War Biography Vol. 3
Edited by Jack Hobbs
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Michael Joseph 1976
Published in Penguin Books 1978
Reissued in this edition 2012
Copyright © T. A. Milligan, 1976
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-24-196616-7
Preface
Monty: His Part in My Victory
PENGUIN BOOKS
Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he was educated in India and England before joining the Royal Artillery at the start of the Second World War and serving in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, touring Europe with the Bill Hall Trio and the Ann Lenner Trio, before joining forces with, among others, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, to create the legendary Goon show. Broadcast on BBC Radio, the ten series of the Goon Show ran from 1951 until 1960 and brought Spike to international fame, as well as to the edge of sanity and the break-up of his first marriage. He had subsequent success as a stage and film actor, as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children’s stories, and with his long-running one-man show. In 1992 he was made a CBE and in 2001 an honorary KBE, and in 2000 and 2001 he received two Lifetime Achievement Awards for writing and for comedy. He died in 2002.
To Friends of the Earth
Edgington knocks his duff into the fire
This Volume will cover from the fall of Tunis until our embarkation for the Salerno Landings. I have gone over the ground again, relating in more detail the days preceding the capture of Tunis, using my own diary, those of the Regiment, the Battery, and that of Driver Alf Fildes, who came up with lots of things I’d forgotten, like how much I owed him. During this period, we did nothing but play at soldiers, having good times, having bad times, and times neither good nor bad which consisted of lying in a red hot tent, looking at the join, and pretending you’re having a good time, when in fact it was a bad time, but in the main it was a good time. I had with me wonderful comrades who made life worth while, anything that failed was laughed at. It was all a big joke that would stop when Hitler had his chips. Again thanks to Syd Price for his photos, Syd Carter for his watercolours, Mr Bart H. Vanderveen for photos of war time vehicles, Doug Kidgell for committing his memories onto tape, Harry Edgington for his letters, the Imperial War Museum for photographs, Al Fildes for his war diary, and D Battery Reunion Committee for reminding me of many incidents I’d forgotten, like how much I owed them.
393 Orange Grove Rd, Woy Woy, N.S.W., Australia
To Mr Moy, a London taxi driver, who returned the manuscript of the book to the editor with no claim for reward and without whom this book would not have appeared.
J.H.
May 7th 1943. In a tent, dripping with rain, battery clerk, L/Bdr Mick (I think I’m ruptured) Haymer, rattled a dodgy typewriter and printed ‘Tebourba 3/4 reported % clear of 1/2 enemy, @ leading elements of Armoured Div, dntering etc Tunis & 3/4.’ That day fighting reached maximum intensity, and at 3.20 Tunis fell. ‘We got to engage pockets of diehards holding out on Djbel El Aroussia,’ said a man claiming to be a Sergeant.
‘Wot’s die hards?’ asked Gnr Birch.
‘Well, when you die you go ’ard,’ says White, ‘like gangsters in cement.’
‘That’s why they’re called hardened criminals,’ says Birch.
‘You’re a cunt,’ says Devine.
‘Tunis fallen?! Ups a daisy!’
Had we ordinary layabouts beaten the formidable German Army?
‘Dear Fuhrer, beaten ve haff been by zer Ordinary Layabouts, signed Formidable German Army.’
‘We won,’ said White, as though it had been a game of football. Gunner Lee parts his hair, the comb clogged with a six months paté of Brylcreem and dust. ‘I bet the victory cost Ladbrokes a fortune, we was 100–1.’
‘I hear there’s fighting in Cap Bon.’
‘You must have good hearing, that’s 20 miles away.’
We gathered round the Cook House in a gulley adjacent to the now silent guns. Looming behind us is Longstop Hill, a blood drenched salient taken at Bayonet point by the Argylls. In the twilight our ground sheets glistened with rain.
‘What’s for the victory feast?’ says a cheery voice.
Something that went ‘Splush!’ was dropped in his mess tin.
MP booking a 17 pounder for parking on the wrong side of the battlefield
May 8th 1943. Deluge. The rain not only fell mainly on the plain in Spain, it also fell mainly on the back of the bloody neck, dripping down the spine into the socks where it came out of the lace-holes in the boots.
Christ!!! we got to move again! ‘Who runs this bloody Battery? Carter Paterson?’ In darkness we load vehicles. I crash into someone.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Don’t know, I think I start with G. Who are you?’
‘If this thing on my back isn’t a kit bag, I’m Quasimodo.’
I backed a truck down a slope; a scream. ‘Owwww fuck!’
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘Me foot.’
‘I never knew it swore.’ A fist hits me in the earhole.
The move is held up by torrential rain, meanwhile Sgt Dawson has got ‘Bludy mulharia’ and is taken sweating, farting and shaking to hospital. ‘That’s what comes of flogging ’is Mepacrin tablets to the wogs as sweets.’
Rain. Mud. Boredom.
‘Christ,’ said Gnr White, ‘I must be bored. I just thought of Catford.’
Occasionally a lorry door would open as an occupant pissed out of the side to cries of ‘You’re spoiling the carpet.’ A creature shining like glycerine approached, his boots great dustbin lids of mud.
‘Let me in,’ it groaned, ‘I can’t swim.’
Edgington squeezed in.
‘Anything on the wireless?’ he said.
‘No, the batteries are flat.’
‘I thought they were square,’ he said.
‘I’ll turn on the windscreen wipers, it’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.’
He watched the blades sweep the rain from the glass. ‘Ooooohhh,’ he groaned in ecstasy. ‘What other Army can give you perversions like this.’
The rain is now frightening, the ground is rapidly flooding. ‘We better start building a fuckin’ Ark’ said Sgt Ryan.
Lunch came, lunch went, tea came, tea went, dinner came, dinner went. That was May the 8th 1943. Anybody want to buy it? It’s going cheap.
A captured German pilot crapping into the cockpit of his plane in displeasure with the Geneva Convention
May 9th 1943. Dawn. Rain stopped. I prod Edgington.
‘Awake! for morning in a bowl of light, has cast the stone that puts the stars to flight.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘No it was Fitzgerald.’
‘Fitzgerald’s bollocks then.’
The sun rose, angering the morning sky, and Edgington was none too pleased either.
‘Wassertime?’ he said, as he unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth with a spoon.
‘It’s hours 0600 darling.’
‘It’s hours too bloody early “darling”.’
He opened his eyes with a sound like the tearing apart of fly papers.
Driver Fildes rapped on the window. ‘I’m driving to Tunis.’
Edgington sits up. ‘Can I come too?’
‘It’s about time you came to,’ I chuckled. The boot missed me, landed in the mud and sank slowly out of sight.
‘It’s one legged marching from now on,’ I tell him.
We set off across the Goubelat Plain to Tunis, following the wake of the victorious 6th and 7th Armoured. We passed smouldering tanks, dead soldiers in grotesque ballet positions, Arab families emerging from hiding, baffled and frightened, and the children, always the children, more baffled and frightened than the rest.
In the Tunis streets the milling throng are thronging the mills. At a cafe, two German officers drink coffee. Lt Walker asked what they were doing. In perfect broken English they replied, ‘Ve are vaiting to be took prisoners old poy.’
We motored slowly through the crowded streets, being kissed several times by pretty girls and once, by a pretty boy.
‘No one’s kissed me,’ complained Gunner Holt, his face like a dog’s bum with a hat on.
‘Never mind – ’ere comes one now, I’ll stamp on her glasses!’
A fat lady with revolving bosoms shouts ‘Vive les Americains.’
‘She thinks we’re Americans,’ says Holt.
Some of the beautiful ladies of Tunis greeting our victorious entry
‘We’ll slip one up her, then blame them,’ says Devine.
A group of ‘Ities’ insist they be taken prisoner or they’ll surrender.
‘Sorry –’ I explain, ‘We British Army prisoners.’
The day passed with the drinking of wine and the ogling of women. We were well oiled when two Gunners, The Pills (twins), cadged a lift. ‘Either I’m pissed – or he is,’ said Devine referring to the twins. The Pills told us the Battery had ‘rejoined Regiment on t’other side T’Oued Melah’,’ by sheer luck we found it in t’dark.
Our wireless truck ‘Fred’
‘Have you caught it yet?’ greeted Bombardier Dean. He held up a half empty bottle. I recognized the gesture at once.
I must have got pretty stoned. When I awoke next morning I was fully dressed, face downwards, on the roof of a lorry, with a severe attack of face.
‘On yer bloody feet,’ said a fiend sergeant. We were going into action again!! ‘He’s bottled up in Cap Bon, so no Tunis tata’s today.’
Chater Jack consults his map.
‘Milligan,’ he says, ‘we’re going into Cap Bon to establish a suitable OP.’
‘What’s wrong with Lewisham?’ I said.
‘I’ve just written home saying – stop worrying, fighting has stopped – now I got to send a telegram saying – Ignore last Letter,’ says Driver Shepherd.
‘If you want to drive ’em really mad,’ I said, ‘send a telegram saying – Ignore last Telegram.’
Driver Shepherd has a large boil on his neck covered by a circular plaster. While he slept some artist had drawn a bell push with the word ‘press’ on it. And they did.
‘Motoring inland towards Djbel Ben Oueled. Stop to ask jerry prisoners the way. Chater Jack takes shortest route twix himself and whiskey flask and flags down Mercedes carrying German officers, point blank asks them “Haben ze Schnapps.” He gets 3 bottles!’
A message from RHQ. ‘Return to base.’
‘What!?’ said Chater. Snatching the mike, he shouts ‘We’ve only just bloody arrived, who’s buggering us around? We’ve been up since 0600 will you make up your bloody minds, what is the situation …’
All was wasted as he forgot to press the transmit button.
‘They’re all bloody deaf back there. Drive on, Shepherd.’ The road is a mixture of Allied and Axis transport, groups of Germans talk with British soldiers. It’s all very strange. ‘Have you any of that fruit cake left, Milligan?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just asking, Milligan. It’s a hot evening, I don’t see why we shouldn’t indulge in a dip, got your costume?’
‘No sir, I’ve learned to swim without it.’
Adjacent to a POW Camp where a brass band played Tyrolean Waltzes, we enjoyed a delicious swim in the Med. starkers, save Chater who wore his knee length ‘drawers cellular’, something to do with an officer being ‘properly dressed’. The sky turned the colour of a cut throat that bled onto the sea.
British soldier in a sexual trauma brought on by Dorothy Lamour in ‘The Road to Morocco’
I swam out about 300 yards then, to my horror, I saw a mine floating towards me. I yelled a warning – 1 part salt water – 2 parts swearing.
Chater Jack shouts ‘Quick! explode it with small arms, it’s ruining the holiday.’ We blazed away, and soon a hundred of His Majesty’s soldiers were showing what bloody awful shots they were. Finally, with a roar, the monster exploded.
‘Ime