The last post
19th February
“On the following morning, I could hardly move. I sent for the medical orderlies who carried me out on a stretcher. Although I did not know it then, it was the end of the war for me, for I landed at an aerodrome in Gloucestershire on that same stretcher.
The war was not over, however, for my section. They went on from Bedburg to Goch, and on over the Rhine, and into the very heart of Germany. Nor was the war over for the rest of the Brigade who went on, enhanced by the confidence which springs from experience. More battles lay ahead, and many more fell by the wayside before the war was over for them.”
Narrative: The diary ends here, but stay with me for a few more days. My dad said that he had contracted jaundice, apparently from the machine-gunned pig. It seems more likely that he had an acute liver infection, perhaps Hepatitis E, attributable to consistent poor diet and living conditions plus eating the unfortunate porker.
He described to me how, during his journey back to England, that he was slipping in and out of consciousness, but remembers lying very close to the roof of the transport that took him home. The war ended in Europe on 8th May 1945, by which time his regiment was in Hanover. It seems that he rejoined them there and spent his time guarding a large German Prisoner-of-War camp. It was whilst in Hanover that we know that this portrait of him was taken, because the photographer stamped the back of the print.