memoirs of a gunner
Post on 13-Feb-2017
377 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 2
Prologue
The Military Parade, Valletta, 1939
The following three photos were taken on the 10th
of June, 1939, on
the occasion of the King's Birthday Parade. Every year the Parade
used to be celebrated at the Floriana Parade Ground (Ix-Xagħra
tal-Furjana) but as the war clouds were gathering on this occasion a
much larger parade was held through the streets of Valletta. Every
possible military item was brought out to raise the people’s morale.
Ironically, exactly one year later to the day Mussolini declared War.
3.7 inch AA Gun (Mobile) towed by Scammel Pioneer Gun Tractor.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 3
Breech Loading 6 inch Howitzer, 26cwt (1.3 tons weight of barrel
and breech), towed by Scammel Pioneer WW1 vintage but still
effective.
Bofors 40mm AA Gun on mobile platform, towed by Morris
Commercial CS8 15cwt truck. This vehicle would have been
inadequate as a Bofors gun tractor in the field as it lacked 4 wheel
drive and did not have enough space for the crew and stores, spare
barrel, etc. but for the parade it sufficed.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 4
Reminisces on service in a troop of 22nd Battery,
3rd
Light Anti Aircraft (LAA) Regiment Royal Malta
Artillery in 1942-43 as an 18 year old school leaver.
The Bofors gun was a 40 mm calibre quick firing
gun, manned by seven men. It could fire two
shells every second when set to fire at automatic
but it had a short, effective range of 1,500 yards.
Its purpose was to deter low flying enemy aircraft
from dropping their bombs on their intended
target, and, if possible, shoot them down.
The guns were therefore sited on the perimeter of the target
being defended, be it a harbour, the Dockyard or an airfield.
When defending the harbours or the Dockyard, gun
detachments had the privilege of being billeted in decent
rooms with electrical and washing facilities and toilets within
the fort when the guns were defending the harbour, or in
some requisitioned house if defending the Dockyard.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 5
If the guns were defending
an airfield, the men would
be billeted in some small
room in a field close to the
gun where farmers
previously kept their tools
and livestock. At Hal Far I
was billeted in one of these
rooms with eight other men.
The room measured 12 feet
by seven feet by eight feet high.
We slept in three tier wooden bunks and the sergeant and
the bombardier slept in a tiny adjacent room. There was no
electricity and we used hurricane lamps for lighting. The
only running water came from a tap in the cookhouse hut.
At other gun sites which had larger rooms the men were
lucky to have a bed which consisted of three wooden
planks and two low trestles. For mattresses we had three
straw filled cushions measuring two and a half feet square
and three inches high. These were referred to in army
jargon as 'biscuits'.
In summer I preferred to lay my ‘biscuit’ on the gun pit
wall and cover myself with a 'ground sheet', a rubberised
sheet with which we covered ourselves when it rained. I
preferred it to having to sleep in a tiny room smelling of
dirty socks.
Although 22 Bty was a TA Bty, most members of this
detachment were all conscripts and came from different
walks of life. There were members of religious societies,
like the MUSEUM, others were labourers, school leavers,
farmers, stone masons, port workers, etc., we even had a
‘chucker-out’, nowadays referred to as a 'bouncer', from
Strait Street, a mixed society if there ever was one, and the
language used by these lads was not drawing room stuff
either.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 6
For ablutions the army provided each gun
site with two basins but we preferred to
have our own. These were made out of
four gallon petrol cans which were
plentiful in the airfields. We would remove
three quarters of the upper part of the can,
and, pronto, you had a basin. One did not
need anything larger because you would
not dare strip to wash in winter since ablutions were
carried out in the open field. We would only wash our
hands and face and shave using cold water.
I personally would scrub myself in the bath at home when
I went on leave. In summer we had the luxury of a shower,
thanks to empty four gallon petrol can with the top
removed. The bottom would be pierced with a bayonet and
then hung to a carob tree branch. While one man stood
under the can, his comrade would pour water into it. The
procedure was then reversed.
Toilets as we know them were unheard of in the field so
the army provided metal sheds with a wooden door (three
feet by three feet by six feet high). Inside was a large
bucket with a wooden top with a hole in it, to serve as a
seat. The bucket was meant to be changed daily by a
contractor but on occasions he did not turn up.
There was no hot water to wash our plates with since the
small amount of kerosene allotted to each gun site was
used for cooking and for lighting our hurricane lamps. So
we poured a little water into the soil to turn it into mud and
would then scrub our plates with the mud to remove the
grease and rinse them in a tub full of water.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 7
On the guns
Each gunner had to perform four hour or sometimes six
hour stints as sentry on the gun position, come rain or
shine. Each duty lasted two hours. NCOs and the cook
were exempt from sentry duty and there would be two men
on leave every day.
Sentry duty in
summer mornings
was tedious since
the sentry had to
wear his fatigue
uniform, made of
thick denim. He
also wore his steel
helmet and had no
other shelter from the sun. In winter, at night, especially
for the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. duty I would wear a pullover and
battledress beneath my fatigue uniform and an army 'great
coat', and I still felt cold.
It was the sentry's duty to wake up the gun detachment in
case of an "air alarm" by blowing three blasts on his
whistle or at sunrise for the detachment to man the gun for
an hour. This was referred to as ‘stand to’. Should an
enemy plane fly in undetected by the radar, the guns would
be manned and ready to engage any enemy aircraft which
came within range. Another ‘stand to’ took place at sunset.
After the morning ‘stand to', we would go to our billet and
clean up the room, place our ‘biscuits' on top of each
other, fold the blankets (in winter) neatly and place them
and the bolster pillow on the ‘biscuits’ at the head of the
bed/bunk.
After that it was breakfast time. Breakfast consisted of half
a sausage or half a rasher of bacon, some baked beans, a
mug of tea and a slice of bread spread with margarine.
Occasionally we got a teaspoon of marmalade. Dry ration
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 8
biscuits sometimes substituted for bread. One could not ask
for second helpings. Breakfast over; it was ablution time,
always, of course, if there was no air raid in progress.
After ablutions came gun
maintenance. This
consisted of washing the
paintwork of the gun (the
mounting, the girders, and
the wheels) and cleaning
and lubricating the firing
mechanism and the gun
barrel's interior.
Tea break was at 10.30, and afterwards our time was free
unless there was an air alarm. Lunch would be at around
12.30 p.m. and would consist of either half a tin of corned
beef or half a tin of M&V (meat and vegetables), mashed
potatoes made from powdered dehydrated potatoes and
dried vegetables and two slices of bread.
When the cook was in the mood he would make meat balls
out of the corned beef and vegetable soup from the dried
vegetables. For dessert it was mainly dried apricots which
were boiled, with a bit of custard at times. Rarely were we
given tinned fruit.
After lunch we could rest on our bunks/beds and these
would be left made for the night. The army did not supply
us with sheets but we were given three blankets besides a
bolster and of course the ‘biscuits’ for bedding.
At 4 p.m. we would get a mug of tea. After that it was free
time. We would either kick a ball around in an adjacent
field or play cards or read a magazine.
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 9
Military discipline
One afternoon, the Commanding Officer walked into our
billet unannounced. We all stood to attention. He looked
around to see if the room was clean and checked if we had
all showered that morning.
While checking me, he noticed that one of the two hooks
which fastened my fatigue blouse collar close to my neck
was undone. I was told off for being improperly dressed
and warned that I would lose a day's leave if it were to
happen again. Such was military discipline in those days.
Supper consisted of a slice of bread, a sardine, a piece of
cheese and a mug of tea, before or after ‘stand to’,
depending on the season. After ‘stand to’ we could sit on
our kit boxes and chat or play cards in the light of a
hurricane lamp.
At 9 p.m. we would get into our beds and sleep, to be
awakened during the night for our turn of sentry duty or to
man the gun if an air alarm was sounded. In fact, we slept
with our clothes on not to waste time.
But the most strenuous job for me came
when the ammunition truck called at the gun
site to replace the ammunition that had been
spent since its last visit. This meant that the
gunners available would have to carry metal
boxes containing 24 empty cartridges in
carton sleeves from the ammunition dump to
the truck and bring back the same number of cases with
live ammunition.
Although each box had two handles, the men who were
used to carrying heavy loads on their shoulders in civilian
life before being conscripted thought nothing of it. But I,
an 18 year old school leaver, carrying a box full of arms
on my shoulder made my back feel as if it were going to
break under the weight. For all this we were paid two
shillings, equivalent to today's ten cents, a day
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 10
I cannot say that taking action during a raid was
something I looked forward to. In fact, we all felt a bit
tense, but when the guns started firing we would forget the
tension.
There came a time when ammunition got very scarce and
each gun was rationed to fire 10 rounds a day and this at
bombers before dropping their bombs.
One day a Bofors gun sited on the Ricasoli side of the
Grand Harbour overlooking the breakwater, shot down a
German bomber, a Ju-88. But it had already dropped its
bombs over the Dockyard and was on its way home.
The No.1 of the gun, a Sergeant Azzopardi, was going to
face court martial for wasting ammunition. Luckily some
top brass interceded on his behalf and he was let off with a
warning.
Credits
Capt. George Pace Balzan
The Sunday Times of Malta
Mr. Victor Filletti
Mr. Godwin Hampton
Major Denis Rollo, “The Guns and Gunners of Malta”
Capt. Joseph Wismayer
Capt. Saviour P. Portelli
3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library).
Updated 15 July 2015
alexabela3@gmail.com
top related