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Previous |Contents | What we generally think of as the Battle of El Alamein, the turning point of the war in North Africa, was in fact the second battle. The first saw the 8th Army stand and fight just 40 miles or so from Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal — and ... 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 It was well attended, and everyone who could walk or crawl seemed to be there. One thing is certain: everyone prayed with great sincerity for deliverance. The tiny flake dipped in wine was of little sustenance to our physical being, but in my case at ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next The rest of us weren’t too badly off, mostly leg and arm wounds as far as I can remember, though a man alongside me had three bullet holes through his lungs. Sgt. Dave Clarke, the only man I knew, was suffering from a blast injury ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Cyrenaica, the Eastern region of Libya, had been an Italian colony since 1912 and a theatre of the war since 1940. Although the Allies had decisively beaten the Italians, they’d since been pushed back into Egypt by the Germans under General Rommel. Only the strategically ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Out of hospital Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, the rest, in the third person, by me ~ Ian Sisters Whitten and Johnson must have known what was going on but didn’t take any notice. I was confined to bed, ... Read more