StanEllis7

StanEllis7
Italy and Greece.
Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Hello, my name is Ellis Stanley, Army Service number 2092841. I have written my memoirs of World War Two as I lived it. I served through the war from first day to last, and served as a vehicle mechanic, reaching the rank of Corporal. I was a soldier in the Army firstly in the UK, then in North Africa, and finally in Italy and Greece. After Victory in Europe, I was posted to Italy again until I was returned to Aldershot and demobbed in 1946. These memoirs have been edited to conform to People’s War standards, and are spread over 12 title pages, and cover my service in locations as listed below. They have been transcribed by Andrew Voyce, an Open University graduate.

StanEllis1 UK- The Phoney War part 1
StanEllis2 UK- The Phoney War part 2
StanEllis3 UK- Northern Ireland and preparations for the desert
StanEllis4 North Africa- The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein
StanEllis5 North Africa- Active service with the Eighth Army
StanEllis6 North Africa- The final defeat of the Afrika Korps
StanEllis7 Italy and Greece- Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino
StanEllis8 Italy and Greece- Monte Cassino
StanEllis9 Italy and Greece- Some matters of everyday soldiering
StanEllis10 Italy and Greece- The end of the war for me: Victory in Europe
StanEllis11 Demob- Time after the cessation of hostilities
StanEllis12 Demob- Postscript

Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino

We had a certain amount of radio news, and a newssheet was sometimes circulated when we were in the field, but we were not aware of events like the meetings of the ‘Big Three’, Churchill (our Prime Minister), Roosevelt (the American President), and Stalin (the leader of Soviet Russia). Perhaps it was for security reasons that we did not know of their meetings at Casablanca, Cairo, and elsewhere, although we were fighting not too far away from those cities. We were more concerned with what was going on around us.

Acclimatisation from North Africa to Italy:
This section of my memoirs starts in 1943, with me having been airlifted to Taranto in Italy from Benghazi in North Africa. There was a bit of a contrast in the weather, flying from the desert into snow-covered mountains in Italy. But they all seemed to weather that. There were Dakotas that they used to transport us, the Americans. Hot sand to snow-covered mountains. But it was the same for everybody. This was in December ’43. Italy does get cold at this time of the year where it’s mountainous, and there’s skiing. We soon accustomed ourselves to it, added extra clothing and things like that. They used to have special vests and things like that for those in mountain warfare. The Germans were up in the mountains, in defensive positions. That was the difference between the desert and Italy, was that the desert was wide open and you could have a good long view of what’s going on, but when you’re approaching mountainous country, they’re all hiding behind the cover of the mountains. Their guns are positioned accordingly, so it was a lot more dangerous. Much more pressure on everybody.

The German Tiger Tank:
The Germans had a few Tiger tanks in North Africa, one or two, but they had more in Italy. They could motor them on down from Germany, you see. They were massive vehicles. I think there’s one at the tank museum in Bovington, I think they’ve got one there. Amazing to think- they were under a bit of pressure, the Germans, yet they managed to produce these vehicles. It involved masses of material, armour plating. We didn’t have anything that big in our guns that would actually penetrate them. I think they had a weak point, which was their tracks, same with all tanks:- go for the tracks. Because once you’d got the track, they were immobilised. But they were still well able to defend themselves, with the guns and the armour plate. And also of course they were well camouflaged wherever possible. They used to dig ‘em in! So that the only part that was showing was the gun, the turret bit. They could look through their sights and see what was coming up before we could probably spot them. But of course as they opened fire they’d give their position away. Sometimes a bit too late for some people.

Regrouping and different attitudes to equipment:
After we landed at Taranto we went to Potenza and Benevento, that was to acclimatise everybody to the different temperatures that we were encountering. Snow, mud, and training. The Indian Div (Division) had come across from North Africa. It had its own workshops and various other support units. At one point we had had dozens of captured vehicles- it was bit free and easy for a few days then. They had to control it because otherwise you wouldn’t know who was friend or foe. (This was shortly before, in North Africa, with the surrender of the German army there.) In an enemy vehicle, you might get shot at by your own lot. But with the army, the transport was always in use. It’s gotta be go. All the blokes’ kits- you can’t afford to leave a lorry behind anywhere. All their kit they’d wanted would be on it an’ all. The Americans had different views on their equipment. They just treated it as expendable. But we weren’t so well fixed. So we had to try and mend it, failing that, tow it. That was one thing the Indians weren’t very good at, that was towing. Because normally- on a rope, that is- all you’ve got to do is just take up the slack. But the Indians never really got the idea of doing that, gently, and they used to tear off!- you know. And the rope would take up, and the vehicle that’s being towed would sort of leap in the air! I was quite surprised they never mastered that. They’d had these trucks for years. They probably thought that was the way to do it, we couldn’t really speak to them because we didn’t know their languages. They had slightly different languages: Sikhs, Gurkhas, Punjabis. I think they could understand each other, but we weren’t very good at it. December ’43 we were in snow- mountain. Potenza and Benevento were well back from the line, in those places, but we were involved in the conditions: snow, mud, training. February ’44, we moved into the Monte Cassino sector. (It was a monastery on a large hill, with commanding fields of fire around the ground below.)

First days at the battlefield at Cassino:
( Ellis has photographs of the rows and rows of headstones in the graveyards, built after the war, that are now at the foot of the mountain of Monte Cassino. There are a lot of Royal Sussex names on the headstones. You can see from the photographs that the monastery was in a very good high position. They had always suspected that the Germans had observers in there. It was never proved that they had, so I don’t know if they did or not.) The attacking troops had to go up the hill. The Americans bombed it. And also us, on the same occasion- ‘friendly fire’. We were about a mile and a half away from the actual monastery. They were flying over in daylight, very low, the Germans didn’t have any effective airforce, they could afford to do that. We were watching them dropping all these bombs, all of a sudden we heard them coming down in our area. So we hit the ground ever so quickly. We were alongside American troops, and they did no more than jumped in their vehicles and drove off. So: What’s happening? we said. ‘Well we’re not stopping here!’ he said, ‘because once they’ve put one lot in, there’s a good chance they’ll put some more in!’ There was a thick fog of dust after that. The major thing was that we didn’t have any casualties. But they didn’t trust them, even though it was their airforce. But our vehicles were massively marked, on the cabs, with a big ring, and a star thing. I remember the day, because it was my mother’s birthday, fifteenth of March. I thought: Good Lord! We were about a mile and a half from the mountain of Monte Cassino, in what was known as the ‘B’ echelon, that’s where the vehicles are, and similar things. The actual rifle companies were right in the thick of it. They’re in trenches, and any suitable cover they can find. (The idea was that the resistance on the mountain would be eliminated by the bombers, and then the infantry could advance up and take the vantage point on the mountain top of Monte Cassino.) But it didn’t work out like that. It created so much chaos, that it made it hard going for people to climb anything, and do anything. The actual little place of Cassino, the town, was absolutely flattened, and it was just a mass of rubble. It wasn’t a very good move, bombing it, as it turned out. They’re not to know that ‘till they’ve done it, are they? (On the assault of the monastery:) What they’d do: they’d bomb it, when the dust settles, as you might say, the rifle companies move up, see if they can capture any ground. But there were still defenders up there, hiding in all the likely and unlikely places. (To finally resolve the conflict at Monte Cassino…) actually they made another landing the other side of it, and surrounded it more or less, and in the end the Germans had to get out before they got cut off. Surrounded it in fact.

The terrible toll at Monte Cassino:
The practice of trying to take it head on was just not on. As they found out. I’ve got down, here: the Royal Sussex Regiment’s losses were 32 officers and 430 men. That doesn’t mean they were all killed, they all had to be taken back to get their wounds sorted out. But the actual unit itself was not effective after we’d lost all those people. That was well over half of them. They went back to hospital and got mended or whatever happened. A lot of them, of course, got sent back to UK because they were so badly wounded. Some rejoined after weeks or months depending on what was wrong. The Poles took a lot of losses, because they seemed to hate the Germans more than we did. There was a Polish Brigade. Three or four of the front line regiments. They’ve got their own cemetery there I’m afraid. Poles, and South Africans, Aussies, New Zealanders. Some Jewish brigades were there too. They had an axe to grind that’s true. They had formed up in their own brigades or whatever. And the Free French. So you had a great mixture in the 8th Army. All sorts of people, some of which had an axe to grind, somewhat considerably. (They got round Monte Cassino eventually.) They got on. After we’d taken all these losses, you see, the brigade or battalion or whatever, was ineffective. There weren’t enough people there to do it. And so…we were relieved and they moved you out to a less intensive area. Moved by the American airforce. We were relieved on the twenty-fifth of March. We had gone straight from acclimatisation at Potenza to the sector at Monte Cassino.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.