The first Clyde convoys set sail Oct 22 to 26th and landed at Oran and Algieria on Nov 8th.

I had been detached for overseas service in August, 1942 whilst serving at Upwood Airfield near Ramsey, and was posted to an assembly point at Blaby near Leicester. After a weekend there we went to Winsford in Cheshire for a very tough assault course including 25 miles running and marching and scrambling up 14 foot walls and jumping down the other side, swinging across water by means of ropes, sten gun range etc.

Learned that our unit were called 'Number 108 Repair and Salvage Unit'. Our R.A.F. Uniforms had been taken away and we were issued with khaki battle dress which at that time was unheard of in the R.A.F.

We had no idea at this stage where we were going but the indications were that we would be away in a couple of days, so I decided to break out of camp, and go home to Treeton, for an hour or two!

I rang Joan, soon to be my wife,from Manchester, and told her I would be on the 3.50 train from Manchester. She met me at Sheffield Victoria, we caught the Swallownest bus and went home for 10 minutes then caught the same bus back to Sheffield. As I was in Army battledress and a blue R.A.F great coat, I fully expected to get picked up by the Military Police but managed to get back into camp without any trouble. In Manchester, I had about an hour's wait for the Stockport train, I spent this in a pub opposite London Road Station. While there I was approached by an old man who tried to sell me a gold watch. He said it was safe as it had been pinched in Birmingham that morning !!

We were put on a night train the next day, 30th October, and transported to Greenock and then on a paddle steamer which to my surprise was the St. Tudno which in peace time we saw every year sailing to and from Llandudno pier.

Out thoughts at the time were that we couldn't be going too far away on such a small boat! However it turned out it was on ferry duties and took us into the Clyde where we transferred to the Strathern, a 22,000 ton cruise liner.

It was an amazing sight looking out from this boat. We were surrounded by a massive collection of ships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers etc., and were being formed up into a large convoy.

After sailing for four or five days we were convinced that we were heading for Canada as we were on a westerly course. However our dreams were shattered when we woke one morning to find that we were now heading south-east.

I recall about this time we were given the news of the break out of the Eighth Army at El Alamein. We then suspected that we would be joining the Desert Air Force in Egypt.

A day or so later as we entered the Straights of Gibralter we were given the news of the American landing at Casablanca and Oran and the British/American landings at Algeria (8th November, 1942).

Within hours of this, each individual section were called before the C.O. and told that we should be landing at Algiers and some idea of our duties.
As we sailed into the port the French had virtually given up the struggle and the landing was uneventful (12th November).

We were now informed that we had a 20 mile march to face to Maison Blanche Airport - didn't fancy this with a full pack on back, gas mask on chest, sten gun and 200 rounds of ammunition in eight heavy magazines.

Volunteers asked for, to stay on duty overnight to guard kit. Three of us were lucky enough to get the job and so managed to avoid the march. We were given a 24 hour ration pack and it was arranged that we would follow the unit as soon as transport could be arranged.

The 24 hour ration pack turned out to be a 4" x 4" x 2" tin containing tea and milk powder, two cubes of sugar, boiled sweets, tasteless biscuits and about one cubic inch of cheese, together with a small methylated spirit stove.

We fully expected to be attacked from the air and felt very vulnerable. As we had all the companies kit bags, we used these as sand bags, built them up into a hollow square and settled down inside this.

No attack materialised and eventually we were given orders to load all the gear on to a railway wagon. By now it was pitch black and we took it in turns to do a two hour guard. This was really weird. The time dragged and the night was full of strange sounds but we managed to survive without firing at any imaginary enemies.

Eventually we got moving and in an hour or two arrived at Maison Blanche Airport to join up with the rest of the unit. We spent the rest of the day checking equipment and being briefed on our next moves. The temperature during daylight hours was into the 70s but as darkness approached it got quite chilly so a couple of started hunting around for a warm spot for the night and eventually we found a passenger aircraft inside a nearby hanger which seemed ideal.

We had no sooner settled down when we were bombed and managed to find a dugout covered by a piece of corrugated sheet. One lad had a leg blown off when he trod on an anti personal device and died before morning. This was our only casualty on that unit.

Next morning we set off again on a 500 mile trip to Bone. The convoy consisted of a number of 'Queen Mary's' - low loaders - mobile cranes, battery charging lorry, mobile cookhouse and a number of Bedford three tonners and 15cwt vans.

There were 3 wireless operators, myself, a lad from Hull and another from Wrexham.

We were given a 3 ton Bedford and a driver called Slater who came from Heeley in Sheffield. (I met him once shortly after the war in Fitzalan Square in Sheffield).

We had a fairly uneventful trip with only one accident when the jib of one of the cranes struck a low bridge. As we passed through small settlements it seemed as though all the population turned out to meet us. We were showered with fruit etc. by the Arabs. The French Colonials were not quite as enthusiastic as only days before the Royal Navy had sunk their fleet at Oram.

We had a short stop at Constantine high in the mountains right in the town centre and we were pestered by youngsters trying to hire out their sisters.

We arrived at Bone on the morning of the 15th November and parked in a wooded area near the airstrip looking forward to our first cooked meal for four days.

Eventually the cooks got organised and we formed a queue; when in came an aircraft with guns blazing. I've never seen a line of men dive for cover so quickly. However we soon recovered our composure but this time we made sure we had out tin hats on.

We were informed that we were to stay and make camp here so decided to do a bit of exploring. As it was getting dark a few of us wandered down a lane on to the perimeter of the airport and came across a group of commandos who had set up a machine gun post and made themselves a cosy little dugout. They had managed to 'find' a few bottles of red wine so we had a very pleasant hour supping wine and very strong tea - the tea tasted better than the wine! As we walked back to camp a beanfighter intercepted a low flying raider directly above us and as bullets started flying, we just carried on walking - false courage due to the red wine.

However when we got back we found that preparations were being made to move out at dawn.Evidently one management had decided it was too warm there.

First thing in the morning we were again on the move looking for a quiet spot to set up camp.

We hadn't gone more than 500 yards when an aircraft suddenly appeared out of the sun dropping two small bombs and then opened up with machine guns and we were all in a ditch at the side of the road in double quick time.

Panic over, we move on again with our transport being stretched out at 50 yard intervals and eventually found a spot which seemed to suit the C.O. It was a farm farming olives and grapes and making red wine.

The large two deck building containing the wine vats was taken over and various trades such as fitters, wireless mechanics, welders etc. set up their equipment on the lower floor.

There was a small river which provided our washing and drinking water and plenty of trees to camoflage the tents. We set up our radio gear near a small railway halt and attempted to establish communications with Bone Airport. In spite of trying many aerial arrangements reception and transmission was not good.

We therefore decided that we would have to re-site our gear up the hill - this was called 'The Mount of Olives'. We took our Bedford 3 tonner up the hill about three=quarters of a mile from the camp, together with a tent. This meant we became a seperate unit of five personnel , one driver, 3 wireless operators and another. Having set up the equipment and got a satisfactory signal we had a conference.

The driver had no job whilst we were camped so he became the cook and runner.

Our Corporal who was a hairdresser in civil life became the camp's barber who insisted on charging for haircuts would scrounge extra grub from the cook and whatever else he could get from the rest of the camp.

This left three of us to cover 3 shifts seven days a week, and this arrangement lasted until we were posted to other units 6 months later.

About this time a small number of R.A.F regiment lads were attached to the unit and their officer came up to see us and wasn't at all happy. When we moved up the hill we had driven our lorry across the grass and the tracks were visible from the air.

Having got that off his chest he decided that our little encampment was an ideal spot to put an ack ack gun and as this had to be sited on open ground we were not very happy.

Three of his men duly turned up and dug a dirty great hole and in went the gun. Then we had half an hour instruction on how to work it. As soon as they had disappeared we spent the next hour or two covering it with branches etc. - the tyre tracks would disappear in a day or two but the gun wouldn't .

So in under a fortnight from the original landing we were established in a lovely spot with only an occasional distant explosion. The weather was still above 70 in the day but the nights were very chilly. The radio was in the lorry and we kept warm with a valor stove.

Even so the nightshift took a bit of getting used to - all on your own in a canvas covered lorry. We only kept the earphones on one ear so that we could listen for outside sounds and the sten gun was always at hand.

However the days were very peaceful, lovely to be laying about in shorts in mid November and the war seemed far away.

We had Arab kids come to visit most days and we managed to get eggs from them in exchange for our tasteless biscuits - made in breezy Blackpool.

A young girl of about eight years old appeared one day from another direction and was dressed only in a tatty old vest. One of the lads took pity on her and produced an old shirt which she put on over the vest and she went away happy. She turned up the next day without it, when we saw the Arab lads again , they told us she was the daughter of a charcoal burner and he had sold the shirt.

The post had by now caught up with us and I received my first letters from home - about fifteen of them - Joan wrote me a letter every day while I was abroad and numbered them all so that I could read them in the correct order. They usually turned up in batches of ten. The trouble was very often letters written in, say, November would arrive before the October ones.

I wrote home about once a fortnight and found it very difficult to find anything to write about as all letters were censored and we couldn't give any hints as to where we were or what we were doing.

We were now doing quite well for food as we were getting quite a few treats via our barber who had palled up with a French Canadian cook who could work miracles with army rations. We had a source of very sweet tangerines which we bought from the local population at about one penny for half a dozen. We were eating as many as ten a day.

We had no supply of potatoes or bread but found that Spam and hard biscuits tasted better if we fried them. All meat was tinned mainly in the form of meat and veg stew together with corned beef and spam. We also had tinned bacon and spiced sausages. We had plenty of cigs.

Everyone on active service got 50 free cigs per week, mainly State Express, also in sealed tins. Quite a few people didn't smoke and a black market had not yet developed so in fact we got possibly more than 100, free each week. We could also buy our own brands at about half the prices charged at home.

We had no beer or any kind of alcohol at this stage of the war. There was of course the red wine maturing in the vats but this was more like vinegar.

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Notes re the above

• Invasion North Africa by SWC Pack Convoy KMF 2.
• Sailed Nov 1st. - 18 ships and 8 escorts.
• Passed through Straits of Gibralter on 10th November and reaching Algiers by the 12th.
• News about victory at El Alamein, a retreat of Germans announced by Montgomery on Nov 6th.
• Convoy KMF 2 docked on 12th Nov carrying amongst others: 1st Armies Advanced, HQ, RAF (Eastern) Advanced HQ, part of 6th Armoured Division and a parachute brigade.

Casablanca to Tunis by air is 1000 miles; by road - 1300 miles. Assault force landed on 8th Nov at Casablanca Consisting of 24,500 Americans direct from USA (to guard against possible German advance through Spain).

In Oran, 18,000 Americans from Clyde (to guard against possible German advance through Spain)

Algiers - 20,000 Anglo-American from Clyde to deploy into Tunisia as quickly as possible.

Timeline

    

The story ends here; Norman died 20/12/02 and didn't finish the story.

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