He was in the Durhams. He was in a Signals Platoon. Different platoons they had. Mortar platoon, Signal Platoon, Pioneer Platoon--who used to do all the shovelling and that--they were all in HQ Company.'

[Pte Michael Tunney, 4457353, of 9 DLI POW number16687, Stalag 9C, was captured in the desert in 1942.]

And back in the DLI?

'I was in a rifle company. You had a Section first. You had your section leader, who was probably a Corporal or a Lance Corporal. There'd be about eight or nine. You had your Bren gunner, Number Two. Then you had you rifleman, about six riflemen. And then you had grenadiers. They were supposed to carry grenades but everyone used to carry them. That was a Section and there was three sections in each platoon. There was a Lieutenant, he was the Platoon commander and then there was a platoon sergeant, a full sergeant and then you had your section leaders--they would be corporals or Lance Sergeants and then you had lance corporals. That was in each section and there was three in each platoon and you had three platoons in a company, which was just over a hundred men.'

Did you have any problems training with grenades?

'We heard of a few, but I never saw anybody hurt. There was a bloke he used to live down here, Billy Bruce, he was a Sergeant in the Guards and his face was all... They used to go in these bays, sandbags right around and they showed you how to go on. They used to give you the grenade and you used to pull the pin out and keep hold of the handle. Keep the handle down. And then the Sergeant, or whoever was in charge, used to tell you and you used to chuck it over the top and it used to go off and then you had to look. But this bloke, he pulled the pin out and he let the handle go and it dropped on the floor and apparently, Billy Bruce, he got his tin hat and he put in on the top and the bugger went off and he got all his face--he got discharged through it. He wasn't in our lot though. Oh, there was a few accidents happened like that.'

Can you remember them being used them in North Africa?

'No. Oh, they had them. We used to do a lot of live ammo training with the Brens and that down on the South Coast, on the beaches. Lydd, in Kent, there's a big range down there and we used to fire out to sea. Bren guns rifles.'

Did you ever meet anybody from those times again after the war?

'I think I only saw two. I was down in London one year with the Band, that would be about 1948, I think. I was down with Blackhall Band--I wasn't playing--and I went into this pub in that market--it's open on a Sunday-- Petticoat Lane. We went down there and I got in this pub and I met this bloke and I used to be in the Army with him. He was a Scotchman. I knew him--and he knew me as well. Why, it was only two or three years after we come out, see? And I think he was about the only one I ever met again--barring Forster and them I see at the Reunion.'

The 9th Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment

'I got sent there from Pipers Wood. I got sent up to Alexandria in Scotland. I got my tapes [Corporal's stripes] up there. There was me and a lad from Fencehouses, Bill Grange--he was in our lot an' all, the Durhams. There was two of us went up and we had to do some more training, about a month's light training.

This posting was on October 11th 1945.

‘Anyway, at the end of it, this Sergeant we had, he says, "Do you two lads fancy a tape?"

'I looked at Grange, he says, "Aye!"

"What about you?"

NEXT PAGE

OLD THORNLEY HOME