and a erce bale erupted that went on through the night. Aer much ghng and a heroic
last stand by an arllery company ring at the tanks over open sights, the enemy aack was
nally halted and the Leicesters were able to lick their wounds and count their casuales. It
had been a rough introducon to war, with the baalion losing many men and Bill was lucky
to get through it.
The baalion regrouped and fought several more acons before the eventual
surrender of Axis forces in North Africa, they then moved to the coast for a rest before their
next tasking. Here they observed many German air raids on Allied shipping gathered at the
docks, the Germans knew that the Allied forces would not stop there, and that an aack on
mainland Europe could not be far away.
In September 1943, 2/5 Leicesters were part of Operaon AVALANCHE, the invasion
of mainland Italy. The Leicesters were part of the divisional reserve and not scheduled to
land on the beaches unl late in the evening of D-Day which was set for September 9
th
.
However the landings faced ser opposion than had been expected, and one troop ship
of Leicesters with Bill aboard was sent in ahead of me to help secure the beachhead.
Receiving mortar and machine gun re and taking casuales, they landed and joined the
fray; their numbers helping to ensure the beach was taken. The rest of the baalion landed
around 8 in the evening and they moved up to their objecve, constantly under re from
German forces who sll held high ground around them. As the next day dawned Bill
remembered seeing Brish warships o the coast, ring in support of the ground troops. A
ash and smoke could be seen coming from their main gun turrets and then projecles the
size of gas boles ew over their heads and on to the German posions beyond, without a
doubt this bombardment saved many Allied lives and enabled them to push inland and
towards Naples.
Bill was part of the An-Tank platoon in the Leicester’s Support Company and
remembered one day being tasked with ring on a church to remove a German sniper that
was causing a lot of problems, aer observing movement behind a window, a shot from his
6Pdr gun put a round through the church and silenced the sniper. As they grew more
established and went on the oensive, Bill was moved to a platoon that was given the task
of patrolling at night to discover the locaons of any enemy forces. Bill’s own recollecons of
the next few months don’t include much detail, but the baalion were heavily involved in
the drive for Rome and aacks along the coast on the German’s defensive ‘Gustav Line’ that
ran across this poron of Italy with Monte Cassino at its heart. As was to become a feature
of the Italian Campaign, the push north involved many opposed river crossings and the
scaling of mountain sides to remove the well dug in German defenders.
The winter of 1943/44 was especially harsh and not the kind of condions that suited
the fully mechanised Allied armies, the most reliable way of delivering supplies was by mule,
these hardy beasts forming a chain that led up mountain sides all over the areas of advance.
By February 1944 the baalion was exhausted and along with their parent division they
L i f e S t o r y P 2