Thread: War diary of Wilf Shaw, North Africa, WW2 - More postings

Just to let people know I have a had a whole load more photos and stories from 91 year old Wilf which have been posted on the web site. There are some great anecdotes from this old soldier - well worth the read. In particular, stories from El Alamein and Wadi Akarit have been added.

Here's one story about a boxing tournament:

Sgt Jerry 0'GRADY of Z Coy had a short list of men to whom he was not particularly well disposed. Henry Jefferies and I must have formed a fairly prominent part of that list, as our names seemed to be stuck permanently on the tip of his tongue - we seemed to get all the dirty jobs when fatigues had to be done. Exactly why he had this down on us, we never quite found out - perhaps the fact that we were surplus to requirements in the Signal Platoon and had been put into Z Coy as replacement rifle men made us a little bit Bolshie, which didn't go unnoticed by the Sgt Major.

One day, on board the New Mauritania, they decided to run a Battalion boxing tournament and 0'Grady asked the assembled Coy one morning for volunteers - not a single hand was raised, until Jeff nudged me and said, "I'll have a go Shaw if you will". The Sgt Major stared in disbelief when we put up our hands. After just 2 minutes in the ring Jeff had his eyebrow ripped open. I lasted a little longer but think I was knocked all round the ship before they stopped it. I don't think Jeff and I did a single fatigue after that – 0'Grady treated us like heroes!

Visit this war diary link to read more. I'm occasionally adding new stuff so if you want to hear about updates please register at my blog at Fighting Through - World War 2 Army Diary

Thanks
Paul