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Cpl. Frederick James Price
British Army 82nd Anti Tank Regiment, 284 Baty. Royal Artillery
from:Buckley, Flintshire
Fred Price had been in the Territorial Army for some time before the start of WW11. The Territorials met in The Drill Hall, Mill Lane, Buckley, Flintshire, North Wales. His Grandfather Charles Price and Uncle James Price had also been members of the TA in the late 19th Century.
On the first day after war was declared in early September 1939 Fred reported to the Holywell Drill Hall and joined up. He was in 284 Battery, 82nd Anti Tank Regiment, of The Royal Welsh Fusiliers, Royal Artillery. Alongside him were many other ‘lads’ from Buckley – George Williams, Edward Roberts, Stan Parry, Donny Lyons, Oliver Lloyd and many others. They were part of the 14th Army – later known as The Forgotten Army’. Generals Slim and Orde Wingate were their commanders. Lord Louis Mountbatten was the Supreme Commander for S E Asia. He was a popular Commander. Major Gould was their Officer. Fred trained and served at The Dale in Chester where he was trained as a cook and driver, and was also at Catterick and Bangor Northern Ireland.
He left for Burma in November 1941 having been stationed at Clacton – on – Sea for about a month previously. Vera had stayed nearby. He arrived in India in December 1941 and was initially based in Calcutta within sight of Everest. He became an Antitank Corporal with the rank of Bombardier – in charge of the ‘Cookhouse’. They were fighting alongside the Chindits and the Ghurkas. Fred admired them all. During his time in camp he had a mule, a little dog and a mongoose of which he was very fond. He drove lorries too.
He was involved in the campaigns of Imphal, Kohima, Mandalay and Rangoon, and The Admin Box when the Allies were surrounded by the Japanese, but eventually fought their way out. Here Fred was wounded in the leg when he left the cookhouse and dived under an antitank box as they were being attacked. The wound was on the inside leg above the knee and he suffered reoccurring cramp for many years. He recounted tales of peeling leeches from his legs and torso as they waded through jungle conditions, had boils beneath his feet and contracted Malaria which reoccurred for many years after the war ended, he would shiver violently and both he and the bed would shake. When he returned his once beautiful, perfect, white teeth were rotted with pyorrhea and had to be removed.
He was reluctant to tell many tales himself but his friend George Williams, with whom he remained friends until his death in 1982, was more forthcoming. He told how Fred once jumped into a lorry loaded with ammunition as it was slipping back without a driver into troops – and saved them. Fred recalled how a fellow soldier put his head up out of a trench to take a look and his head rolled back in. But the ‘Buckley lads’ all came back. They said that they must have had a star above their heads. The Burnma Star!
This story was complied from information Remembered by Julie, his daughter, or told by Vera, his wife in about 2004.
