My father, Peter Kinnear, joined the RAMC after graduating from St. Andrews University. He served in North Africa, the Italian campaign and then in Northern Europe at and, I believe, immediately after the end of the war.
He rarely talked of the war, but described the North African campaign as a "gentleman's war" fought with professionalism and compassion in equal measure on both sides of the conflict. The early fighting against the Italians consisted of much driving about and dust but few direct engagements. The arrival of the Africa Corps brought a change to the situation.
He described his unit losing, as I remember, three tanks one night. Having parked up on a salt flat they had sunk in during the night, luckily with the crews not sleeping under them. He described the ability to fry eggs on tank track guards and the remarkable difference between British flimsy and German Jerry Can fuel containers. Marklin also made good train sets!
After landing in Italy he was involved in the campaign there including the Battle for Cassino. I still have his medals and service patch, which has what I take to be the RAMC bar at the bottom and a golden axehead on a black background which, I assume to be, an armoured unit. He was around tanks though an RAMC officer, and there ,I believe, an Irish connection with that or another unit they were attached to.
He told me the patch symbols on that particular patch were sewn on by an Italian countess (whether a vision of one or an actual one I know not) who had assisted the unit in one of the field hospitals along the way somewhere between Anzio and Cassino. Why she might have been been sewing on patches in her spare time he did not further explain, too much information for a 10 year old I guess.
I still have his personal effects box. A black box apparently relieved from the Luftwaffe at some point which has a rather nice wooden lining and originally contained a camera for photo reconnaissance, with his name and shipping details on it.
Some years ago my family and I visited the Allied War Cemetry at El Alamein. Seeing the gravestones of those of my father's service age who were buried there, most in their early 20s, was a profoundly moving experience.
On a lighter note, most toys in the UK in the late 1960s were "Made in Hong Kong" which was at the time a byword for cheap and poor quality. He told me to hold that thought until I was his age with my own children and see if what was made in China was still so amusing...
He also showed me how to make a "tank", from a thread bobbin, a lollipop stick and a rubber band which was wound up to propel it along. Simple pleasures!
My father died in 1983 having worked in Aberdeen, Golspie and Edinburgh in Scotland and latterly in Kendal in the Lake District.
