The Story of a Battalion: A Personal view

On 3 September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany. My father was still only fifteen – young enough to be evacuated from North London to Northampton! Exactly three years later he was conscripted into the army. A little over one year on he was landing as a reinforcement at Salerno. And a year after that, still only twenty, he was a corporal fighting on the Gothic Line. Seeing this young lad re-enacting the role of a British corporal during the 80th Anniversary commemorations at Monte Gridolfo in 2024 bought it home to me what my father must have looked like at the time, in a way that grainy black and white photos can’t really do.