Gunner L. Cole

Hutt News, Volume 16, Issue 34, 17 February 1943, Page 4

Gunner L. Cole

piusom;i; of war in italy .Wi'iting to a friend in Auckland a soldier in the Middle East gives details of the engagement in which Gunnex* Laurie Cole, son of Mr and Mrs. Chas. Cole, of Laings Road, Lower liutt, was taken prisoner of war. The writer of the letter was closely associated with Gunner Cole and speaks very highly of his courage and maignifipent comradeship. He had mourned the death of his affectionate comrade and it was not until some months later that he was informed Laurie had been captured. He states he felt certain that Laurie's truck had received a hit and caught fire, but adds that there were a large number of trucks about at that time and the majority of them were blazing and there was a terrible pall of dense smoke hanging over the battlefield from guns, tanks and also burning trucks. He adds: For myself 1 was very confused and upset at the time to see my mates all go like that, and, added to that, Laurie's battery was quite a little way off, although not far enough to mistake identity. At the first sign of attack on that day we had just pulled in (5.30 a.m) and it was barely light enough to see. You see, throughout all that campaign we could not as much as strike a light at night nor smoke or talk and just crept along in our trucks as quiet as the roar of the engines would allow. Risks of driving over sandhills, running into mines, running over great rocks jutting out, slit trenches of the Germans who were getting away just as fast as possible, guns left behind by them, different dangerous obstacles, and many cliffs, had to be taken. All one coultl do was to grip the driving wheel and hang on with a prayer on his lips. Poor Laurie will no doubt especially remember the night before the attack. It was pitch black, some trucks run into others; others over cliffs, etc. Anyhow, I am getting away from myself a bit but I wanted you to understand that the likes of Laurie and myself and other drivers who, although not actually fighting but always standing by our trucks, had a lot to go through especially that par ticular night. As I was saying, we arrived on this certain Sidi Resegh point in the early hours of the morn ing after having driven all night and dodging bombs and shells the previous day. From this you can gather we were all very tired and thought that after pulling the guns into position we drivers could retire to a certain required position with our trucks and after servicing them, could dig a hole and catch forty winks ready for the next drive, but it was not destined so. We were all' busy with our primus stoves (each truck carried one each), cooking our breakfast while the officers were looking round for suitable gun positions. We had not got so far as finishing our cooking when there was a yell, 'Enemy tanks in sight.' They were no more than six hundred yards away. Of course every man hopped to his job—the drivers to their trucks to pull guns into position (some of the poor devils never got that far). The drivers who dragged their guns round were able, to leave their trucks standing by behind and help the gun crews, most of whom had either been wounded or killed. A lot of our guns actually got into action in those few minutes. Some of them never, as the Hun by this time was firing tank shells, explosive bullets, rifle bullets, machine guns, etc, and things became very hot. I could j not actually say what Laurie was doing in these or the next few minutes, but through the smoke and haze I could see his truck standing quite some distance away from us. | He was driving on the same job as I, only we were in different troops, but, in short, our jobs were the same —that of keeping up the supply of ammunition to the guns. I and a few other drivers were ordered to get into our trucks and got them away from enemy fire. I had to sprint about a hundred yards or so, get into my truck and drive straight down over a small cliff and keep my engine running ready to dash up into it with ammunition, but as it happened ammunition was not needed as it was by this time seen thatthe Hun was over-running us. The expected happened: our guns were steadily being silenced and while lying there watching, 1 glanced over the battlefield and could still see Laurie's truck. I saw what I was sure to be Laurie running to it with some of the other boys. Some got to it and the truck moved away toward the cliff but at that moment a shell struck it and it caught fire. 1 saw two or three jump out but they were hit in doing so, and I could see plainly that they fell and never moved. Laurie, concluded the writer, was a great guy. We had quite some fun together and 1 sincerely hope that that fun will come again after this is all over. He was well liked by everybody that knew him and you can tell his mother from me 'that he carried himself every inch a soldier, both on and off duty and in action, and she should be very proud of him. Gunner Laurie Cole was taken prisoner of war in December 1941, and is now in Italy.