[2002]
SID’S WAR
An important influence on my life was my uncle, and a key influence on him was his experience in the war. He wrote a comprehensive diary in which he described these experiences. This section, which is the only part of the collection not written by me, contains that diary. It gives a very direct account of what it was like taking part in the Second World War. It also provides an indication of the ‘war stories’ which were so much a part of my earlier upbringing – as they were for so many of my generation. It starts, however, in the phony war which predated military activities on the part of our servicemen:
0062 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 1 – The phony war, Sid enlists in the TA.
0015 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 2 – Mobilization in the Ack-Ack.
0035 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 3 – War declared and doing fatigues.
0094 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 4
-Radar training and fatigues.
0046 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 5 – Phony war continues & Christmas 1939.
Even when war came to Britain, Sid spent most of his time training in the UK:
0055 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 6 – Dunkirk & gunsites.
0009 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 7 - More Training & Exams.
0012 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 8 – A year gone by.
0018 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 9 – The Blitz.
0006 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 10 – The Blitz and Radar.
0100 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 11 – The period post-Blitz.
0013 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 11 – A pessimistic update on the war in general.
0002 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 13 - another diatribe about officers and unfairly favourable treatment of women in ‘mixed’ batteries.
0030 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 14- 'Going Mobile’ & another ‘Update’ on the war in general and against Japan in particular.
It was only a couple of years later that he actually went overseas:
0028 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 15 - Preparation for going overseas.
0024 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 16 - Travelling via South Africa to Egypt.
0078 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 17 - Travelling via Baghdad to Persia, with Sand-Fly Fever putting him in hospital.
0080 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 18 - Travelling to Qum in Persia.
0021 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 19 – Christmas entertainment in Qum, Persia.
0032 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 20 - Travelling from Qum to Baghdad.
0077 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 21 - Through Palestine to the Sinai.
And another couple of years before he saw action in Italy:
0025 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 22 - In Egypt preparing for the invasion of Sicily.
0027 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 23 - The landing on Sicily.
0033 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 24 – On Sicily
0047 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 25 - On mainland Italy.
0048 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 26 - Malaria and convalescence again.
0016 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 27 - To Rome and the Arno
0050 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 28 - Advances in radar, Rome and hospital again.
0076 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 29 - Xmas entertainment in 1944.
0052 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 30 - Use of the Ack-Ack as artillery.
0070 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 31 - Easter 1945 and gunnery.
0037 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 32 - The Po Valley offensive & the end of the war in Italy.
0049 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY 33 - War End.
9305 - SIDNEY LANE WAR DIARY - APPENDIX –The stories, later told to me, not in the diary.
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