205307 Sgt. Harry Gill British 24th Coy Royal Army Service Corps from:Stone in Oxney, Kent I recently found this website and thought i should put finger to key in memory of my father Harry Gill T/45024 who served with the R.A.S.C.
He enlisted at Canterbury on 31.12.1930.These details come from his paybook, which I found recently. His first posting was in 1932, to Shanghai with the 12th coy. where he spent two years.Before being transferred to Eygpt where he serve with the 31st coy .Spending three years here. On returning home in March 1937 he was placed on the reserve list.
He was mobilized on 16th August 1939, and sent to France with the 24th coy attached to 2nd div BEF. He kept a diary of the events leading up to the Dunkirk evacuation. But it was lost or stolen along with his kitbag on a boat home. I wish now I had talked to him more about these historic times he lived through. But I remember his disapointment at the Belgium goverment for letting the Germans through. Also the desperate scenes of drunken soldiers milling about. And the destruction of supply dumps to stop them falling into the hands of the Germans, although he filled another kitbag with cigarettes at one of these before it was blown. Which made him quite popular on arrival back at camp in England. He also told me he drove all the way into Dunkirk, refusing to disable his truck on the outskirts as ordered. Perhaps it was an ambulance with wounded aboard (he always was a bit of a rebel). Then climbing a rope to board a ship in the harbour. Which upon arriving at a British port was turned away again as it was a French ship, and the French were still fighting. So he had to return to Dunkirk and find another ship home. His paybook states that was on 1st June 1940, a day when 68,000 troops were rescued. In May 1942 he was posted to East Africa with 22 LTC. And later with 31st I.B. coy. Where he helped push the Italians out of Abysinia and Somalia. Coming home to be demobbed at Guildford on 19.10.45.
I doubt there are many of his old comrades still about now. His best friend was a Scotsman named Nick, who I was named after, but whose address he lost long ago.
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