While I still have my marbles .........

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by Ron Goldstein, Jul 28, 2017.

  1. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Strictly in the interests of clarity, I added a "brief" history of my Army career to every posting that I have ever made on this forum.

    i recently occurred to me that I needed to elaborate on the completely different type of warfare I encountered when I made the transition from being a Driver/Operator in Light Ack-Ack to being a Loader/Operator in a cavalry unit.

    I joined my last RA unit in May 1943 and was to serve with them until December 1944 when they were disbanded simply because there was no longer the original threat from the German Air Force and the powers that be obviously thought that it would make better use of the troops involved if they were placed in other units.

    As RA men we were always near to the front line and consequently faced the "usual" risks involved in being in that position and as a result, when the unit was eventually disbanded I, and I am sure most of my comrades, would have been quite satisfied to have been placed in a unit that was less exposed to danger. the pay corps immediately jumps to mind, although in fairness they also had their share of casualties :)

    However, when I was eventually trained as an RAC man at Rieti I was happy as a sand-boy because I found that we were to use the 19 set, i.e. the identical set that we had used in the RA and I enjoyed the romance of tearing round the Italian countryside in Sherman tanks.

    I paid no heed to thoughts of possible dangers to come and made some wonderful friendships.

    When I finally joined my new unit (the 4Th Queen's Own Hussars) and discovered that I was not to be part of a Sherman crew I must admit to being slightly deflated but from then on I had little time to even think of worrying about the dangers I was to face and the change of lifestyle was so immense that I honestly don't think I ever was to worry again !

    Looking back some 72 years I now relish the fact that I saw these two completely different types of warfare, both of which I thankfully survived and I firmly believe that whatever type of person I was eventually to become was very much down to these wartime experiences.

    Ron
     
    mcan, Tolbooth, Peter Clare and 9 others like this.
  2. Lotus7

    Lotus7 Well-Known Member

    Thanks Ron, always interested in your stories
     

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