[2002] SID’S WAR

0025 - Sidney Lane War Diary 22

 [this is an extract of the war diary, 'An Ordinary War', by my uncle (Sid Lane, my mother's brother) in Egypt  preparing for the invasion of Sicily] 

15.5.43 

Truth to tell I have been very busy, and you must have noticed that I tell you [this part comes from a letter back home, as do a number of his later entries] nothing of what I am doing. Censorship is very rigid and it would be just a waste of time. Now what news can I tell you. Oh, I know. I've given a blood transfusion. I reckon it must be my biggest War Effort to date:- A pint of blood to the hospital and a cup of tea in exchange for it. 

I am getting a little tired of all this everlasting training. Loading on barges LCTs. Unloading. Loading again. Cutting down minutes and now whittling away seconds. Charging over ramps, doing assault training. Living 48hrs. at a time on hard tack and with one bottle of water. Getting us used to it , are they. That's a thing I'll never do.

I wish the invasion was over, or at least about to start. Night schemes are an abomination. You walk for miles leading your vehicles. No lights. No Smokes. No talking. 

25/4/43 

I have located Bob. I received a letter which had only taken 4 days to reach me and I started making enquiries a bit sharpish. I hope to visit him tomorrow. I'll let you know how I get on [again from a letter, as is the next entry]. 

31/5/43 

I located him as I said in my last letter, about 40 miles away. I got leave and arrived at his camp about noon. He was staggered with surprise and was I glad to see him. He hasn't altered and is looking very fit. His only complaint is about the heat and his bald pate is suffering a bit from the sun. I stayed with them all day - yarning. My, we must have been like a lot of old women. Bob, Jack and myself had dinner together at the Sgts. club and yarned all evening. I stayed the night and hitch-hiked back in the early morning. 

The training at Kabrit was pretty stiff but we were fit and we took it all in our stride. From 5.00 am in the morning to 7 at night. P.T., swimming, desert marches, manoeuvres, lectures, courses. The things we did were staggering and yet we found time for week-end parties (pretty hectic too) in Suez or Ismailia.

The major we had was a blighter, but I must admit he knew how to get efficiency.

I well remember having a brush with him before going on the final manoeuvre.

I had 80 men on parade in full fighting kit ready to take to Suez to board the troopship for the big exercise on the Red Sea. 

It was frightfully hot and we'd been waiting for the O.C. to inspect so I told them to sit down where they were in ranks. Along comes the Hawk with a yell "Get those men to their feet." The he inspects and finding one man with a shirt button undone starts champing at the bit and let's me have it. "Sgt. Lane see to it that these men are smart. We are the most efficient troops going aboard that ship. We are going to make an impression." 

I was cheesed off and promptly told him that they would certainly make an impression, laden as they were like a lot of camels. 

"Sgt. Lane, I know that as well as you do. Everybody is. But you will make it your duty to see that they are the smartest bunch of camels there." 

It was no good. He always had the last word. In training, mark you, we never saw him. He sat comfortably in his dug-out at B.H.Q. For which effort he was duly "mentioned in despatches." 

Yes, we worked hard there, learning how to load guns and instruments on small craft. Devising complicated drills so we could use Matadors to winch them in. The fastest time for G.L. was 17 minutes, for three instruments and their Matador, one three tonner and a jeep, which was very good indeed. 

There was also one night scheme which I will always remember. I had been on guard all night and on opening my instructions found I must proceed to a desert rendezvous. On arriving there we found the troop in action. Twenty minutes later so were we. A Colonel of the Ack Ack section of the Brick, a twerp of the most ignorant and inefficient kind, decreed we must carry on manning as though in action.

So from 12 noon to 12 midnight we kept watch. Then came "Cease Firing" and 30 mins. later we were on the road. Walking in pitch black, leading the vehicles over 4 miles of hill country and into action at 2.00 a.m. again and continues the watch till 6 a.m. Then we found the Tx forecarriage smashed up like a concertina. Just one of those things. Wilf and I thought fast. We played trains with that outfit to get it out of those hills, and when we got on the flat the forecarriage definitely gave up the ghost.  

"That's sunk you" says the Hawk "You'll never get that thing back to camp today."

"Not a bit of it" was my reply "We'll be back almost as soon as you." In those days we were all on top form and ready for any emergency. 

Wilf and I towed the broken wheels back to camp, dumped them, and took our wagon into the Marine camp. There, under their noses, we pinched a forecarriage from one of their sets, and taking it out to our own equipment left the lads to fit them and come back. They were in camp for four o'clock and we all went to Shafto's to round off a tough 48 hrs. We kept that forecarriage for ten days while our own was being repaired and then quietly returned it to the Marines without them ever knowing we had taken it. 

Yes, we were ready for any emergency in those days and would winch in and out of impossible situations, and regard it as good fun. That's the kind of training that went on all the time. And then the final exercise, down the Red Sea. It proved more realistic than the actual invasion, and was first rate. We had a rattling good 15 days on that ship, despite the rotten grub. Yes, I'll remember the Otranto.

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