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Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: On this Day |
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Thread Status: Locked Total posts in this thread: 716
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 9th October, 1946
----------------------------------------I went to the Dean of the faculty for an interview. He said he needed a photograph of me for my records. I told him the only photo I could produce quickly would be one of myself in uniform and he said "That will be perfect," so now I was a medical student again. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Nov 14, 2008 8:03:05 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 11th October 1945
Another uncomfortable day later and I was on a continental railway train from Dieppe and on my way back to Belgium. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 12th October 1945
I arrived back from leave to Melle to find most of the other members of the unit had already left. They knew something of Plan B. All kitbags must be marked "MEDLOC B SOUTHBOUND" in black paint. For the previous three years, my kitbag had already been marked “MEDLOC A SOUTHBOUND” plus a draft number for the old 8th Army and I now had to find space for another address and LOC route. It seems we were off to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal (Against whom?). Now I went back to No. 315 Brusselsche Steenweg to collect the rest of my kit and spent a night or two there before I had to say “tot siens” to the Van Anderlecht family, my hosts. Their photographs are now in my scrapbook. We did meet again, in 1948, when I toured the battlefields on a bicycle. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 13th October 1945
A military transport plane, taking off for a flight to the Far East, crashed at St. Mary's Airport, Brussels. Some of my other old unit, 163 F.A., inccluding reinforcements from 194 F.A., was on board. Among other fatalities, my old flying squad comrade Tommy Fleming, who had always had a premonition of death, was among the dead. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 14th October 1945
About now, we were on a railway train, going south from Dieppe to Toulon - via Limoges and Toulouse, to avoid Paris. This had the old compartmented type of corridor carriage, like most trains in those days, including the one we took from Dieppe to Osnabruck. Unfortunately, this one had no loose back to either seat; there were eight of us to a compartment again, which was rather tight for a 36-hour journey, but at night, with a little organisation, we all slept lying down. We were travelling with full packs and blankets, but stowed the kit bags and packs in the corridor with one man sleeping next to them, two men in the luggage racks, one on each seat, and three on the floor, one with his feet between the shoulders of the other two, who had their feet under the seats. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 16th October 1945
After breakfast, I made the most of the opportunity to see and photograph the scuttled French flotilla in the harbour, and visit a shop/bar where I bought a straight-grain briar pipe and a shot of triple-sec, a little of which I used to prime my new pipe. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 17th October 1945
A comrade and I went on a more extensive tour of the town, ending up with a walk part way up a long, winding, uphill street, at every bend of which a woman was sitting on her doorstep, knitting. As we passed, they were, for the most part, all smiles and nods, but if a redcap were to pass (so we heard), they would stop knitting. We had discovered that there was, at the top of the hill, a house, or some said, a bar, which was supposed to be out of bounds to the troops. . . |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 18th October 1945
. . . nevertheless the troops continue to go there. Maybe it was because of the quality of the beer, but "Daddy" informed me that he had to contend with many cases of S.T.D. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 19th October 1945
In due course we boarded the S.S. Volendam, en route for Egypt - and who knows where else? After boat drill there was nothing to do, so I got myself a job in the ship's orderly room; I was now a deejay. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
October 20th (approx.), 1945
The S.S. Volendam arrived in Alexandria harbour, and a multitude of "bum-boats" surrounded it, while their occupants tried to sell us goods of various kinds, or dived for the surplus European coins that we were casting in the waters. At length, we made our way ashore on a tender whose shape and size (though not its age and dependability) reminded us of the Rhino ferries we saw on the Normandy beaches. We were then loaded like cattle on railway wagons the like of which we had never seen before and would never see anywhere else, except on films of concentration camp transports. Of course, we had not travelled far before one truck broke 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 surrounded us. This happened whenever the train broke down, until we reached our destination - Moascar, on the Suez Canal, at Lake Timsah. |
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