THE 166TH IN ITALY

Apart from the expected and accepted trials and dangers of fighting a war, the summer and fall of 1944 in Italy was a fairly pleasant experience. The German Army was slowly withdrawing northwards and there were no major battles as the British and Allied Forces maintained sufficient pressure to ensure that some forward momentum was maintained.

After the battle for Cassino and the subsequent breakthrough the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment, Royal Artillery moved forward with the Infantry through Rome and through the heart of Italy the hills and plains of Lombardia. It was harvest time, the end of the war seemed to be drawing nearer and the days were warm and sunny.

The air seemed filled with music as the farmers returned from the fields in the evening and from the long lines of carts carrying the labourers a pleasant, seemingly endless chant of music and song could be heard as they passed by our guns. The song of the field workers was called "Stornelli di Compagna" and the beautiful melody still lingers.

The river Arno was crossed and the beautiful city of Florence was taken without much damage being inflicted by the retreating Germans or the advancing Allied forces.

To the north of the city of Florence the snow-capped peaks of the Apennines loomed in the distance and the road to Bologna wound through the Futa Pass.This natural defensive position was referred to by the Germans as the Gothic Line and it certainly appeared to be an impregnable fortress as the Allied advance moved northward towards the heart of Europe.

As we advanced through the foothills of the Apennines progress was slowed to a crawl as the retreating Germans had demolished all bridges and in some places had literally blown the roadway away from the cliff face. Creating diversions around these obstacles was a severe test for the Royal Engineers. The Germans had also demolished a great number of Italian Factories which were concentrated in the floor of the valley. Some of these Factories had been manufacturing boots, shoes, cloth, buttons and furniture. There were large amounts of these materials to be found in the ruins of the warehouses. The materials were of no use to soldiers in action but provided great bargaining material for Italian civilians in nearby villages.

Some of our people became clothing salesmen as a joint venture and found themselves in difficulty with the military police as they "borrowed" a military jeep for use as a delivery vehicle.

In this part of the country there was a great amount of activity by Italian Partisans. Captain McCosh and I spent some time with their headquarters in the town of Pistoia. They seemed to be less interested in fighting the Germans than in looting the surrounding neighbourhood and had acquired great amounts of pilfered material.

Not far from Pistoia we had an observation post in a place called "Femina Morte", which translates into English as "Dead Woman". a rather quaint place name I thought.

Harvest time was over and autumn was rapidly approaching as we advanced through the Gothic Line and gradually climbed past the snow line in the Apennines. The snow was a strange and new experience to the soldiers of the South African Division to which our regiment was attached. Most of them had never seen flakes of snow falling from the heavens and it was amusing to watch battled hardened soldiers standing with their mouths open catching the falling flakes in their tongues. Later they discovered that one could ski and slide on this strange white stuff. As a result, the Division suffered more casualties from skiing and sliding accidents than from battle wounds. It was quite a common occurrence to see three or four South Africans careening down a steep hill that wiser people would not attempt.

Conditions for moving guns and materials forward were so bad that it soon became evident that the Allied advance to Bologna would have to wait for the weather to improve.

The Regiment reached a small village called Pian di Setta and it soon became clear that we were going to occupy that position through the winter of 1944/45. Pian di Setta was an interesting little town. It was located in a valley with quite steep sides and at the end of the valley was the mouth of a railway tunnel which wound for several miles through the mountains. The Germans had blown away the tunnels exit to render it useless to the Allies. Where the railway tracks emerged from the tunnel spur lines had been built on a series of steps on both sides of the valley forming a marshalling yard for trains. Some weeks prior to our arrival at Pian di Sette, the Allied Air Forces had targeted the marshalling yard and the floor of the valley was littered with the wreckage of trains that had been occupying the tracks on the many levels on both sides of the hills rising from the floor of the valley.

One of the trains destroyed by the bombing was the private train of Benito Mussolini. Even the wreckage presented an air of elegance and evidently Il Duce enjoyed comfort. Some of the material provided a measure of comfort through the long cold winter for the Newfoundland Gunners as the advance northward towards Bologna ground to a halt and we were forced to create living quarters for ourselves out of anything available in a hostile environment.

Some of the shelters created by the Gunners were quite comfortable and showed great initiative and ingenuity. At the end of the valley a group of Battery Headquarters Mechanics laid claim to a bombed out building that was once a grain mill. The ruins of the building stood on the bank of a river. What had been the main floor had evidently been the residence of the mill manager. It had the remains of a water fountain in the courtyard and a large vestibule with a staircase and many rooms. There were remnants of three stories rising above the main floor and a huge open room below at the level of the river.

The building had been hit by at least one bomb and a great many shells. It had collapsed on to the third floor and in some places the third and second floors had fallen onto the ceiling of the first floor.

There was one large room which was more or less intact, opening off the main entrance hall. The rubble from the two floors above was piled high over the ceiling and rather than spend days clearing it away a large tarpaulin was spread over it which made the room almost, but not quite weather tight. The room had a huge fireplace which promised to provide comfort for the occupants through what looked like a long cold winter ahead. Someone found a valve that proved to be the one that controlled the water to the fountain outside and this provided a source of running water. With a minor change in the piping we had a constant source of water delivered to our living quarters.

In early December of 1944 the weather in the Appennines was quite cold and snow fell almost every day. Our big fireplace was greatly appreciated both for the heat provided and for cooking purposes.

To provide fuel for our fireplace we used all the floor joists from the collapsed floors and where the floors were not already collapsed this demolition work was carried out. This sometimes turned into a very tricky job. On the third floor, or what remained of it, there was a hallway which ran the length of the building, about sixty feet. The roof trusses, tiles, etc. were piled in a heap on the floor when the roof was blown off. A great pile of firewood was salvaged from this rubble, but eventually all the usable material was used up. Then we had to find a way to collapse the third floor down onto the second floor. This tricky manoeuver was accomplished by carefully chopping away the ends of the floor joists where they butted on the edge of the hallway. The result, when the last joist was chopped through, was a very interesting experience. Hundreds of tons of wood, brick, tile and concrete swung downward against the outside wall which stood above the river then fell in a great heap onto the floor below.

Fortunately, the whole building did not collapse into the river and the hallway where we were standing left us staring at the great gaps that had opened up between the narrow floor space on which we stood, the outside stone wall and the floor below. I can never forget the sight that faced us. The building, having been a grain mill , was infested with rats. And they were very well fed rats! There were literally thousands of them nesting among the pile of debris which we had disturbed. Deprived of their hiding place they covered the standing outside wall, running back and forth, up and down, in the crevices between the building stones. At this point in the war almost everyone had a German Luger or some other sort of side-arm and there was a seemingly endless supply of German ammunition along the sides of the roads. So we had a real live shooting gallery for a while as the rats scurried around on the wall about forty feet in front of us. We reduced the rat population a great deal but obviously we did not eliminate them as we later learned.

British Army rations being what they were then it was essential that every means be used to augment your food supply. Sometimes it was possible to "liberate" a small pig or a sheep and at one point on the Sangro River I saw one of our brawny cooks attempting to stun a large bullock which had somehow become orphaned by the war. When he hit it between the eyes with the butt of the fire axe the bullock merely blinked at him and the second and third swing did not produce the necessary results either. It was finally dispatched with a Thompson sub-machine gun. Crude but effective.

Our group of five had accumulated some basic supplies of flour, potatoes, tea, sugar and other staples which were added to whenever the opportunity arose, such as when the cook was not looking. Following the Newfoundland tradition, even though we were five years and three thousand miles from home we usually had a mug of tea and a snack around nine or ten o'clock in the evening. Sometimes we had the ingredients to make pancakes, although I can never remember any baking powder being available. A pinch of Andrews Liver Salts, which was always obtainable from the NAAFI, was usually substituted. I remember some daring souls using a pinch of wood ash as a substitute for baking powder with no apparent ill effects. We usually had some bread available which could be toasted over the embers in the hugh fireplace which was the centerpiece of our billet and on occasion some jam for the toast.

Then there were potato chips. Potatoes were not too hard to acquire and often it was just a matter of digging them. One of the great war-time shortages was fat, or cooking oil in which to fry chips and this presented some problems. The Italians , of course used olive oil, but they usually guarded their supply of olive oil most carefully and in any case fat or butter was our preferred chip-frying medium. In order to accumulate an assured supply we had a huge round can which held a gallon or more and after each meal when we returned from the cook-house any remaining "surplus" butter was deposited in this can. As the supply was usually augmented daily the level of fat was almost always at the half full mark.

In January of 1945 the rumour filtered down that after being snowed in since October we would shortly be moving out of action and to mark the occasion it was decided that we would splurge on our accumulated supplies and have a real "scoff".

Mike was designated as the "chip frier" and this required him to sit in front of the blazing hearth to watch over the cooking process. His temper was getting a trifle short with the heat and the fact that the rest of us were continually sampling the fried chips as they came from the pan and were deposited in another pan near the fire. So, an exasperated Mike announced that he would fry one more batch of chips and that would be the end of his chore.

Having made his decision he proceeded to turn the can with our fat supply upside down onto the frying pan so that the remaining solid portion would drop down onto the hot pan. When he removed the inverted can there, sitting on the frying pan, slowly melting away was a solid chunk of fat, the remaining three or four inches from the bottom of the can. The bottom inch or two was crystal clear while the upper part was white. But, curled around the circumference of the chunk was a huge rat embalmed in the clear fat with his tail extended all the way around the can. I don't recall anyone eating the remainder of Mike's chips that night.

The remains of Benito Mussolini's train provided some cooking and eating utensils but probably the most useful objects salvaged were the huge banks of batteries which supplied the train with power. These were 12 volt wet cell batteries and there were so many of them that there was no need to re-charge them - one simply used one section at a time to provide light by connecting a discarded headlight from a wrecked vehicle.

The village of Pian di Setta was small and there were not many children remaining there, most having fallen back to Bologna with the retreating Germans. We were able to bring chocolate bars and candy to the Parish Priest at Christmas from parcels received from home and from our mobile canteen.

Near the Parish Church was a barbershop and sometimes after Mass some "Q" Battery people would go there for a haircut. The first Sunday we visited the shop there were several local residents sitting in chairs waiting to be served along with a group of five or six Newfoundlanders. The Barber's wife was a young, very pretty Italian girl who did not understand a word of English and was obviously not comfortable trying to work with a bunch of foreign-speaking soldiers carrying on in the barber shop. She was engaged in shaving an elderly Italian with a wrinkled neck and probably because of our presence she had nicked his throat in several places and there was some bleeding. I'm sure we were of no help at all in the circumstances and to add to the poor girls problem we suggested that she give him "un pocina d'aqua" to see if his throat was leaking. I'm not so sure that the barbers wife enjoyed the incident but everyone else, including the man being shaved joined in the laughter.

On February 16,1945 a Regimental Reconnaissance Party left the Gun Position to drive south through the Futa Pass toward the walled City of Lucca.. Our section of the front line was passed over to an American Artillery Regiment. Where we had been navigating the roads and tracks through the mountain passes without benefit of headlights the Americans arrived in our sector with full headlights on illuminating the whole valley. The German gunners evidently welcomed the change and were presented with targets they had never enjoyed before.

The drive down through the Futa Pass was one that I shall always remember. There was a comforting feeling that we were leaving the front lines for good and that our days in action were at an end - at least that was our hope. When we left the Gun Position early in the morning it was snowing and very cold. An hour or two later as we wound our way southward through the mountains the temperature got quite noticeably warmer and Greatcoats, Balaclavas and Mittens could be thrown aside. When we emerged on to the Lombardy Plains in the early afternoon we were driving by fields with Farmers working, the pleasant smell of spring was in the air and the world seemed at peace. It was difficult to believe that just fifty or so miles through the mountains men were living and dying in cold and snow and discomfort. It was, in a few hours, a transition from War to Peace.

We passed through the City of Lucca in the early afternoon. Lucca, is a very ancient city surrounded by high walls and it had not been damaged by the fighting as far as could be seen. The shops were open and appeared to be well stocked. Civilian traffic, even street cars, were operating and there was little to suggest that the country was embroiled in a war.

The regimental area allocated to the 166th was about four miles outside the town in a rural farming area which was just being vacated by American troops. Our reconnaissance party was able to shop in the American Post Exchange before it closed down and we were able to buy soft drinks and chocolate bars for the first time in years.

Our task was to find accommodation for the men of Regimental Headquarters and our three Batteries and to do this we had to commandeer a number of Italian houses and move the residents out. There was a large mental hospital surrounded by a high wire fence in the area and hundreds of patients lined the fence asking for chocolate and cigarettes. In the compound nearest to us I remember one patient , a woman , who was dressed in a plain canvas dress and who stood out amongst the other female patients because she had a huge black bushy beard. She was busily engaged in knitting a sweater and presented quite an interesting sight as she aggressively worked her knitting needles while standing inside the chain link compound fence. Because of her striking appearance she attracted more chocolate bars and cigarettes which were passed to her through the high fence.

A day or two after arriving in Lucca word was received that authority had been given for groups to be given leave in Newfoundland. This news together with the Allied advances in Western Europe, gave us a feeling that the regiment would not be seeing and more action and that the war would soon be over.

Then came the list of names of the first groups to leave for Naples and home. It is impossible to describe the feelings of those sixty-six men selected for the first home leave draft. At that time, February 1945, we had been away from home for FIVE years and it was almost impossible to believe that there was a life other than the Army. For more than a year and a half we had lived the roughest kind of a life. Only on rare occasions did we have even a partial roof over our heads and for the most part we ate and slept in the open in rain, snow, cold and danger. The comfort and peace of home was something that had all but faded from memory.

Late in February 1945 we left on the first leg of our journey by road past the Leaning Tower of Pisa and south on the coast road to Rome and Naples. The weather was warm and spirits were high as we moved further away from the active war zone and through parts of Italy that had not been scarred by war but were tranquil and peaceful.

We had to spend a few days in a Transit Camp in Naples while waiting for a ship to take us to England and while there we had an opportunity to visit the Blue Grotto of Sorrento, the Isle of Capri and the Ruins of Pompeii, all of which were the most interesting and educational.

One of the buildings in Naples that had been taken over by the British Forces was the Royal Palace - the one time home of the Viceroy of King Philip III, King of Spain and Naples. In 1599 when the palace was built Naples was ruled by Spain and Italy did not exist as a single country.

It was a beautiful building containing priceless works of art, which were mostly intact and the view from the raised gardens across the Bay of Naples with Mount Vesuvius as a backdrop was really impressive.

It seemed to be a desecration that the Palace was taken over and used as a restaurant for Allied Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen but it must be said that there was no evidence that any damage had been done to the valuable paintings, sculptures etc. by the thousands of servicemen who used the facilities daily.

Parts of the city of Naples were badly damaged by Allied bombs and artillery but it was beginning to return to normal peacetime activities except for the thousands of British, American, French and other soldiers, sailors and airmen who thronged the streets.

I was trying to describe to my son recently, how it felt to be a member of the occupation forces in a conquered country. I had never really tried to analyze the feelings that I can only describe as a feeling of superiority. It seems to me there was little or no regard for the civil rights of the Tunisians, the Libyans or the Arabs in North Africa or the Italians in Italy. Perhaps it was just the difference in the times; comparing the 1940's with the 1990's.

When the Army needed housing for its troops it was simply a matter of taking over the houses required as we did in Lucca. The people were just told that space was required for a set number of men and no thought was given to the possibility that the residents might object, or that it might be a serious inconvenience. Some probably were pleased to have troops billeted with them and they probably ate a bit better while we were there.

While Military Police were a force to be reckoned with, the Carabinieri or Civil Police commanded little or no respect from British or American soldiers on the streets of cities like Naples, Rome or Florence. They probably resented being treated like a conquered people and having their uniform and their presence generally ignored by occupied troops.

Three days after our arrival in Naples we boarded a Troop Ship and arrived in Liverpool on 5 March 1945 without any sign of enemy action. On the next day we left by train for Glasgow and Glenoch from where we were taken on a small vessel out through the Forth of Clyde to tie up alongside the largest ship we had ever seen, R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth. We stepped from the main deck of our Tender on to "D" Deck of the QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Once aboard we were lined up on parade between number one and number two funnels and assigned our duties for the crossing. I found myself part of a group assigned to man the big 6 inch gun which was mounted on a platform built out over the stern of this huge ship.

The ship was too fast to travel in convoy and crossed the ocean throughout the war without benefit of any naval escort. Once out of the Irish sea the QUEEN ELIZABETH sailed in a zig-zag course at well in excess of thirty knots. It was quite a thrill to stand on the gun platform where one could look back at the moonlight reflecting on the wide wake and feel the motion of the mighty ship as she changed course. With its tremendous speed no U-boat could hope to overtake it.

Of the thousands of American Servicemen on board many were wounded soldiers who had been involved in the "D-Day" landings. A large area of the ship was used as a floating hospital. To reach our dining area we had to pass through part of the hospital area and many of our chaps stopped to chat with some of the bed-ridden patients. We found that the Americans were very anxious to hear about Italy when they learned that our fellows had been involved in that campaign as well as the North African campaign.

I met a young chap whose bed was near the doorway. His family was Italian and had come from Lanciano where our Regiment had spent some time. Each time we passed his bed on the way to the dining area he would have some question to ask about Italy and was most anxious to know if we had brought along any souvenirs. His home was in Boston where his family operated a big construction firm. He insisted that I visit after the war but I lost his name and address and I have never been able to recall it. His bedside chart showed that he was being sent back to the States for discharge suffering from "anxiety neurosis". I have often wondered what became of him.

Five days after leaving Liverpool the QUEEN ELIZABETH entered New York Harbour. The ship was bringing home some fifteen thousand U.S. Servicemen from the battlefields of Europe and they were accorded a heroes welcome home. The great ship was surrounded by dozens of ferry boats and pleasure craft as she eased her way into the harbour past the Statue of Liberty on Bedloes Island. Fire tugs threw streams of water from their hoses high into the air and on the decks of the ferries several bands played as they circled the QUEEN ELIZABETH.

The huge ship was eased into Pier 51 shortly after lunch and as we were the only foreign troops aboard we were the last to disembark several hours later. We were taken by Bus through the City of New York to Grand Central Station later that evening to board a train to Montreal.

Ladies from the American Red Cross served coffee and doughnuts at the station while we waited for our train. They displayed great interest in this group of Newfoundland soldiers who were just returning from the war in North Africa and Italy. They provided us each with a khaki "HOUSEWIFE" containing shaving gear, toothpaste and Sewing Kit - I still have mine.

On arrival in Montreal next morning our draft was met by a transport officer from No. 4 District Depot Placement Wing and we crossed the Jacques Cartier Bridge to the Camp at Longoeul.

When we went to the Dining Hall for breakfast we were struck by the difference between an Army Camp in Canada and a British Army Military Camp. We thought the breakfast was a special one put on as a welcoming gesture but found that this was standard fare for the Canadian Army.

The food and the serving was a far cry from the dining hall at Woolwich where we first encountered "Army Food". It was hard to believe that we could have a choice of fried, boiled or scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes, orange juice, tea, coffee or milk. The milk impressed me more than anything else. It was available in large jugs on every table - real creamy whole milk. I had not tasted real milk for five years and it was really a treat. We all concluded that fighting a war under these conditions could be considered fun.

After five days in Montreal the draft boarded a train again for the next phase of our journey home and arrived in Sydney, Nova Scotia on Sunday,25 March. Here ,again, the old army saying, "Hurry up and Wait" hit us again and we spent the next few days housed in a YMCA Building waiting for the Ferry to take us to Port aux Basques.

After the Ferry crossing we boarded the Newfoundland Express for the trip to St. John's. One notable change was the fact that we were not provided with sleeping berths and faced a twenty-eight hour trip across country in a not too comfortable seat.

Members of the first home leave draft whose homes were in and around Corner Brook were the first to disembark. The crowded station at Corner Brook provided a real Newfoundland welcome to the returning Gunners : Bowers, Bouzanne, Caines , Chaffey , Glover, Myrden ,Mckay, Normore, Oxford, Penney and A.White.

Then across the Gaff Topsails to Grand Falls where a Band and hundreds of relatives and friends waited at Windsor Station to welcome the men from the area returning home on leave. Gunners: Downton, Fisher, Hall, Hanlon, Haytor, Hillier, House, Ivany, Jackman, Payne and Winslow.

The train stopped at Gander after dark on Wednesday and a large group of Service personnel and Civilians crowded the station to extend a welcome.

Our train arrived at the station in St. John's just before 7.00 am on Thursday, 29 March,1945 and the largest group of the First Home Leave Draft from the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment disembarked to be welcomed home by hundreds of relatives, friends and well-wishers. Major Bill Black was in charge of the draft with: McNeily, Lemessurier, Ash, Bennett, Butt, Caines, Carnell, Casey, Coady, Chancey, Channing, Coleman, Cooper,J., Cooper,W., Crane, DeHann, Foley, Furlong, Graham, Guest, Guzzwell, Hart, Hawco, Hookey, Hurley, Jardine, Kirby, Maidment, Mallard, Malone, Meyers, Morgan, Morris, Mugford, Murray, McCarthy, Noel, Noonan, Nugent, Oakley , Stone, Vail, Vivian, Walsh,, Oldford, O'Rielly, Reddy, Ring, Sharpe, Simms, Scurry, Squires, Stone, Vail, Vivian, Walsh, W.White and Wood.

Private cars carried the members to the Red Triangle Club on Water Street West where an official welcome took place after which the men were conveyed to their homes to enjoy a twenty-eight day Leave.

A second group of Gunners arrived back in Newfoundland a few weeks later and before their twenty-eight day leave had expired the war in Europe had come to an end and this group did not have to return to re-join the Regiment in Italy.

The First Home Leave Draft however left St. John's to return to Italy on 26 April,1945 travelling by train to Montreal and from there by train to Newport News, Virginia. We spent several days in a U.S. Army Depot called Camp Patrick Henry, just outside Richmond, Virginia.

On 4 May,1945 we boarded the USS West Point which, before being converted to a Troopship was the SS United States, the largest US ship afloat. The SS United States won the HALES TROPHY for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic beating the time set by the Queen Mary and the French liner Normandie. The crossing was made from New York to England in 3 days,10 hours averaging better than 35 knots.

Our Home Leave draft of 78 with some 50 US Navy personnel and 8 US Nurses were the only passengers on the huge Liner which was scheduled to bring back some 15,000 US Servicemen from Naples on the return trip.

Three days out from Newport News a special edition of the ship's newspaper called "Pointers Pup" announced the surrender of the German Forces in Europe and the cessation of hostilities. I still have a copy of the paper.

The ship crossed the South Atlantic and sailed north along the Gold Coast of South Africa to enter the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. We spent a few hours in the port of Oran and arrived in Naples on 11 May,1945 after a most interesting ocean voyage. One of the interesting features of the West Point was the Post Exchange Store which carried a full line of goods at the most reasonable prices. For instance I was able to buy a pair of "John White" shoes for $2.50 ; cigarettes sold for 50 cents a carton ; a genuine leather wallet cost 75 cents.

The Regiment was billeted in a Transit Camp a few miles outside the City of Naples near the village of Cancello and was surrounded by grape vineyards and right in the middle of an orchard with Apricot and Plum trees which were just ripening.

Shortly after our arrival we began turning in our guns and vehicles and we began a new and strange experience in army life. Each day brought a new rumour. One that worried many of us was the rumour that we may be sent to Burma but this was replaced a few days later by a new rumour.

Meanwhile, time dragged on. There was no training to be done, no parades - guard duty was a casual affair. Leave parties were arranged for any who wanted to visit Rome, Venice or any other part of Italy and truck transportation was fairly readily available. There was one important caveat - you had to be very careful not to leave a Jeep or any other vehicle unattended. The Italians could hi-jack a vehicle and have it stripped to the ground in a matter of minutes.

The US Air Force had a Depot just across the road from ours and in a field nearby they had stored hundreds of 500 pound bombs. They were piled in groups of five with a fifty foot spacing between piles. We were all awakened one night convinced that Mount Vesuvius, which was nearby, had erupted. The bombs were Parachute Bombs and the Italians had discovered that if you removed the end caps the parachutes provided many yards of silk material. In an effort to put a stop to the stealing some genius had decided to rig a booby trap with a trip wire to scare away the intruders. Unfortunately the booby trap exploded the bombs and a chain reaction was set up amongst the piles of bombs.

After a number of false starts the day finally arrived when the troopship to take us back to the United Kingdom docked in Naples and we said goodbye to the few English and Scottish personnel who would be remaining behind.

When we marched on to the dock in Naples we discovered that the troopship that would take us back to Liverpool was none other than the Duchess of Richmond. This was the same ship which had carried the first draft from St. John, N.B. and the first Corner Brook draft from Quebec City to Liverpool in 1940. But there was a significant difference in the accommodations. Where, in April,1940, we occupied First Class Cabins and Dining facilities, in July,1945 we were squeezed into hammocks four decks down in Number 2 Hold.

We stopped at Gibraltar that night. Those on board lined the rails watching the activities in this busy port which was lit by floodlights. It was so much like daylight that the seagulls did not rest but continued flying through the night. While we were there HMS Vampire, a British Submarine, returned from patrol in the Mediterranean. Her Crew of British Naval personnel lined the deck of the little vessel as she entered the port and from one end of the deck of the Duchess to the other a rousing cheer went up from each section as the little Sub passed underneath on her way to her berth. The Army salutes the Navy.

After the brief stop at Gibraltar we arrived at Liverpool on 2 August and travelled by train to Saffron Waldron and a Depot called Wimbish Camp. Members of the 59 Newfoundland Heavy Regiment had been billeted at Wimbish prior to our arrival.

Because our arrival in Britain from Italy had been

delayed due to problems with arranging transportation our Regiment did not arrive in time to leave for home on a transport ship that had been scheduled for us and another draft from the 59th was sent in our place.

The highlight of our stay at Wimbish was the day we were fitted with Civilian Clothes at a huge store in Nottingham. Watching comrades changing from the very familiar Khaki Battle Dress to various coloured double and single breasted suits with new, bright coloured ties and felt hats provided some moments of hilarity.

We came to realize that five years wearing the same drab uniform was not an experience that could be changed by a simple change of clothing. Everyone looked strange and unfamiliar in their new clothes, none of which seemed to fit properly. The shift from Army life to Civilian life was not going to be easy.

After being fitted with "Civvies" and undergoing medical examinations the first repatriation draft was made ready and left by train for Liverpool on 6 August,1945.

Left behind at Camp Wimbish were the English Officers who had been attached to the 166th together with a substantial number of Newfoundlanders who had married or intended to marry girls in Great Britain.

On 7 August we boarded the SS Cameronian at Liverpool for Halifax and Home. The ship was carrying a large number of Canadian Army personnel and a great deal of money changed hands on the voyage in Poker Games and a number of Crown & Anchor games.

The ship arrived off Halifax Harbour on the 15th of August and we wondered why we did not enter the port until a day or two later. Afterwards we learned the reason we were kept at sea for these extra days was because troops in Halifax had gone on a rampage to celebrate V.J. Day with wild parties, overturning vehicles, starting fires, breaking store windows along Barrington Street and general mayhem and the authorities decided they did not want to add another 3000 returning Veterans to the riots.

After we had disembarked we were brought by trucks to a Transit Camp at Bedford Basin and for the next few days we enjoyed Canadian Army Hospitality while waiting for the SS Lady Rodney to arrive to take us home

While we were held up in Halifax the Regiment suffered its final fatal casualty before it was disbanded. Gunner Bill Garland who had sailed with the First 400 in April, 1940 fell from a narrow footbridge while crossing a river near the Camp and was drowned.

When the Lady Rodney sailed from Halifax on 20 August for St. John's Bill Garland's coffin was carried on board and on arrival in St. John's it was carried ashore by an Honour Guard of his Comrades and placed on a hearse in the Freight Shed at Furness Withy. He was buried with full military honours in Belvedere Cemetery.

For most of the members of the 166th aboard the Lady Rodney as she approached St. John's on 22 August 1945 this was their first sight of home in five long years. For many it was the first time they had sailed in through the "Narrows" and seen the old town from the sea. It was a very moving experience. For myself I recall thinking of the words of an old Irish Poem - "The Exiles Return" :

God be praised - but there it is,

The dawn on the hills of Ireland;

God's Angels lifting the night"s dark veil

From the dear sweet face of my Sireland

O Ireland,isn't it grand you look

Like a bride in her rich adorn'in,

With all the pent-up love in me heart

I bid you "the top of the mornin'"

Gerry Malone

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