The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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234161 Pte. Henry "Pat" Regan British Army 199th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps from:London My father, Henry Regan enlisted to the RAMC 199th Field Ambulance on 14th of March 1940 and had his initial training in the wards of the hospital at Millbank as a nursing orderly. For many years prior to the war, he had worked as a cook (1st class) in a London hotel, which is documented in army records now in my possession. For most of WW2 he served as both a nursing orderly and cook in North Africa and, as far as I know, his duties later took him to Malta and Italy. One day, while travelling through the desert in an ambulance, seated next to the driver and with injured servicemen on board, the vehicle came under fire from a passing German plane and, although the attack was thankfully brief, the driver was injured. My dad had never driven any motor vehicle before, but he took the wheel and the journey continued on to base camp without further incident. On hearing this tale as a young lad, I looked at my dad and asked, 'How did you manage to drive the ambulance with no previous driving experience then?' He grinned. 'When you're on a dusty road in the desert, there isn't a lot you could run into!' Apart from this story, my dad rarely spoke of the war. Many ex-servicemen, I imagine, would prefer to forget much of what they witnessed and did at that time. On the other hand, without the many spoken and written memories of those involved, we would have little, or no, knowledge of their individual experiences during such horrific times. On 20th of Feb 1945, he was granted leave to the UK and returned to service duties on 29th of March, remaining at Yorkhill Transit Camp until he was released to class Z under the conditions of Royal Army Reserve on 27th of July 1946. Raymond Regan Add to this record.  Related Content: Siege of Malta Italian Campaign Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. 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. Contact us. 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.