Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff’s diary entries petered out after he got back from leave in Alex but the letters to Dorothy continued — 150 pages over three months. On the 15th July he had to give up on a letter when a rowdy argument got too distracting, but he tried again next day in Padre Taylor’s…
Previous | Contents | Next We’ve spent a long time on the people and places Cliff encountered in uniform, his experiences in battle and the long months between. How the war changed him, and all the men arriving back in Alex in June ’43. What’s barely been touched on is the loneliness. This is taken from two long letters…
Previous | Contents | Next § The men who arrived back at Maadi in June 1943 were victorious but war weary. War weary and often resentful. Cliff put together an album of wartime photos, but it peters out after a few pictures he took on leave in Alexandria after the trek back from Tunisia. He wrote in it, “Sick…
Previous | Contents | Next Written partly in the first person by Cliff, the rest in the third by me ~ Ian After the war he often said that he’d served with all the Battalions except the 28th (Maori). Those rotations meant, he reckoned, that he”d missed out on the deep and close personal relationships that formed…
Previous | Contents | Next Written partly in the first person by Cliff, the rest in the third by me ~ Ian § He’d written to Dorothy twice in October. His first letter, dated the 2nd, was while on leave in Alex. His mood was downbeat. A family friend had died in action and the McCarrolls…
Previous | Contents | Next Fast forward to late September and the entire 5th Brigade was heading out to what became known as the Kaponga Box, South West of Alamein, where they’d be digging in fortifications that would become an important part of the defensive line the following year. § October was devoted to yet more training, including on…
Previous | Contents | Next While most of the NZ Expeditionary Force sailed for the Western Front, the NZMR remained in Egypt as part of an Anzac Mounted Division. The Anzac Division was part of the British effort to defend Egypt and drive the Ottoman Empire out of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria. Highly mobile, and adaptable to both desert and mountainous terrain,…
Previous | Contents | Next Sunday 6 September. A spectacular dog fight this morning. Eight planes down today, four of ours and four German. I walked over to inspect some wreckage. The plane had been in a dive and failed to come out of it. There was hardly a piece left bigger than a benzene box.…
Previous | Contents | Next The following is written partly in the first person by Cliff, and the rest in the third by me ~ Ian § On the 24th he was back in Egypt with 26 Battalion at Amraya (possibly Amreya, a locality outside Alexandria), a British transit camp outside Alexandria. “Not a popular place.” …
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff’s next letter was dated 25 May, ten days later, and he was writing from Syria. They’d traveled by bus to Haifa, then by train to Damascus. As context it’s interesting to note that Cliff was in Damascus over 80 years ago, but little more than 20 years after Lawrence of…