The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War



This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.


If you enjoy this site

please consider making a donation.




    Site Home

    WW2 Home

    Add Stories

    WW2 Search

    Library

    Help & FAQs


 WW2 Features

    Airfields

    Allied Army

    Allied Air Forces

    Allied Navy

    Axis Forces

    Home Front

    Battles

    Prisoners of War

    Allied Ships

    Women at War

    Those Who Served

    Day-by-Day

    Library

    The Great War

 Submissions

    Add Stories

    Time Capsule

    TWMP on Facebook



    Childrens Bookshop

 FAQ's

    Help & FAQs

    Glossary

    Volunteering

    Contact us

    News

    Bookshop

    About


Advertisements











World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

221631

Cpl. Victor "Taffy" Kenchington

British Army 2nd Btn. Royal Irish Fusiliers

I served all through WW2, as I joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1937. I served in Malta from January 1938 until 1943. I have a lot of poems and stories of that period, but the story I want to tell is this:

I was a medical orderly and stretcher bearer in Leros, we were invaded by the German Brandeburgers and other units on the 12th of November 1943. One of my unit got injured and was left for 36 hours before we found him We were told where he was and I went out to pick him up with two other stretcher bearers. He was really badly injured, as he had been hit in the buttocks and legs, on seeing him, he kept asking 'could I please give him something to put him to sleep', all I could give him was 5 minims of morphine, I cut his clothes away, and the buttock wound was just a mass of maggots, he also had a compound fracture of his femur, I left the maggots and dressed his buttock wound with two shell dressings, put a dressing on his thigh, put him on the stretcher, tied a rifle sling on his ankle and to the handle of the stretcher. I gave him another shot of morphine, as we had a long walk back to the m.i.room, as we were behind enemy lines, and had to make a devious route back. We surrendered the island to the Germans to save lives, as we had no supplies, and everyone was made p.o.w.s. I was lucky as I was able to escape to Yatikavak in Turkey after rowing a boat 22 hours along with 3 others.

In 1946 when the war had finished I was stationed in Ballymena in Northern Ireland when a chap came to my room to say a chap wanted to see me at the guard room, on getting there this chap said "Hello Taffy", and burst out crying, he said his prayers were now answered, as he wanted to thank me for picking him up, but he had lost his leg. To me this was better than winning any medal, I was almost in tears myself.






Related Content:








Can you help us to add to our records?

The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them


Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?

If so please let us know.

Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.




Celebrate your own Family History

Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.

Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.














The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.

The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.

If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.



Hosted by:

The Wartime Memories Project Website

is archived for preservation by the British Library





Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved

We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.