frenzied whine of the shells, which were falling on the town in ever thickening profusion, and to the growing violence of the sounds of battle. We were put on half an hour’s notice to move so that with the knowledge that we would certainly be called out to fight sometime during that day, the conditions of our waiting became almost intolerable through the strain that they entailed. Paddy was loth to send us out, but now that he knew the seriousness of the situation, he had no choice. Our sections who were already out had spent a comfortable night, we learned, but now they too were fighting hard to hold back the enemy.

The inactivity that was forced on us as we sat around in the mess that morning played on everyone’s nerves. We found an old gramophone with some Italian records, and these Bill Fraser got hold of. To his delight he found among them ‘Lili Marlene’ sung by a female in Italian, and this he played through and through, the whole morning long, while outside the shells were falling nearer and nearer and the rest of us were expecting a direct hit on the house at any moment. But Bill did not seem to care. So long as he was able to listen to ‘Lili Marlene’, the war and the unpleasant threat hanging over us was forgotten by him. How we wished that we could have adopted that same detachment and unconcern which served to keep Bill so contented and oblivious of the furious battle developing around him.

We had a scraped-up lunch whilst still under this ominous atmosphere of uncertainty, knowing that any moment might see us called out to strengthen the line. Soon after lunch, about 2.30, the expected order came through. We were to prepare immediately, and every available man was to be rushed to help stem a renewed and powerful attack on a weak point of our line, on the eastern outskirts of the town. Transport was to take us to the required spot.

It only needed a matter of a few minutes for us to be completely ready. So that at 2.45pm the unit was assembled in the main square, and marched off to a side street flanking the public gardens, in which our transport was waiting.

Without a word the men began climbing into the trucks. To their delight my lads found that the driver of one of the lorries was McNinch who, because of a bad foot, had been left out of the battle and had come up as a driver. Naturally they all wanted to travel in the truck driven by their old friend, and since no definite allocation of trucks to sections had been made, I saw no reason to prevent them from climbing in behind McNinch. In fact I was on the point of mounting beside McNinch myself, when a small tornado materialized beside us in the form of Johnny Wiseman, who vehemently claimed that the truck in which we were was to be used by his section. Since he obviously appeared to know more about transport allocations than we did, we gave way and despite silent mutterings to the effect that ‘surely one truck was as good as another’ my section got down from McNinch’s truck and slowly made their way over to the one in front, into which they clambered.

And at that moment the world seemed to fall to pieces around us, and from the resultant chaos and confusion there rose up a sight, the memory of which will never be stamped out from my mind.

For at just the moment when the squadron was packed into the half-dozen or so trucks, which were parked nose to tail in that narrow side-street, we were all transfixed by the frenzied shriek of a heavy shell, which suddenly distinguished itself from the normal noises of battle, deafening us with the rush of its passage and seemingly sweeping the whole world before it. Just as in one of those terrifying dreams when some danger is imminently threatening, and one finds oneself bound to the spot with chains, unable to make a move to escape it, so we stood or sat in our positions listening to the tearing roar of the approaching menace, and unable to transmit from our numbed minds the necessary commands to our limbs.

The human mind can stand so much and no more, so that when a horror too great for it suddenly materializes, the senses are unable to register exactly what happens, and the picture of the scene becomes mercifully blurred, vague and disjointed. When the first shell landed in the wall of a house immediately above the parked vehicles, blowing a gaping gap in the masonry and covering the whole area with dust and fragments, it became impossible for us to realize what was happening for five more shells followed the first in quick succession. All fell directly on the area in which we were, spreading death, destruction and confusion in that confined space.

The deafening roar and shock of that first bursting shell was such as to completely deprive us of feeling. As if in a trance we watched the wall of the house come down, slowly, infinitely slowly it seemed. And then amid the roar of further exploding shells the scene became covered with dust. Hardly a shout was raised from the mass of men piled onto the trucks – everything was too sudden for that. Only when the shuddering whine of the descending missiles had ceased, and when the clouds of dust had begun to settle were our minds able to register once more, and take note of what was happening around us. Figures of men vague and indistinct in the dust cloud, appeared, pale and shielding their eyes as they staggered out of the whirlwind. And then, as minds slowly recovered from the numbing shock, something like panic developed – there was a mad rush for cover, into alleys, doorways, corners. But what cover was there from those deadly shells which rained down from the sky, and were just as likely to blow one to pieces in whatever place one tried to hide oneself? The same feeling of helplessness gripped us all. The main thing was to get away – right away from this inferno, but where? From those heavy 105mm shells, no house was safe, no concealed or sheltered spot, for wherever you went they were liable to seek you out and destroy you.

The truck in which McNinch and a section of I Troop were blown up.

As the dust subsided, and I realized almost unbelievably, that I was completely unhurt. I could hardly recognize the street, for great lumps of masonry and vehicles littered the roadway, and the scrambling mass of men rushing about in search of shelter added a further confusion to the scene. It took me some seconds to take in the awful extent of the damage we had suffered, for the rear half of McNinch’s truck had virtually disappeared, merely a twisted and shattered hulk remaining.

Behind me I became aware of a commotion and there lay Bill Fraser, limp and motionless, his face an unnatural ashen grey. Over him Phil Gunn was bending, coolly making his examination. Poor Bill! The Fraser luck had not lasted indefinitely for, from the look of him lying there with his ashen complexion, I could not help feeling that he was seriously hurt.

Phil Gunn was very much in demand a second or two later, for as people came to their senses from the shock, a scene of gruesome disaster slowly dawned on their dazed eyes. Most of the casualties were dead, blown to pieces, and the wounded were a ghastly sight, such as to make hardened veterans turn pale and vomit feebly. But throughout, Phil Gunn worked methodically and calmly, refusing to be flustered by the ever-growing stream of serious casualties who were waiting on his treatment.

I found my section wild-eyed and shaking, scattered among the neighbouring yards and passages. By now the shelling had ceased, so that we were gradually able to overcome that intense and nauseating fear that we were at the mercy of the invisible enemy and that nowhere could we find shelter from him. It did not take long to get my section organized and together, for they were all stouthearted lads and quickly rallied themselves, collected together in a neighbouring yard. The roll was called, and to my relief and amazement, I found that all were present.

Once I had seen to my section we looked around to see what else we could do to be of assistance. The street was now deserted; no one could quite pluck up the courage to go towards that blackened and twisted wreck that had once been a 3-ton truck. This reluctance was partly caused by the natural fear that that point was the central target of the threatening enemy shellfire, and who was to know what was still likely to come from that direction? Also our fears were partly due to the horror of what we knew we would see when we got there.

But soon a small figure stolidly trudged out towards the dreaded point, and from there started shouting orders to the pale faces peering round the doorways. It was Johnny Wiseman, whose section had been in the destroyed vehicle, anxious to see what could be done for the all too few remnants of his men. I took four volunteers and went forward to see what we could do, though loth indeed I was to do so.

As I came up to the truck I noticed in an abstract sort of way what appeared to be a carcase of meat lying in the middle of the road, exactly similar to those one sees hanging in butchers’ shops. I remember vaguely thinking that there must have been a butcher’s shop close by. But then an awful second later, that seemed to stretch into minutes so great was the revulsion I experienced, I saw that a few pieces of charred khaki cloth were sticking to the outside of the object I was examining. With my stomach writhing we went on to witness the most dreadful shambles any of us had ever seen. Piled around were the remains of what had been a minute or so before, twenty-five brave men in the prime of life, cheerful, strong, and good-hearted. And now…what was left! Here lay a man with half his head blown off, an arm lay there, and somewhere else an unrecognisable lump of flesh that had only a few seconds before belonged to a living organism pulsing with young life. In the back of the truck, over the sides and scattered over the road, lay the dead, piled high, a horrible and bloody carnage. A lump of flesh hung on the telegraph wires overhead. I could see no more!

Blindly I stumbled back my innards revolting at the sight which I had just witnessed. Never would I get over it – never, no matter what happened to me afterwards would I ever have to see such a sight again – such were the thoughts in my mind, as infinitely distressed I hurried away from the scene. For the rest of that day, the smell of death hung in the air around me, clinging to my clothes and to my hands. The smell of those poor scorched, fragmented bodies haunted my nostrils for days afterwards.

So overcome was I by the sight I had just seen, that I was unable to take much notice for the next five minutes of what was happening around us. Stretchers had been procured from somewhere and already those lucky enough to escape with wounds were being carried away to the dressing station. A young Italian girl who lived in the house which had been struck by the first shell, came running up and at the sight that met her eyes fell screaming to the ground, misery and frenzy on her distraught face. She had seen her father lying there, his belly ripped open. Two of the men led her away, still screaming, while we blocked our ears as best we could to keep those dreadful notes of distress from reaching our already overtaxed minds.

Many must have been the selfless deeds of devotion and bravery during those horror-stricken few minutes, which I was unable to record so numbed was I at the magnitude of the disaster. Gilmour, one of the men on the truck, came up to Johnny Wiseman, who was busy sorting out the wounded from the dead, and asked, holding his hand up to his head, ‘Please sir, may I go to the hospital, I have lost an eye?’

A young civilian girl, as calmly as though she were sitting in her own drawingroom on a peaceful winter evening, sat amid the rubble of what had once been a house, bandaging the less serious wounds and cleaning them, setting a fine example to the soldiers around.

And all the time Phil Gunn worked on, slowly bringing order to the confusion and chaos around him. Without a glance at the dead he concentrated on the living, arranging for their evacuation, as soon as he had examined them. Shaken as we were, we could not fail to admire his splendid coolness, as he worked patiently and without fluster to mend broken bodies and torn flesh.

In the midst of this confusion, young Ridler, the intelligence sergeant, came up with a message from Paddy, who had gone forward in advance of the squadron, and who was now anxiously waiting for their arrival and wondering what could have happened to delay us so.

‘Major Mayne says that you must hurry, and come forward at once, without the slightest delay. It is very urgent,’ he said to David Barnby, the senior officer present.

‘Tell Major Mayne that we can’t possibly come until we have sorted out this mess,’ David replied.

‘It’s most imperative that you should, sir,’ Ridler answered. ‘I believe that the situation is very critical and that more men are vitally needed.’

‘Very well, we’ll come as soon as possible. I’ll send each section off as soon as they have reached some semblance of organization again,’ said David, turning around in a harassed manner to see which of the troops huddled in the doorways seemed to be nearest to being in an organized state.

As I was standing nearby, and as I knew that my section were all together and ready to move off, my men were the first to go, so that in single file, we led a shaken, straggled procession up the main street of the town towards the eastern outskirts. Our nerves were tensed and our ears straining for any sound that might betray that the shelling was to be resumed. But apart from the continuous noises of battle, nothing further happened to renew our fears. It was with extreme reluctance that we came up to each crossroads, for we half expected to meet with some deadly reception as we crossed these danger areas. All around, we passed troops sitting in yards, or in doorways, singly or in pairs, shaken in appearance, and without order or formation.

Advancing in this way, we reached a railway bridge, and proceeded until we were met by a member of Paddy’s forward party who led us off the road into the garden of a large villa, where we found Paddy calmly waiting.

‘Take your section over there, by that wall and get them into good positions,’ he said, indicating with a sweep of his hand the rough area into which we were to go.

It was an ideal defensive position. We were on the forward slope of a small hill, which rose up over the end of a wide and deep valley; this ran straight down to the road which we could see winding away below us. About 50 yards down the slope was a stone wall, and behind this a ditch.

I spread my men along the ditch, extremely thankful for its presence, and for the protection afforded by the wall in front, and at once we got busy scraping away at the mortar with our fighting knives, in order to make observation holes and firing slits in the hard masonry of the wall. I remembered sufficiently our experiences at Bagnara, to know that we would not stand much chance should the enemy succeed in coming close up to us, if we had to expose ourselves over the level surface of the wall each time we wanted to fire a shot.

Our field of fire was excellent. We could cover every inch of that valley down to the road, a winding stretch of which almost half a mile long we also had under observation. Beyond this road we could see the mouth of another valley, which ran off towards the high ground looming up about half a mile beyond. It was here that the enemy were, firmly established on the heights, and probing their way forward down that valley in an attempt to possess the road. The whole area where we were was under their observation, so that the slightest movement met with that terrifying whine of a 88mm shell.

On either side of the valley in front of us we could see our troops packed among the wooded crests complete with their transport. On the ridge to our left, a battery of 25-pounder guns was installed, while across the valley opposite them, we could see, here and there, a Bren carrier through the trees, or an infantry section post.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in that spot, in an agony of suspense, our normal reactions numbed by the horror of what we had experienced a short time ago, and our minds tormented by a myriad of alarms on the subject of the enemy attack which we knew was developing immediately to our front. Again and again movement seemed to be detected by one of the men. We strained our eyes through our glasses in the direction of that malignant valley-mouth across the road from which we expected, as each minute went by, the danger to materialize.

The shells fell in ever-increasing numbers, all around our position, the neighbouring crests and the railway bridge behind us. Every yard of the road was under the observation of these enemy guns. Under these conditions, movement along it was extremely dangerous and only attempted by very few vehicles. An ambulance streaked up that winding ribbon towards the town, and with relief we watched it disappear over the railway bridge and continue on its way unharmed. A Sherman tank clanked its way cumbrously down the hill towards open country and the bridge over the river, which was now under direct enemy observation. Anxiously we watched it continue its slow and painful journey, while the tearing, howling shells burst in death-dealing fury all around, and the noise of the battle dinned in our ears. Eventually it passed out of sight round a bend, still undamaged.

Piece by piece we began to formulate some vague picture of what was happening around us. That the situation was extremely critical we had no doubt, but we learned later that afternoon that the real danger lay in the fact that we were completely cut-off from any chances of help. Reinforcements could only arrive over the two bridges across the river, and these, although admittedly still in our hands, were as good as useless to us for the enemy could observe every movement around them from the high ridge which he held so strongly, and of course had the range to each bridge worked out so accurately, that it was suicide to work near these. The Royal Engineers had built a Bailey bridge over the river, before the counter-attack had developed, but this had been destroyed by a direct hit from a shell, and despite repeated and valiant attempts to rebuild it, these were doomed to failure almost before they were even started, so dominating were the enemy points of observation, and so accurate was their shellfire.

Tanks there were in plenty waiting to come to our aid, but they were all the other side of the river, completely unable to cross. An attempt had been made to wade the tanks straight through the shallow stream, but the bed was so soft and muddy that they had become bogged right down in the middle of the stream and no amount of exertion was able to move them again. Up to nightfall of that grim and fateful day, scarcely more than half a dozen tanks had succeeded in crossing the river.

The news that we were cut-off in this way rapidly spread among the troops who were across the river, so that their morale already dangerously low, was even further weakened. Many units, unaccustomed to battle conditions, had panicked, and abandoning their carriers, their bofors and anti-tank guns and their transport to the advancing enemy, had fled individually or in droves, back down the coast to safety.

Maybe these troops cannot be blamed unduly, for many of them were pitifully green, and only just sent out from England, and the suddenness and violence of the enemy attack must certainly have taken them by surprise. Not all the troops had fled; those who remained behind were in the majority, and these not only held out against all that the enemy could inflict upon them, but also against the insidious temptation that they too, like their comrades, could give up the exhausting struggle if they wished, and join the stream of pitiful, shamefaced refugees who were making their way to safety down the coast. For panic is an infectious thing: once it is allowed to take a hold, it spreads like wildfire, and through the medium of alarms, rumours and false reports, it can sweep a whole army in its path, changing it from a collection of co-ordinated fighting units to a mere rabble of frightened individuals anxious only for their own safety.

We learned later how the LCI which had brought us to Termoli had been waiting a few more miles back down the coast, ready to come up and take us off, should the situation so demand it. It was with amazement that their crews watched the stream of stragglers moving down the beach, many of whom hailed them, asking for a lift down the coast away from the fighting.

‘Why, what is the matter?’ the flotilla commander enquired, feeling extremely anxious for our safety from the disturbing sight that met his eyes.

‘There has been a terrible counter-attack,’ came the answer, ‘it was impossible for us to hold it. The whole army is in retreat, if you don’t move too you will find the Germans on you in no time. Already they have retaken the town, and there is no longer anything to stop them from advancing as far as they like!’

The flotilla commander could hardly believe his ears. ‘Why, what has happened to the commandos who first captured the town?’ he then asked.

‘Oh, they are still back there somewhere in the outskirts: they are paid to do that sort of work,’ came the callous answer.

It was no wonder that at this reply, the shrewd naval officer began to suspect the veracity of these reports and, refusing to take a single man on board, he held his flotilla ready to come to our immediate assistance, should he hear that that were necessary. Meanwhile, he made every effort to contact Paddy, over the wireless, and in this he was eventually successful. Paddy was surprised at the urgency of the terms of the messages he received from the flotilla, and it took him some time to persuade them that the situation was in hand, and that we would not be requiring their aid just yet.

Meanwhile we lay in our ditch, scanning the country to our front, and praying that the shells which were falling all around would somehow manage to miss us. Not much was said about the frightful slaughter we had all witnessed earlier that afternoon. It was just something we could not talk about. The fact that by rights my section should have been in that truck which was hit, made the whole affair all the more terrible.

The effects of this experience, the rumours and their fatigue, were visibly telling on the men. Silence took the place of their usual cheerful backchat, and as they painfully hacked away at the mortar in the wall with their blunt fighting knives, not a grumble made itself heard. To me, who knew these men so well, this latter fact was a significant pointer that things were not well.

As the afternoon lengthened, the shelling increased in violence; all of a sudden one of the men could take it no more – his nerve went, and throwing away his fighting knife, he lay groaning and sobbing in the ditch, as the shells howled overhead. Poor devil! He could not be blamed, for under the stress of war, that was something which could happen to anybody. The rest of the men were far from sympathetic, repeatedly urging him to ‘shut up’ or coming up to me requesting permission to move further away from him. Eventually they were forced to adopt the policy of ignoring him altogether.

The driver of a 3-tonner which was parked beside a haystack about 50 yards away came over to us, and stayed a while to have a chat. He was a stolid Yorkshireman of few words, unimaginative and yet infinitely sound. After spending about ten minutes with us, he got up to return to his truck.

‘Well, it’s been good to meet you. Good luck!’ he shouted back at us over his shoulder as he disappeared behind a house.

‘Good luck!’ we replied in chorus.

A minute later, an extra loud whine of a descending shell warned us that one was going to land very close, so that we burrowed down into our ditch, blocking our ears and protecting our faces as best we could. An immense, shattering explosion momentarily stunned us, but when we eventually realized that we were still in one piece, we looked up to see a raging inferno in the place where the 3-ton truck had been. It had received a direct hit and was now burning so furiously that we could even feel the heat from it in our position. The flames quickly spread to the nearby haystack, and subsequently to the small farm cottage beside which the truck had been parked.

Soon a double danger began to materialize from the burning truck. For it had been loaded with ammunition, and as the flames reached this, shells, shrapnel and pieces of vehicle would be sent flying in all directions with the force of the repeated minor explosions which occurred in the burning vehicle. The din was terrific. The air was filled with the sound of the crackling flames spreading with venomous speed through the dry hay and the wooden roof of the cottage. Almost each second ammunition was exploding, sending out a stream of sparks and red hot metal in all directions, so that rescue and salvage operations became almost impossible. We wondered at the fate of the unfortunate driver with whom we had been chatting only a few minutes previously. In our ditch we were reasonably safe from the shrapnel falling all around, but the scene of destruction which we saw spreading before our eyes, accompanied by the nerve-racking roar of the flames and the exploding ammunition was a depressing experience.

And then as the twilight deepened, a new danger threatened, for the blazing vehicle and haystack lit up the whole area as bright as day, thereby providing an ideal landmark for any further shelling that the enemy might contemplate. The Germans were not slow to make full use of this direction-indicator, for as it drew darker, more and more shells began to whine over in our direction, to burst with their dull and stupefying roar all around the area in which we were.

Things were really beginning to get hot, and if what we were experiencing was regarded as being merely a prelude to worse horrors which would in all probability be following, we had good cause to feel ourselves to be in an extremely uncomfortable position.

Most of the men had succeeded in scratching some sort of loophole in the wall behind which they lay, so that by now this useful but monotonous activity could no longer keep their minds off the situation developing around them; they lay quietly behind their wall, strangely silent and subdued. Almost imperceptibly the darkness came upon us, veiling over, piece by piece, the area to our front, which from constant scrutiny we had come to know so well. And all the while the red glow of the burning truck gave an eerie illumination to the scene, sending fantastically flickering shadows darting among the shrubs and vines of the garden behind us, and here and there lighting-up momentarily some white face peering out from a patch of cover. Intermittent gun-flashes lit up the distant horizon.

At the moment when the twilight merged into the real darkness of night, a runner came up to me from Paddy, telling me to report to him straight away, bringing my section with me. I wondered what fresh horror lay ahead of us now.

We found Paddy at the entrance to the garden, standing there, immobile as a mountain, no trace of emotion discernible on his features. Clearly and concisely he gave me my orders.

‘I want you to take your section back through the town again. It seems that the Germans are being held all right this side, but that on the other side they are putting in a dangerous attack along the axis of the railway line and troops are urgently needed near the hospital to hold them. Tony, Derrick and Sandy are up there somewhere and from all accounts are having a pretty rough time. Take up a position behind the hospital and see what help you can give them.’

We filed back through the battered and war-torn streets, our rubber-soled boots lending a ghostly silence to our progress. Only when we reached the town centre did we have the opportunity of seeing for ourselves the pitiful state into which some of our troops had allowed themselves, or more accurately had been permitted by their officers to get. Here lay two or three carriers, deserted and alone in the empty street, exactly where their drivers, panic-stricken by the rumours and the shell-fire, had left them. A couple of Bofors light anti-aircraft guns, deserted by their crews squatted in the square, their barrels pointed forlornly at the stars.

And all around us, in the shadows, in the alleys and in the doorways we felt rather than saw the presence of men – scared and shaken men, ready, like startled rabbits, to bolt for cover at the slightest sound. No one challenged us as we passed, no one came up to enquire whither we were bound.

At length, as we approached the western outskirts of the town, and left the monastery where our squadron had formerly been billeted as a vast black bulk to our rear, we gradually noticed that things were growing more organized. Groups of men were seen, clustered around anti-tank guns or around vehicles, and from these we were able to obtain directions to the hospital.

‘Be careful, if you are going that way,’ they warned us. ‘The Germans are all round there, and can’t be more than a couple of hundred yards ahead. They are creeping up the railway in small groups and infiltrating into the town.’

So we continued on our way carefully, wondering how far forward we dared go, and where we would be able to take up a good position.

Just as we were passing the last houses of the town, a young lieutenant came up to us. He was scarcely more than a boy and yet he alone of all the people we had seen, seemed to be relatively unperturbed by the situation and unconfused by the various rumours that were flying around, and spreading their insidious, infectious disease.

‘Are you going to the hospital?’ his voice rang out clearly. ‘Good. We need some more men there badly. We’re holding them at present, but only just, so you will be useful. Watch out for small parties of Jerries creeping up the railway line. We’ve caught quite a few that way so far. Things should be all right by the morning. They’re hoping to get sixty or so tanks across the river during the night. That’s not certain but there seems a good chance of them being able to manage it.’

How refreshing that encounter was to us. At least one man had his head screwed on the right way in this confounded town, we thought, as we continued on our way, decidedly cheered by a piece of optimism and common-sense, of the sort we had almost given up hope of finding in the unco-ordinated confusion of the battle.

We struck the railway line and followed this out of the town, suspicious of every shadow and startled at every sound, until we saw the square bulk of the hospital standing out, bleak and isolated on the far side of the track. Somewhere round here then we had to pick a position, but in the darkness this was far from easy, as it was impossible for us to tell where our nearest troops were, or if we would be in their way rather than a help to them. So despite the frequent warnings that there were no more of our troops in front of us, which we received from various odd soldiers whom we passed, accompanied by the information that we might expect to bump into the enemy any minute, we found it essential to go forward a bit to verify the doubtful reports. So leaving most of my section by a small railway hut, I took forward three men, with the object of having a look around. I was glad that I did, for we had hardly gone forward more than 20 yards, when we heard the vague murmur of voices, and saw one or two black figures on the skyline. There was no doubt that they were our troops so I approached and introduced myself.

We had stumbled across a section post, manned by all the odd batmen, cooks, drivers, clerks and mechanics etc. of an artillery battery, who had been rushed out to help ward off the threatening attack. In command of them was a captain, an old, administrative officer, who had probably never seen any fighting in this war at any rate.

But what a fine man he was. Being envious of the trench which they had got hold of, I rather hoped that this officer and his men would be just as keen to get out of the danger area as were most of the troops we had found wandering aimlessly about the town. But not a bit of it! For when I suggested that with our arrival, there was perhaps no need for an untrained collection of men such as his to be there anymore, so that we could use his trench and relieve him, he was not at all keen to jump at this opportunity.

For a long period he stood there in silence, pondering heavily. At length he appeared to make up his mind.

‘I don’t know how urgently we are needed here,’ he said, ‘but while things are as critical as we are led to believe they are I think I had rather stay. My OC said I could take the chaps out of it when the situation was restored, but none of us know what is happening yet, so I think I’ll stay. We may prove useful.’

Little grunts of approval made themselves heard from my men behind me, and none of us failed to appreciate the qualities of this unknown officer, who with his motley crowd of men, should by rights have been one of the first to be withdrawn from the battle. What a strange battle, in which the trained fighting troops were running away and leaving the cooks, the clerks and the sick to remain behind and hold the line.

Also the information which the strange officer was able to give me, was trustworthy and rang true.

‘Good Lord, no! We’re not the forward troops in this sector,’ he exclaimed in surprise in answer to my question. ‘There are some commandos about 200 yards in front, and in front of them I believe there are some of your boys, so you see, now that you have arrived, we have quite a number of troops to hold the Germans off. But I think tonight is the critical time, and that they will make an all-out attack under cover of darkness. By dawn the situation should be completely restored. I did hear that a brigade of infantry are being landed by sea tonight and that they will be in action in the morning.’

With at last something like a clear picture of the situation in my mind, I went back to my section and sited them around the small railway hut where I had first left them. Behind us in a deep gulley Alec’s mortars had installed themselves, and behind him was Ted Lepine with the remnants of No.3 Troop, supplemented by certain elements of headquarters.

In fact by the time we were settled by the railway line, from our forward troops right back the three-quarters of a mile or so to the town was strongly picketed with defensive posts. Jerry would not find it easy to gain entry into the town by this route.

The shells were still falling in almost as great a profusion in this area as in the one we had just left, and so, partly for this reason, but partly also through the lessons we had learned at Bagnara, the first thing we did was to rake-up a couple of shovels with which to scrape out some sort of hollow that would serve to protect us against fire and shrapnel.

This task completed, we settled down to spend the night as best we could, with the continuous and varying sounds of battle vibrating in our ears. Somewhere to our left, a ‘moaning Minnie’ the new multiple mortar the Germans had only recently brought out, sent up salvos of bombs which swished through the air with an eerie sobbing effect before they exploded in a pandemonium of noise.

But gradually, as the night slowly counted off its long, dreary minutes, the hubbub became more and more intermittent, until silence was allowed to reign unchallenged, save by the passage of an occasional shell, fired as it were, just to show us that the Germans were still nearby and ready to carry on with their murderous intentions on the morrow.

Although at first we had been straining our eyes into the blackness of the night, to keep watch for those enemy patrols which might have penetrated as far as our position, as time went by and still nothing suspicious materialized, we were gradually able to relax sufficiently to permit all save the two sentries to stand down. We lay in silence on the springy turf, gazing up at the stars, and trying to find in the immeasurable extent and solitude of the universe visible above, some calming influence on the turmoil of our minds.

The message was passed forward to us from the rear that blankets were available and could be obtained from the monastery that had formerly been our billet. A couple of men were sent off and soon these returned with a load of blankets sufficient to give us at least some protection from the penetrating cold of the chill night air.

Suddenly a wild burst of firing from in front made us start to our feet, seizing our weapons and prepared in an instant for the attack which we had no doubt was now coming. For three or four minutes the rattle of a number of machine guns continued from the point where we knew our forward troops to be, vibrating in our ears and tearing to shreds the clear night air around us.

But after waiting tensely for several minutes we were greatly relieved to find that the firing died down completely, leaving in its place a silence seeming even heavier and more intense than before. From then until dawn our long vigil was disturbed by no more such diversions, and we were left alone with our thoughts, the silence of the night and the chill sea breeze as our only companions. It was learned later that the firing we had heard had indeed signalled the opening phases of what had appeared to be a determined attempt on the part of the Germans to thrust up the railway line towards the town. But the detachment of 2nd SAS who were in that sector of the line had managed to collect from the piles of stores and material thrown down at random by those of our troops who had retreated, a large number of Bren guns, to such an extent that these were issued out almost on the basis of one per man. At the first sign of enemy activity this formidable volume of fire-power was brought into such good effect that the Germans were persuaded to think twice about making an attack against what seemed to be such immensely strong resistance. Most of the Bren guns were blazing away in their direction, completely at random, without any definite target in view, but so effective was this hail of fire that the Germans could hardly know that it was coming from a mere bunch of about ten or twenty men!

As the chill mists of dawn slowly grew less opaque under the light and heat of the rising sun, two men with Bren guns who belonged to the crew of a Bofors gun sited nearby came up to our position to offer their assistance. This we gladly accepted, but they had remained with us for no more than an hour, when their sergeant fetched them away to man the gun. We persuaded them to leave their Brens however, for these and the additional fire-power they gave, were a great comfort to us and we knew that we would be able to put them to good use should the occasion so demand.

As the night receded, and our range of vision gradually extended we were overjoyed to be able to make out in the morning mist a truly cheering sight. For ahead of us were two large orchards and packed tightly beneath the trees were squadron upon squadron of our tanks, their guns facing the direction of the enemy. From the activity of their crews around them, we could not doubt that shortly they would be going into action, in an attempt to dislodge the enemy from the commanding high ground on which he had so firmly established himself.

In a moment the men had regained their customary high spirits. ‘Look at them, they’re everywhere,’ they shouted jubilantly to each other. ‘With that lot, we should soon be able to send Jerry packing.’

It was indeed a relief to know as an indisputable fact, that we had succeeded in getting so many of our tanks across the river that previous night. With these to help us, we should be able to hold our own against any attack which the enemy might contemplate.

Further good news reached us a short time later. A brigade of infantry had been landed in the town from the sea during that night, and it was rumoured that these troops would be counter-attacking soon after mid-day. They were an Irish brigade, full of the lust for fighting and the disregard for danger that were such characteristics of their race. These men, we knew, would not easily be forced to throw away their weapons and in a panic-stricken frenzy run from the battle area.

A shout from the nearby Bofors gun position made us swing round in their direction. They had spotted three enemy fighter-bombers swooping in at a low level from the sea onto the town. In a fraction of a second the gun was in action pumping up flaming shells towards the marauding planes, shaking our eardrums with its regular pulsation. But still the planes came in and dropped their small fragmentation bombs onto the harbour, before streaking off seawards again as fast as they could go. In silence we watched the bombs, small black cylinders against the clear, blue sky, leave the bellies of the planes and, turning over and over, start their groundward journey rapidly gathering speed until it was impossible to follow them with our eyes any longer.

That was the last we saw of the Bofors gun crew, for when we looked towards their position scarcely half an hour later, the gun stood alone and deserted, its barrel pointed in the direction in which the enemy planes had departed. The whole crew had, for some reason or other considered discretion to be the better part of valour, and had surreptitiously slunk away leaving their gun and ammunition behind them.

‘Good riddance,’ we thought. ‘At least they have given us a present of their two Bren guns!’

As it grew lighter the shells began falling fast and furious again, some landing close by us, and others in the town or in the green fields the far side of the track. Many we did not see land at all which must have come from our guns. It was quite impossible when heavy projectiles were ripping back and forth through the sky above our heads, to tell accurately whither each one was bound. Indeed the noises of the raging artillery duel became so intense that it was soon almost impossible to distinguish any one particular sound from the general din of that furious battle.

Through our overloaded ears the sounds of the battle – the whining, shrieking shells, the swooshing mortar bombs, the stupefying roar of bursting explosives – dinned in our minds, rendering coherent thought almost impossible. But from this hopeless confusion of sounds, one thing stood out clearly, namely that the intensity of our own artillery fire had considerably increased in comparison with that of the preceding day, and this fact told us that in addition to the tanks, supplies of much needed ammunition for our guns had been successfully brought across the river during the night. We had been told that on the previous day our guns had been practically out of ammunition on account of the enemy command over the one bridge across the river, over which supplies could be brought.

Meanwhile several of our Spitfires were leisurely and unconcernedly droning over the battlefield, ready to pounce on any further enemy aircraft which were rash enough to appear on the scene.

Suddenly the air seemed to shake at a new sound which rushed to assail our already overtaxed eardrums. In one continuous roar the Germans from their forward positions scarcely 600 yards up the railway from where we were, sent up stream after stream of green tracer at one of the Spitfires. It was an extraordinary sight, for the plane was at such a height that it seemed to be directly over our heads, and it was difficult to imagine that so close to us there were numbers of Germans gazing skywards at this solitary Spitfire, blazing away at it with every weapon they could muster. The plane, at which so much attention was directed, did not seem to be the least concerned. Slowly and gracefully it weaved around over the German lines, banking first on one wing and then on the other. And then suddenly, as if it could stand such nonsense no longer it left off its slow weaving, and streaked earthwards straight down the stream of bullets, its cannon blazing. In a long, low sweep, it regained height once more, and continued its casual and detached patrol in exactly the same area as before.

The sight of this stream of bullets blazing skywards from so short a distance ahead gave Alec, our mortar officer, whose section was just behind us, the idea of seeing whether he could not retaliate with a few well aimed mortar bombs. From then on throughout that day his two mortars were never silent, lobbing regular bombs over into the area which we knew to be covered so thickly by the enemy.

Shortly before mid-day the tanks massed in the orchards ahead, lined up, and slowly rumbled off into the open country beyond filling the air with the noise of their straining engines and churning tracks. We watched them in silence, until the last one had disappeared over the crest that formed the horizon to our front. And still, all the while, the shells rained down, throwing up more and more brown splotches on the smooth green of the open fields, and tearing more and more gaps in the already sorely battered buildings.

Our attention was then directed to a relatively small-scale individual battle which was being fought nearby. To our right and just the other side of the railway track, stood some large locomotive sheds, at one corner of which one of our Sherman tanks had taken up its position in support of Tony’s section which we could now see about 200 yards ahead in the vicinity of a bridge over the line. This tank seemed to be directing its attention towards a cemetery which we could just see on the horizon 500 yards or so to our right front. We had noticed throughout that morning that any unnecessary movement on our part had met with some long-range sniping from somewhere, but only when we saw the tank sending streams of tracer machine-gun fire into the cemetery did we realize that this was in German hands and that it was from there that the occasional sniping was coming.

All that morning the tank poured burst after burst into the area of that cemetery and the large domed building that stood in the middle of it, without being able to dislodge from it the stubborn defenders. Soon its 75mm gun sent shell after shell with deadly accuracy at so short a range, into the building, tearing gaping holes in the masonry, so that we could hardly discern its outline anymore, so thick was the cloud of dust rising from the spot. At last, after the cloud had drifted away, we saw that the enormous dome which formed the roof of the building had vanished. Surely that would have driven out those persistent snipers or killed them where they lay! But no! Nothing the tank could do could dislodge them.

A cluster of smoke columns all around the cemetery announced that a battery of our artillery was now attempting to deal with this centre of resistance, but although the walls and buildings in the area were reduced by this concentrated fire to no more than a heap of rubble, the enemy sniping continued from the ruins, unaffected by the murderous destruction that had been poured into the area. Grudgingly we admitted to ourselves that the Germans in that cemetery were tough and brave fighters indeed, probably more fanatical in their stubbornness than any of us would have been in their place.

A gasp escaped us as a cloud of dust rose up around the spot where our tank had been. ‘Hell! They’ve got it,’ someone shouted, but no, for as the smoke and dust rolled away there it still stood, and a second later the tinny sound of a burst from its Besa gun, showed that it was quite unaffected by the fact that a mortar bomb had landed only 5 yards behind it.

Bob Lilley, the troop staff sergeant had meanwhile joined us, bringing with him a box of cigarettes brought up by Franco who we heard had arrived in the town. These were quickly distributed for by that time none of us had a cigarette left. Not a grumble was raised at the fact that this cigarette ration consisted of no more than ten per man, and what is more that they were none other than ‘V’ cigarettes, a brand generally regarded as being completely unsmokable. Such was our desire for a cigarette at that time, that we were able to smoke even ‘V’s with relish!

Our troops were now able to move down the railway line in the comparative shelter of the cutting through which it ran, and we were dismayed to see quite a stream of men from our unit being carried or supported down to the hospital which lay just in front of us. Those poor chaps out in front must have been having a rough time, judging from the number of casualties we saw passing into the hospital. My mind was filled with worries about Tony, Sandy and Derrick who, with their sections, had now been out in the front line, bearing the full brunt of the enemy attack for nearly 48 hours. Even now we could see that despite the additional artillery and tank support, they were still not permitted to have a quiet time.

A sub-section of men suddenly appeared over the crest of the small hillock by the railway bridge behind the cover of which they hurriedly scrambled down, and took up improvised firing positions. Evidently, under the fury of the German attentions, their previous position had become too hot for them. A squad of green-bereted commandos was laboriously manhandling into a firing position one of the 6-pounder anti-tank guns that had been left deserted by its crew. Those three sections of our squadron who were out in front had been fighting continuously. No news had been received of them and it worried us to think of the condition in which they now probably were, after the gruelling time they had gone through.

Even as our minds were filled with such thoughts, Bob Lilley shouted that Tony was approaching down the railway track, and sure enough he was soon with us, greeting us like long lost friends whom he never expected to see again.

Poor Tony was very shaken. Through the mud and grime, his face looked drawn and haggard and a wildness in his eyes betrayed the ordeal which he had had to bear. Only with difficulty could he keep still for more than a few seconds, for his quick anxious movements and violent reactions to the slightest sound betrayed only too clearly that his nerves had been strained during the past two days, almost to breaking point.

He did not talk much, but lay with his eyes closed, thankful to reach for the first time since he had been sent out that evening two days ago, some place of at least comparative peace and safety.

Eagerly we questioned him, about our friends who were up in front of him, about the time he had had, and about the general situation of the battle. For a long time he did not answer, and then in a slow monotone he gave us some indication of his experiences since we had last seen him.

‘I’m afraid I’m completely bomb-happy, Pete,’ he started, ‘those bastards have hardly left-off mortaring us since we went out. We lost Hodgkinson I’m afraid; a piece of shrapnel from a mortar bomb blew a hole in his back and although we did all we could for him, he died a few hours later. It was a miracle really that we did not have more casualties. I suppose you heard about poor old Sandy Wilson’s section?’

We had heard no news from up in front, so Tony went on to explain: ‘Sandy was killed and practically his whole section was killed or wounded when their position was plastered by the Jerry mortars. His lads have been passing through us on the way to the hospital all morning. The mortaring has been the worst thing. The trouble was that we knew it was coming, for they were plastering every farm and every hilltop systematically, so that we could tell almost to the minute when it was time for our position to receive its dose. Of course the obvious thing would have been to get out to a place of safety from where we would be able to watch the show without danger, and then to return after it was all over, but you know, we felt we just could not trust the troops on our flanks. Honestly, they were so windy that the only thing that was keeping them in the line was the fact we did not go back. We felt that if we had gone back at all the rest would have gone back much further and for good, with no intention of coming forward again, and in that case we would have been even worse off. So you see, we had to stick it!

‘Can you believe it, but on one occasion when we did think it advisable to go back a few yards to a better position, the rumour immediately circulated that we had retreated! It’s certainly no go having to fight under conditions like that!’

That was about all the coherent information we were able to get out of Tony, but it was apparent to all that his section had had an extremely rough time. I believe they were pinned down most of the previous afternoon and had been forced to take shelter from the murderous bomb splinters in a narrow culvert only a few yards away from the Germans. It must have been hell, and the stubborn hold which these sections kept on their positions throughout the battle, despite the battering they were receiving and despite the general low morale that was evident around them, is worthy of the highest admiration. If they had acted otherwise, the outcome of the whole Termoli battle might have been a very different story.

Derrick Harrison’s section HQ in action.

Tony then went off to find Alec, in the hope of arranging with him some effective sort of mortar fire into the area so thickly covered by the enemy. After a brief exchange of words, both of them went forward to see what they could do. But unfortunately Alec’s wireless was out of order and there was no suitable covered site for his vulnerable mortars out in front, so he had to come back and fire them from the excellent position in which they were already mounted. A system of signals had been arranged with Tony, and Alec installed himself beside me, from where he was not only able to have a good view of Tony’s position, but was also just within shouting distance of his mortars.

From then until well into the evening, both mortars were firing continuously, raking the area ahead with high explosive bombs, which penetrated into every corner and cranny in which the Germans might attempt to seek shelter. From his excellent observation post Tony directed the proceedings, in an attempt under these difficult conditions to concentrate the mortar fire in the areas in which it served the best purpose.

The system of signals evolved proved rather ineffective and soon these were supplemented by a despatch rider in the form of Corporal Moore, who drove madly up and down the railway cutting between us in a Jeep he had ‘borrowed’. It was only after the battle was over that we discovered that this Jeep belonged not to a unit which had left the fighting to others, but to a young and officious Military Police lieutenant, who had somehow found himself in the battle area! He was all ready to kick-up an almighty fuss at the disappearance of his Jeep, and was even contemplating taking disciplinary action against Moore. Franco bore the brunt of this officer’s ravings for quite a time, until he was forced with Tony’s help to silence the abuse and complaints of the officer in question, with the explanation that the Jeep was taken as an emergency measure and an operational necessity, as indeed it was. This explanation was of course unanswerable at a time when the enemy shells were still falling around the town.

Meanwhile the news of the general battle situation was improving, so that the strain we had felt for so long was greatly lightened, and we were able to move around and discuss the events of the past few days among ourselves without so much of our former reticence. The tank attack which had been put in that morning had been successful and the threat to the town from the east and south had been removed with the Germans being thrown off the ridge of high ground from which they had been able to overlook both the town and its approaches over the river. All that now remained was to clear the enemy from the side of the town on which we ourselves were, and then our worries would be over.

We learned that with this aim in view the infantry were going to put in an attack at 3pm, and shortly before that time, elements of the Irish brigade which had been landed from the sea the night before, began to pass through us on their way forward. We were able to watch the initial stages of this attack, which seemed to progress smoothly and effectively, despite the continued sniping which still carried on from the area of the cemetery.

Those fanatically stubborn defenders refused to surrender and continued their sniping activities right until the cemetery was in the hands of our infantry, by which time the fire which they had caused to be brought down upon themselves, had left them lying dead amid the ruins of their stronghold. Not a man of that small party which had taken up its position in the cemetery the previous night, and which had carried on with its resistance in the face of overwhelming fire from our tanks, guns and mortars, was left alive by the time our troops reached the spot; but from all appearances not a man from among them had withdrawn to safety.

And all the time that this attack was going on, Alec’s mortars continued to rain down high explosive bombs onto the area immediately ahead of our advancing infantry – he would never have been able to fire at this rate for more than half an hour on the stock of ammunition which the mortar section had brought with them, but fortunately fresh supplies were procured in large quantities, so that the mortars could continue firing without the possibility of any ammunition shortages materializing. It was a great day for the mortar crews. Never before had they been able to fire off such a vast quantity of bombs to such good effect. The mortar barrels became red hot, and by the constant firing their base-plates were driven so deep into the soft clay soil, that only about a foot of the barrel was eventually visible above ground level. The weapons had to be dug out and re-sited many times and by the time cease-fire was called both mortars were found to have cracked and buckled base-plates from the strain which had been imposed upon them. Each mortar fired nearly 300 bombs that afternoon, all of which must have fallen in a relatively small area. So the discomfort which the Germans must have experienced on this account, can well be imagined.

This was the first time I had seen Alec since we had landed – a period which seemed to stretch into many weeks but which in reality only amounted to a couple of days. During the occasional pauses in his directing the fire of the mortars, I was able to glean from him what had happened to his section after we had left them plodding so laboriously across the flat muddy coastal plain on the first night of our landing, in search of some suitable cover. Their mortars had not been in much demand during the original landing, and they had consequently been able to play around as infantry like the rest of the landing force. They captured a German NAAFI truck, or its equivalent, loaded with chocolate and cigarettes! A fact which aroused much comment from the examination of the stores, was that many of the cigarettes which had presumably been on their way down to the German front-line troops, were none other than Red Cross cigarettes of the type issued to prisoners of war. Whether the Germans made a habit of delivering these for their own consumption, or whether it was merely a temporary result of many Italian prisoner of war camps being closed down, we were never able to know, but it certainly gave us subject for thought.

The arrival of Corporal Moore in his Jeep, with a screeching of brakes, and in a flurry of dust, interrupted our conversation.

‘Captain Marsh wants as much mortar fire as you can possibly bring down,’ he said to Alec, ‘in the area of the railway about a hundred yards longer range than the one you are now firing on. Also could you direct the fire of one of the mortars onto the beach. It’s a wonderful target sir, wonderful – it really seems that the Jerries are pulling right out for the beach seems black with them. We are firing with all we have got, but they are almost out of range of our Brens. Oh if only we had a few more mortars or a Vickers machine-gun or two.’

The end of the Termoli battle was in sight. The recent infantry attack had been successful, and now the Germans were retreating on this side of the town also – the last remaining direction from which they were threatening the town itself. Alec responded to Tony’s call with all he had got, and for the next forty minutes his mortars were never silent. If the Germans had been reluctant to pull out of any area, that hail of terrifying bombs must have given them ample cause to think again.

The shells had meanwhile ceased to fall in the town or around our position, and the violent and continuous sounds of battle which had been going on all around us for the past two days were now carried away from us and the town of Termoli. The town was saved and in consequence, our presence in the line was no longer needed. For the first time since we had come out into the line, we were able to move about freely, stretch ourselves, and relax. The fighting was over and although we ourselves had not fired a single shot, the relief was immeasurable, to be able to feel that we were still alive, that the confusion and alarms and suspense were all no more than memories of the past, and that those howling, roaring shells were not landing around us anymore, and indeed need not be expected to do so again.

About 6pm we received the order from Paddy to pull back into the town. The fighting and shelling could be heard in a vague confusion of noise far off to our right. Stiffly we got up and filed back into the town. We must have looked a sorry sight, with our blackened and unshaven faces, our shambling gait – a sight which could well have been applied to retreating troops, withdrawing from the battle in face of overwhelming enemy pressure. So the elderly woman who with shouts and gestures met us at the edge of the town, exhorting us to turn round again and go back and fight the Germans, cannot really be blamed for her mistake. At least her intentions were good! Her senile cackle of delighted laughter, and the smiles creasing round her wrinkled old face as soon as she realized that not we but the hated Tedesci were ‘finito’ was a cheering sight indeed.

We found the monastery untouched by the heavy shelling, and with no loss of time, the men were speedily installed in their old quarters. The cooks and headquarters staff had been busy preparing a welcome hot meal which was ready for the hungry and weary men as soon as they returned. Once we had seen to the welfare of our men, we trudged across the square to the house in which we had organized the officers’ mess, only to find on arrival, a scene of indescribable confusion.

Although untouched by the shellfire, the building had been ransacked. Our kit had been completely turned out and anything of value had been removed from them. It was as though the enemy themselves had succeeded in taking possession of the building for a short while and had helped themselves to whatever they wanted from our kits, as lawful plunder of war.

But it was no enemy which had treated us so shamefully, but our own troops. The Irish brigade which had been landed in the town the preceding night had listened too strongly to the rumours that the town was likely to be retaken at any moment by the enemy, and that all the British troops who had previously been in it had fled in such confusion that they had left all their equipment behind. It was therefore only natural when these soldiers came upon our kits, strewn at random exactly as we had thrown them down, that they should have held the mistaken idea that the lawful owners of this equipment had fled from the scene, and were now miles down the beach to the east in the direction of safety.

And if it were likely that the Germans would shortly be in possession of the town what was the use of leaving these valuables to them?

In this way we stated the case for the action of these wretched Irish as favourably as possible, although we were naturally seething with indignation at this outrage. But it is doubtful whether the looting was activated by any such justifiable motives, and it is far more likely that greed and self-interest lay behind the whole affair. Although Paddy immediately lodged a complaint with the CO of the offending unit, none of the culprits had the decency to return a single article from the pile that had been taken.

Angrily we surveyed the scattered remnants of our kits, vainly searching for any little valuables or souvenirs which we hoped might have been overlooked and left to us. But everything was gone – cameras, binoculars, cigarettes and even money. I had a few ‘V’ cigarettes in a tin, which I would willingly have given away. But these were taken, and along with them the negatives of many of the photographs in this book, which by ill-fortune had been sharing the same tin. Needless to say, I never saw them again.

Whilst the cooks were busy preparing a meal for us, the padre came round to inform us that the funeral of all the casualties we had been able to collect would take place immediately. Whilst the fighting had been going on, his had been the unenviable task of sorting out and collecting, with the aid of a few headquarters men, the shattered and blasted fragments of what had once been human bodies. Many of that ill-fated truckload, were impossible to identify, but as best he could, the padre completed his gruesome and heart-breaking task, until he had all the pitiful fragments laid out in a neat row of separate graves, in the public gardens within a few yards of the actual scene of the tragedy.

Grave of McNinch and others, public gardens, Termoli, 5 October 1943.

It was dusk as we silently filed into the narrow street, with heads bared and softened tread. But the sight of that battered truck and of those crumpled, gaping walls conjured up for us again all the horrors which had been stamped so permanently on our minds by the events of that afternoon, only twenty-four hours previously. We could still smell that charred, musty and indescribably nauseating odour of the explosion, mixed with the heavy, clinging smell of death. Many of us felt sick and hopeless at the vivid memory which the scene brought so clearly to our minds.

It was soon over. In a quiet voice the padre read the service and dismissed us. Without a word we walked back to our billets, our spirits heavy, and troubled with the thoughts which filled our minds. The fears that had lain unspoken in the hearts of each man of my section had been confirmed. McNinch was dead: he had been blown to pieces in that truck along with seventeen others. I thought of him as I walked back to the mess – of his power over the men, his cheerfulness, and his amazing coolness in an emergency. There was a man who would be very hard to replace. I thought of his words at Bagnara, when he had said to me in a voice full of feeling, ‘It’s always the best that catch it. Charlie was the kindest hearted man in the section… and here am I, a drunken old reprobate.’

And now he too was gone, taken by a vicious and unnecessary spin of Fortune’s wheel, at a time when he should have been left out of battle. If he had been with the rest of the section he would undoubtedly have been alive at the moment. Again we wondered at the complex workings of Destiny – at the roundabout and complicated methods she would adopt to pick out one man and leave the rest. Again we were brought to realize how powerless man is to control his own life in opposition to her arbitrary whims and desires.

Eighteen men had died in that truck, many of whom, such as Sergeant O’Dowd and young Davidson, were hardened veterans of the desert and had been with the unit since it was first formed. Indeed it was most surprising that anyone had escaped from that shambles, and the fact that Fate had chosen to spare Sergeant Seekings, the sole survivor, was as incomprehensible as her decision to make McNinch die. This, I believe was not the first escape of this miraculous nature that Sergeant Seekings had experienced. He appeared to have a charmed life, a fact which served him in good stead throughout the whole course of the war.

As we sat at our meal in the mess the gloomy silence occasioned by the sad events of the past few days quickly relaxed and withdrew. It had become a custom with us not to let the deaths of our comrades affect our normal life, and we were determined to put out of our minds the memory of their loss. This did not mean that we had no regrets at the passing of such good men nor that we did not miss them, but in time of war when any day might see the death of a friend or a comrade it was useless to brood on these matters and allow our minds to be constantly filled with gloomy or morbid thoughts. Once a unit allowed itself to do this, its fighting efficiency would be irreparably impaired, and its morale permanently lowered. So our policy, in this case as with all the others, was to attend the funeral if there was one, and there pay due reverence and homage to the dead, and then immediately afterwards to cast the memory from our minds.

We may be accused of being callous in behaving in such a way, but I am convinced that our course of action was the right one. Those who had died would not have wished us to grieve on their account, in the same way as they themselves would not have grieved over the loss of their own friends. Thus although we were all cut-up at the losses the unit had suffered, and Paddy most of all, we chose to forget about it as soon as the funeral was over.

And so after our meal the vino was produced and glasses filled, and tired though we were, we could not resist sitting around yarning until well into the night.

I had not realized how bomb-happy most of us were. Occasionally a door would slam down below, or the faint rattle of a Bren gun burst would come drifting over from the front line, now a few miles from the town. At such sounds the conversation would abruptly cease – men would look at each other with startled eyes, as if expecting hell to be let loose at any moment, until they had ascertained the harmless nature of the interruption. And then, with sheepish looks they would carry on talking.

Naturally most of the conversation turned around the battle which had so recently been fought and won, and many interesting facts were learned. Apparently the Germans had laid great importance on the small town of Termoli, in view of its situation on the eastern end of the lateral main road running from Naples, and from a captured document we learned that they were determined to recapture it at all costs. With this aim in view the 9th Paratroop Division had been despatched from Naples and it was this unit which had given us so heavy a battering, before they were forced to withdraw.

Another interesting fact was that the church tower of the town was discovered to have been used as an artillery observation post and was beautifully fitted-out with flags, lamps, and radio. Almost certainly a German or Italian had been operating from there during the heavy shelling of the town. It had seemed uncanny to our troops how every movement of theirs seemed to have been watched and welcomed with a salvo of enemy shells. Indeed it is more than likely that the accurate fire which caused such havoc among our own unit as they climbed into their transport was not so much the result of a mere, unfortunate coincidence, but of deliberate direction by the enemy observer in the church tower behind us. The offender was never caught despite the rounding-up of numerous suspects.

Harry Poat, in his wanderings, had seen a lot of the battle and was able to relate many amazing stories. Among these was how a brigadier, probably the one in command of the leading brigade, had kept on turning up at points where there was no real fighting to speak of, during the most critical time of the battle, with the heartening battle cry of ‘Don’t waver!’

Tony told of a plan which was almost put into effect against the Germans on his sector of the front, which, had it come off, would undoubtedly have caused the Germans some surprise, and possibly heavy casualties. For in the neighbourhood of the hospital was found a railway wagon piled high with explosives, and it would have been no difficult task to harness this to a goods engine also found nearby, and send the whole lot snorting up the railway line in the direction of the Germans, after ensuring that the explosive was fused with some type of time mechanism which would fire it after a given period. There were probably many reasons why this plan proved to be impracticable, but we would have dearly loved to have seen it put into effect.

Johnny Wiseman and Alec Muirhead first experienced the initial signs of the enemy counter-attack under rather embarrassing conditions. After the squadron, with the exception of my section, had been withdrawn to the town upon being relieved by our main forces, these two decided to visit one of the LCIs which had brought us to Termoli, and which were now being used for evacuating the 300 odd prisoners which had been taken.

Unsuspecting that they might be overlooked by the enemy whom they thought at that time to be many miles away, they decided to have a brew-up of tea, and Johnny was just in the process of carrying a mess-tin full of boiling water precariously along the deck for this purpose, when he was rooted to the spot by the roar of an approaching shell, obviously coming in his direction. He could not take cover like everyone else on account of the boiling water and so perforce had to stand where he was and wait for the explosion. The shell landed scarcely 50 yards away, rocking the small craft and covering it with spray. The enemy had re-established themselves on the high ground overlooking the town and harbour and had started to shell our ships in earnest. Fortunately no harm was done and the craft were able to steam away at full speed to a safer spot, but the sight of Johnny standing there unable to move, with the dixie of boiling water in his hand, while everyone else hurled themselves flat on the deck must have provided much amusement. The story was quickly circulated and Johnny had to suffer much teasing to the effect that this must have been the first time he was known not to have taken cover!

Franco too had had adventures quite unbecoming to his dignity as a staff officer. As soon as he had heard that the unit had been relieved by the army he drove his convoy containing all the elements of our main camp into the town, and then took a truck down to Corps HQ to fetch the NAAFI ration, or similar stores, up to us. But by the time he arrived back, the enemy counter-attack had developed in full force and a long stretch of the road up to the town was under enemy observation and fire. Franco was ignorant of this situation and quite unperturbed by the fact that his 3-tonner was the first vehicle to cross the bridge which had at length been erected by the REs. It was a miracle how he succeeded in getting through, for even tanks had not dared to venture by that route in daylight. On arrival in the town he found a scene of indescribable chaos, and was forced to remain under these conditions until the battle was over. But although unaccustomed to such life in a frontline town, he managed to do some good work, in organizing the camp personnel and passing cigarettes up to our men in the line, as well as in procuring the much needed mortar bombs for Alec’s section.

He was considerably worried by being challenged at the outskirts of the town by a strange soldier, who rudely pressing a bayonet to his paunch, harshly demanded the password. Now Franco had been told the password but in the excitement of the situation had unfortunately, for the moment, forgotten it, with the result that he had to undergo the indignity of having to stand there until he remembered, with the bayonet periodically jabbing harder and harder into his stomach, just to aid his memory. It was not a pleasant five minutes for him.

And then, even after he had contacted our unit, the story goes how the batmen took it upon themselves never to let him out of their sight, but to follow him like leeches wherever he might choose to go. The reason for this ‘devotion’ was very simply explained, for it was noticed that Franco was still carrying the little black bag, from which he was never known by the men to be parted, and Casey and the rest of them, thus made up their minds to be on the spot if, in the excitement of the moment, Franco should happen to put down his bag for a single second or if he should be laid low by some chance sniper’s bullet. Their interest in the little black bag may have been partly caused by their certainty that it contained something of value, but the chief desire to get hold of it was that far back, even in the days at Azzib, the men had convinced themselves that Franco was robbing them of their PRI funds1 and that the booty which rightly belonged to them, would be found in the little black bag in question.

Unfortunately for Casey and his companions, they were not given a single opportunity to carry out their evil designs, and to this day, Franco and his little black bag have not been parted.

The bag in question was nothing more than a harmless briefcase in which Franco merely carried certain regimental papers and administrative forms, and the suspicions of the men were of course completely unfounded.

Phil Gunn had some good news to give of Bill Fraser, about whom some of us had been worrying. He was not badly hurt and had only received a piece of shrapnel in the shoulder. He was in great form as he was being evacuated and could be expected back with the unit in a few weeks’ time.

The Termoli battle was over, but only at a great cost to our gallant little squadron. For we had suffered nearly thirty per cent casualties. Of our nine operational sections, John Tonkin’s had been captured to a man, Johnny Wiseman’s had been blown to pieces on that ill-fated truck, and Sandy Wilson’s had been almost wiped out by mortar fire. My section had been guided through the battle with complete safety and had undoubtedly had the easiest time, for we had not fired a shot throughout the operation and, except for McNinch who was not with us, had not suffered a single casualty. But it was an experience ever to be reckoned as one of the worst we went through, for although we ourselves did no fighting, in the narrow sense of the word, we shared in the horrors, the torments, and the suspense of those extremely critical few days. Without sleep and without peace of mind we had to undergo continuous shelling for nearly two days, while never knowing what the future had in store for us or whether the next few hours would see the enemy sweeping over our positions. And on top of it all we had seen our comrades blown to pieces before our eyes, even while some of our own troops were retreating, leaving depleted ranks to withstand the violence of the German assault.

It was certainly not a pleasant memory, or one which we were anxious to relive.

 

1.  President of the Regimental Institute’s funds, non-public monies to be used for the benefit of corporals and lower ranks.