YESTERYEARS

As I said before I have been re-reading Spike Milligan's memoirs. Apart from being hilarious and an insight into the man and his art they have been especially interesting to me because his war experiences in North Africa and Italy are similar to my father's. Milligan, after a couple of years training in England, shipped out to Algiers with he 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery in January 1943. He saw action in North Africa through the El Alamein campaigns and the fall of Tunis. After Salerno he was in action in Italy around Naples and towards Cassino. He was blown up by a mortar round on January 20 1944 near Lauro  near Naples and suffered shell shock which took him out of the front lines. At this time my father was near Bari as the New Zealanders, after North Africa had landed at Taranto in the bottom left (East) of Italy. The New Zealand Divisional Cavalry was making its way up the East coast of Italy and the British were making their way up the West Coast to meet at Cassino on the way to Rome. Dad got blown up on 26 September 1944 by the Uso river near Florence. See:

http://grumpyoldmanreturnsnz.blogspot.com/2009/09/26-september-1944.html

I find it interesting that Milligan has photographs and describes places and events just like the photographs and stories that my father recounted. They were in the same theatre of war in Africa and Italy and must have, on different days, stood on the same ground.