Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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211023
Sgt. Gerald Bendle
British Army Intelligence Corps Royal Welsh Fusiliers
from:Neath
My father, Gerald Bendle, enlisted in 1940 and was sent to Northern Ireland before sailing to India in 1943 on the SS Orontes. He was a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps and told me little about the war except that he was incredibly lucky. He learnt Hindi and travelled around India "gathering intelligence" on a motor bike. He was hospitalised in India twice once with pneumonia and once with a broken leg and on both occasions he missed postings from which no one in the battallion returned.
He returned to the UK in March 1946 and was unable to disembark immediately because there was illness on board and they had to fly the yellow flag.
Sadly he died on 3rd January 2013 and I suddenly regret not having found out more about this part of his life.