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My name is John Amos Knowles. I was born on 2nd October 1915 in Manchester. We lived at 9 Simpson Street in the centre of Manchester. There were 8 in my family including my father and mother. My father worked for the L.M.S. Railway company, he was an engine driver. When my father developed Polio, my mother had to go to work, she worked for a banana importing company in Manchester.

I remember the day war was declared. I was 20 years old and working for Suttons transport company, on a horse drawn lorry. I was married with two young children. I was not called up immediately, I received my callup papers in the January and went for my medical examination at Hulme Town Hall. Because of the living conditions the younger men looked upon callup as if they were going away to a holiday camp. I was called up on the 13th March into the Kings Own Royal Regiment Light Infantry. I did my basic training at Lancaster for 6 weeks . I was in the C.M.P.T.C. ( Core of Military Police Traffic Control ). Because I was over 5ft 9ins I was drafted into the C.M.P. ( Core of Military Police ). I received further training in Chester, where we learned to draft reports and to ride a motor bike and drive all kinds of heavy vehicles.

“Europe was in a mess and at this time there were numerous refugees in this country helping us to win the war”. After embarkation leave I went to Darlington where we were kitted out. We were put on a train. Nobody knew where we were going, we ended up at Liverpool via Glasgow!. We boarded the “Cuba” it had been a cruise ship, there were 5000 soldiers on the boat, “I took seasick and spent the journey on my back” “we got caught up with U-Boats and they chased us all the way towards Canada” “we landed inAlgiers” “Churchill had just blown the French fleet up” “the French were our enemies then” “ours was a big convoy, the yanks were with us” When we landed we met resistance for a few days. Then we started training.We were put under the command of General Alexander who was in charge of the First Army. We then started our advance across North Africa to meet up with General Montgomery and the 8th Army. The military police took charge of local policing “ many of our follows got killed, shot in the streets by the locals”.

In the Military Police my weekly pay at this time was £2 .10 shillings, ordinary soldiers received 18 shillings.

I was put on a charge and court marshalled “ill treatment of a prisoner of war”. A german medical officer had refused to surrender his gun, I threatened to shoot him if he did not “whether I would have done I don’t know” at this time I had the rank of corporal. I was given 6 a months prison sentence in a labour camp 500 miles from Algiers. My Commanding officer told me “Knowles don’t fear, I will have you out of that place in less than a week, you have done nothing wrong” I was released after five days. “The conditions in the prison were shocking”. I could not return to the military police but I kept my rank and pay entitlement. I returned to a G.R.D.T. centre where we were formed into new regiments. I was put into the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and started training for the next push and learn how to handle mules.

( WHAT FOLLOWS IS A VERY BRIEF ACCOUNT OF Mr Knowles WAR EXPERIENCE )

I Landed in Sicily. I landed in Italy at Anzio where a lot of my follow soldiers drowned during the landings because they were shorter in height than me, I was 5ft 11ins. I was in numerous details reconnoitering ahead, we had to crawl every inch of the way there and back, we never knew what or who we would meet. When we returned we were given a ration of thick rum. I received shrapnel injuries on the left side of my head, in my back and right foot, a bullet in my right arm, shrapnel in my right leg. “you remember it as fun when you get away with it”. I was captured by the Germans. “At the time of capture there were only about four or five of us left” by this time we were near to Rome. I was put into the Pope’s summer residence ( Castel Gandolpho? ) which was being used as a military hospital until it was bombed by the Americans. We were then put onto a hospital train, germans and allied soldiers together, “ what I was able to see of the other injured, I thought myself lucky”. We were taken to Stalag 11a and I was taken to Lazarat Hospital. After about 6 weeks they sent me to work in a rubber factory working in a press making rubber heels. I was found with a map of Europe which we had found and was sentenced to a month working in a punishment camp. We could see the large formations of bombers flying over us to bomb the towns. We were put to work for months repairing the railways that had been bombed. On the Sundays we were escorted on exercise walks through the near by town where the local people were shouting at us, telling the soldiers to kill us. We were then taken and put to work in Poland. Then one night we were told to gather our belongings and we then marched, under guard, back to Germany. On the way we and the thousands of soldiers and civilians who were on the roads were attacked and bombed by Russian and Allied aircraft. We walked for a thousand miles to a large prisoner of war camp (Halley?) near the river Elba. There were about 16 thousand prisoners of war in the camp, where we were liberated by the Americans. I eventually returned to Manchester. When I was enlisted I was 16 stone in weight, when I returned home I weighed 8 stone.

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