Ron Levett's memories of his time in the British Liberation Army during World War II.

Ron Levett, born in Alfriston, East Sussex, enlisted in 1943 and joined the Royal Armoured Corps. After completing his training as a Driver Operator he was sent to Belgium to join the British Liberation Army, where he was posted to the Royal Scots Grays and then to the Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) signals troop. After the liberation of Germany he was based in Rotenburg. This is his story.

The new currency in Germany was the cigarette. They sold for four Reichsmarks each. Since there were 40 Marks to the Pound at this time it meant that each cigarette cost two shillings.

Life settled into a very pleasant routine. Reveille was at seven, followed by breakfast. Work parade was held at nine, after which we marched to the vehicle hangers. Very little actual work was done except the major operation of finding somewhere to sleep for a couple of hours.

Lunch was at 12.00 hrs after which we got cleaned up and changed into best uniform, with brasses and boots polished. The trucks left for Hamburg at around one thirty. It was now high summer with long hot days and very little rain.

After spending a very pleasant day in Hamburg, the trucks left Altona Bahnhof at around midnight. When we arrived back in camp at about two o'clock, there would be cocoa and cheese sandwiches waiting in the guardroom.

One night things went wrong. I think we must have had a driver who was new to the route because after driving for two hours, the street looked familiar and we found that we were back again at the Bahnhof. I seem to remember getting to bed that night in the early hours and our cocoa was cold.

I woke in the early hours one night with a dreadful stomach pain. I have never known such pain before or since. It felt as if a giant hand was twisting my intestines. When I got out of bed I found that the rest of the beds in the barrack room were already empty.

I went along to the toilet block only to find that all the cubicles were already occupied. There was nothing for it but to make for the woods, which were also rather full up. I believe that all of the other ranks were ill that night with severe food poisoning.

The Sick Parade next morning stretched about a hundred yards from the sick bay. Everybody was excused work all that day. The outbreak was traced to some re-heated meat, something that would never be allowed today.

On June 18th the regiment celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo when an ensign of the regiment captured the French standard. The eagle emblem on this has been the Greys cap badge ever since. The day is very similar to Christmas Day in that tea in bed is served to other ranks, followed by lunch served by the officers in the mess hall.

This was a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings. That night one of the Staff Sergeants in the Quartermaster's department started playing the bagpipes at about six in the evening, then carried on playing and marching up and down the stores, pausing only for an extra drink of beer, until the early hours of the following morning.

Later that summer I was given fourteen days home leave, the first I had had since going overseas. The journey home was long and arduous. The first stage was by regimental transport as far as Osnabrück, where the party, if I remember correctly numbered about twenty, caught a train.

This took a very circuitous route all the way up to northern Holland in order to cross the Rhine, all the Rhine bridges in Germany having been destroyed. We had a short stop in Brussels where the WVS served tea and sandwiches.

We arrived in Calais in the early hours and were bussed to a Transit Camp. This was a very well organised place with tip-top meals, a cinema, which showed films continuously, and a shop where we could purchase cigarettes at NAAFI prices and comfortable lounges where we could wait for the Channel Ferry.

The ferry crossing was only a one and a half hour trip and at Dover there was a train waiting to carry us on to London. This train was also rather luxurious for a post-war train, with a Buffet and very comfortable seats compared to the German rolling stock with their wooden seats. A trip by tube across London from Liverpool Street to Victoria and I was soon on the train to Berwick via Brighton.

Ron Levett, 2001