| Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
 |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: On this Day |
| No member browsing this thread |
|
Thread Status: Locked Total posts in this thread: 716
|
|
| Author |
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Today
We are trying to get hold of you , please visit our Team thread important news there Thanks |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Late September, 1945
The S.S. Volendam arrives in Alexandria harbour, and a multitude of "bum-boats" surround it, while their occupants try to sell us goods of various kinds, or dive for the surplus European coins that we are casting in the waters. At length, we make our way ashore on a tender whose shape and size (though not its age and dependability) remind us of the Rhino ferries we saw on the Normandy beaches. We are then loaded like cattle on trucks the like of which we have never seen before and will never see anywhere else, except on films of concentration camp transports. Of course, we have not travelled far before one truck breaks down with a grossly overheated wheel bearing. Natives in long off-white shirts, shouting, “Eggs and bread” or “You buy ring - look, it cut glass”, soon surround us. This happens whenever the train breaks down, until we reach our destination - Moascar, on the Suez Canal, at Lake Timsah |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The following day, 1945
Bundy has photographs of that carriage inside and out, with the men wearing the same uniforms they had during the Normandy landings. He, among others, still wears the Tam O'Shanter issued to him in Sussex as a member of 15th Scottish division. Soon we change that uniform for khaki drill, but the Tammy remains. He will continue to wear that until the day of his discharge. Bundy was in the rearguard party, not because he has any special skill in clearing old camps, but because he had returned from home leave to find all but the stragglers had already left Melle. Now he arrives in Moascar to find all the tents erected and all but the one at the edge of camp fully occupied. He dumps his kit there, goes to collect his KD and change into it and returns to his bed space to find it robbed. The only things missing are his table knife and his mosquito net. This appears to be the modus operandi of someone called “Cliff T.Waller”, who has committed many thefts of this sort. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Back to 1944. Saturday, 23rd September.
Rain adds to our miseries, flooding our accommodation. The ration truck must be stuck in the mud somewhere, so today is a fast day. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 24th September 1944
----------------------------------------About this date, we withdraw from Best, and swing across to Gemert, on the other flank. The British forces in the Netherlands are in spearhead formation and are well organised for counter marches, so the axes, diversions and laterals are sign posted as such. The rest of September and most of October 1945 Moascar is very close to Ismailia, on Lake Timsah, a very short walk in fact. There is a Services Club there, where men can enjoy evening snacks and drinks. Men who are not keen on cleaning their own boots can have this done by itinerant bootblacks who hang around outside. The resultant shine, however, does not last very long; there are even stories of men who have a shine at one end of the street and need another at the other end! For newcomers it is not advisable to leave camp in daylight. The Cliff T.Waller can easily identify them by the colour of their knees. Meanwhile the old hands encourage them with shouts of “Get your knees brown”. After dark, however, all personnel wear long trousers to reduce the chance of mosquito bites, and the days are spent sun bathing, as there is little else to do. We should of course be training for our next mission, but nobody admits to knowing what that is. There is no sign of the canal being in need of defence, except possibly against the Egyptians themselves! [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Sep 24, 2007 1:29:23 PM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 25th September 1944
Our new location is a hamlet a few kilometres north of the town and B coy are the guests of Cornelius and Johanna Reijnen-Goosens and family. We sleep comfortably in a two-storey barn/hayloft, where Bundy has chosen for himself a very private, hidden corner, under the lowest part of the roof. This turns out to have been the place where Corny (as we call him) has hidden at least one Jewish person during the occupation. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 25th September 1944
All this is a temporary diversion, a sort of "Plan B". Plan A should have been a straight run through Gheel, Turnhout, Tilburg, S'Hertogenbosch, Grave and Nijmegen, to Arnhem. That plan, it turns out, is not quite dead. 7th Armoured Division (the Desert Rats) is advancing through our old positions round Mol and the Escaut canal. One of their battalions, the 5th RTR had been attached to 15th Scottish on loan and has probably gone back to the Rats for this attack. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 27th September 1944
The next few weeks are restful and peaceful. Once toilet and morale are completed, there is no duty for us to perform between meals, so we devise our own ways of keeping active. We play schach (chess) and damenspiel (draughts) with Corny, take the children for walks, borrow the occasional horse or bicycle and go for short rides or take a short walk to explore the footpaths, being careful not to stay away too long, in case of unexpected movement orders. The rest of the time, we just sit at the roadside and watch the Ark Royals and other "funnies" passing by. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Late that month, say 28th September
----------------------------------------One day we go to the Wilhelmina Canal for boating practice in the canvas boats with which the flying squad is already familiar, regarding them as practice for a past operation! On another occasion, we go to Gemert town for a pep talk. We hear that the Germans are not resting and Bundy wonders why we are. Are they going to steal a march on us? No answer is forthcoming, but the lack of friendly gunfire, baths, NAAFI comforts and cigarettes should tell us something. On reflection, it would seem that we have overstretched our lines of supply and communication. Time would tell. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Sep 29, 2007 11:23:18 AM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
say: Friday, 29th September 1944
----------------------------------------Somebody discovers a supply of Blanco, so we all have a web cleaning party. The cooks boil up water and the drivers contribute petrol for dissolving the grease from the Escaut canal. Now someone needs to discover supplies of boot and brass polish, and our morale will be near perfect, but we all will still be unhappy until somebody restores tobacco supplies. Bundy has been chewing on his empty pipe all month, and now nobody else has anything to smoke either! [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Sep 29, 2007 1:41:05 PM] |
||
|
|
|