Talking of non-official kit

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by Ron Goldstein, Jan 13, 2013.

  1. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    A recent thread about that wonderful piece of uniform, the Tank Suit, set me thinking about the beds we slept in.

    On a rare occasion I actually slept in what would normally be regarded as an "officer's bed"........let me explain.

    The time was February 1945 and I was stationed at Rieti in central Italy being re-trained as a loader/operator in the Royal Armoured Corps.
    The camp was also used as a transit camp for personnel being posted back to Blighty and there was much selling and bartering of personal equipment.
    One such item was a collapsible camp bed, made of slats of wood and canvas and the whole contraption neatly folded into a parcel about eighteen inches long.
    I think I must have paid the equivalent of a couple of quid for it and I couldn't wait for a chance to use it in the field.
    In March the same year I joined the 4th Queen's Own Hussars who were then in the line near Ravenna.
    On my first night with the unit I noticed that neither my tank commander, SSM 'Busty' Thomas, nor the driver, Steve Hewitt, had any form of sleeping gear other than their straw-filled paliasses and I rather smugly unfolded my camp-bed and set it up near the tank.
    I was rudely awoken in the early hours by some fairly heavy shelling and so I learnt lesson number one of survival in the line.
    One does NOT sleep above ground level if one can help it!
    From then on the folding camp bed was consigned to my non-essential kit and was not to be used again until the war finished and I had leave in Austria.
     
  2. Alanst500

    Alanst500 Senior Member

    Good story i dont suppose you still have said compfy bed?
     
  3. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Alan

    I think I must have flogged it prior to coming home in Jan '46.

    Ron
     
  4. Alanst500

    Alanst500 Senior Member

    Here's a modification i found from 75 LAA diaries
    Imported Photos 002001.jpg
     

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