Dentists: In Alexandria

I took a piece of anti-tank shell casing to the head. I was taken to the Medical Officer, then to Tobruk hospital. I was then evacuated up the Suez Canal on a destroyer, and into a hospital in Alexandria. While I was there, I went to the dentists to see if he could sort my teeth out (you didn’t look after them in the regiment). The dentist took a look and said, “Fetch your mate.” He then instructed my friend to bring all the tools in the back room. The dentist took needles and pliers and pulled out thirteen top teeth, one by one, without even gassing me. They wouldn’t fit false teeth before your teeth had been out three months, so when I was to be posted back to Tobruk, just a month later, the officer in charge (who was a doctor at General Hospital in Nottingham) said, “You’re an invalid. You can’t fight with no top teeth.” He gave me a job in the mess there.

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