Work in progress
Previous |Contents | What we generally think of as the Battle of El Alamein, the turning point of the war in North Africa, was in fact the second battle. The first saw the 8th Army stand and fight just 40 miles or so from Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal — and ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next One patient in particular I can never forget. I spent two nights with him in that tent. He’d been in a tank that caught fire and every part of his body was burned. He was completely covered in bandages, with holes for mouth and nose, ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, some in the third person, written by me based on his notes. ~ Ian. It was more than two months before Cliff was passed fit for duty. After arriving in hospital his condition ... Read more
| Contents | Next “Div Sigs” — Divisional Signals — was a specialist unit of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, whose members were seconded to the various Brigades, Battalions etc to maintain communications. There were two ways to communicate: by radio or by phone (i.e. landlines — likely to ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next These pages, which cover Cliff’s coal mining stories, are partly written by him, and partly by me, in the third person, based on his notes. His first job was at the Ackers mine, where he worked on at least three separate occasions, he said, as ... Read more