Work in progress
Previous |Contents | Next Writing fifty years later, and with just a few letters and his memory to depend on, Cliff wrote that he had only a few recollections of the days following his return to the front. This was in the days between the attacks on Ruweisat Ridge (14-15 July) ... Read more
Previous |Contents | Next The New Zealand Division had been transferred to Syria and Lebanon in part to recover from the hammering it had taken in Operation Crusader. After the action in which Cliff was wounded, the New Zealanders had in fact captured Sidi Resegh, temporarily linking up with the garrison ... Read more
Previous |Contents | Next Cliff described some 6th Brigade training manoeuvres in the Syrian desert to give “some idea of life with the Infantry”. He wrote this in the 1990s. It certainly wouldn’t have passed the censor in his letters home. ~ Ian § First, Cliff described a night attack ... Read more
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 ... Read more
I’ve now taken Cliff’s story past his convalescence in Alexandria after he was shot up in late 1941 at Sidi Resegh, outside Tobruk. After recuperating he headed to Palestine for more of the same, and rubbed up against the Poms, the Jews, kibbutzes — plus lots of oranges! — before ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next By mid-May Cliff was in Palestine. They’d travelled there by train in goods vans and cattle trucks, a stop-and-start journey and a good deal of it at night while they tried to sleep. The following is from Cliff’s letters home to Dorothy. ~ Ian § ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next One patient in particular I can never forget. I spent two nights with him in that tent. He’d been in a tank that caught fire and every part of his body was burned. He was completely covered in bandages, with holes for mouth and nose, ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next On the 5th December, 10 days after my last real meal, there was a church service, long to be remembered by those who took part in it. There was also to be communion, and whether it was the thought of bread and wine that attracted ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next It was now Thursday, 27 November. I was woken before daylight with another cup of cocoa. We were then loaded, this time on stretchers, on board a truck. Although we had to take a roundabout route to avoid the action, it was a much more ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next On 24 November 1941, when this story begins, we were attached to 21 Battalion, which had been in action at Beir El Gubi. We’d had 70 casualties and been on the move almost constantly for about a fortnight. My closest encounter with the enemy up ... Read more