Part II

After Tunisia came a period spent on an island which ranks highly among the more pleasant of my wartime memories, marred only by one adverse incident.

But briefly to tidy up events after the German surrender in Tunisia:

Someone in high places had held forth about 'the soft underbelly of Europe' being the easiest place to attack the Axis powers — erroneously, as it proved. To friend and enemy alike this indicated Sicily. So the Allied invasion fleet was gathered at Bizerta, a port in northern Tunisia, where our unit was established post-haste, and to which the enemy bombers from the mainland paid nightly visits of mounting ferocity to register their disapproval.

It was Bône plus.

Again, whether because of our vehicle camouflage or sheer luck we continued to lead a charmed life amid the chaos.

Sicily was invaded in July 1943, and in due course our unit sailed from Bizerta. We soon realised that we were not bound for Sicily, that our lone ship was going north to another destination altogether. This could only be — Sardinia...

The question was what sort of reception we would receive. We had heard rumours for some time that the Allies had been holding secret discussions with authorities in the Italian forces (not Mussolini or the Fascisti) who were increasingly coming to the realisation that they had picked the wrong side, and rather thought they would do better with the Allies.

But when we landed at Cagliari in Sardinia we had no definite knowledge of any agreement, so felt justified in feeling a certain degree of apprehension. We knew the German forces had abandoned Sardinia and removed to Corsica, leaving their Italian ally to its own devices...

So there we were: a small RAF unit, a sprinkling of British soldiers presumably for garrison purposes, and a mass of Italian soldiery not quite knowing what it was supposed to do...

But all was well: the Italians were even more apprehensive than we were, and their looks of concern quickly softened to smiles of acceptance as we set off on our journey north to Sassari.

Sassari must be classed as my favourite town visited during the war. Somehow it seemed to be apart from the drama that was convulsing the world. I recall how in the late afternoons and early evenings the youth (and the not-so-youthful) of the town would parade in the square and stroll backwards and forwards in little family groups, but in so orderly a manner as to suggest an old-time dance with precise choreography. It proceeded with great decorum, with girls always chaperoned by a brother or other male relative. The first time we were present at this charming ritual, my friend and I were invited for a drink by a gentleman whose office lay just off the piazza. He turned out to be the local mayor.

We joined in the parade and soon became acquainted with various families. Ida, a particularly beautiful girl whose family came from Genoa, invited us to her parents' farm near Sassari. She spoke reasonable English already but was keen to learn more, as I was to learn Italian. So we were pupil and teacher both. We corresponded during and for some years after the war, as indeed I did with another girl from Sassari.

It seems eccentric to speak of innocence in wartime, but only in such terms can I describe 'the happy Autumn days that are no more' — pace Tennyson — in Sassari over 60 years ago when I was a very young twenty.

Looking at the present world of 2006 one has a sense of having slipped into a parallel universe inhabited by a very different humanity.

Later we were joined by a USAF radar outfit which made camp next to us. More accurately they had been trained in radar but only in theory. They had no practical experience and no technical equipment. So we trained them by having a couple or so on every 'watch' (shift). We worked a 3-watch system on a 24-hour day. Actually a 23-hour day and one hour for maintenance when we were 'off the air'. This hour was a 'moveable feast' so the enemy couldn't take advantage by knowing when we were out of action. We soon established friendly relations, my friend and I particularly with the two operators on our watch, one a quiet-spoken, cultivated ex-teacher from the Bronx, the other in complete contrast a volatile extrovert from one of the Southern states.

In our free time from keeping a radar eye on Corsica in case the Germans were cooking up something nasty (they never did) we would visit Sassari to sample the local wine and explore generally. It was on one such occasion that occurred the incident aforementioned. We heard a distant sound which grew rapidly to a tumult, and round the corner surged an angry crowd, fists waving, voices raised in protest, and in the middle of this phalanx, the focus of dispute, our volatile American friend brandishing a wicked-looking knife and in a state obviously affected by the local brew.

Remembering that when menaced by a dog, the worst thing to do is to run, and stifling disturbingly craven instincts, we mustered our most winning smiles and walked towards the melee trying to give the impression that the ongoing scene was the most natural of occasions in the world.

My knowledge of Italian, meagre though it was, here proved its worth. Since one combatant spoke only English and the opposition only Italian, I was able to side with each party in turn while admonishing the other, thus placating everybody.

But I was relieved when our US friend suddenly recognised me through a momentary clearing of his drunken haze, despite the resulting burst of fulsome affection.

I never did discover the full nature of the dispute. Sufficient to the day —

A last word on this island, prompted by a recent re-reading of D. H. Lawrence's travel book 'Sea and Sardinia':

I found no trace in or around Sassari of any of the type of wild inhabitants that he describes. Even taking into account the 20 or so years between his visit and mine, it seems odd...

But we must grant him the author's right to be selective. Or did he get is islands mixed up?

End of Part 2