Personal Record

John Hugh was born at Portland Farm, Portland Road, Hucknall in 1914. The farm was part of the estate of the Duke of Portland and his father held the tenancy from 1913 until around 1921. At this time the land belonging to the farm was about half a mile away beyond the railway lines and the Hucknall Number 2 Colliery that had been built on farm land some 40 years previously. One of John's jobs as a boy was to drive the cattle from the farm over the railway bridge to the fields beyond.

John went to the National School in Hucknall until he was 14 years old in 1928. By then the family had moved to 79 Watnall Road. He did whatever jobs he could find to help support his family who were going through hard times following the death of his mother. He was taken on by Hansons, a family-run building and undertaking firm, where he learnt the trade of joiner - making windows and doors.

John was a very active young man - he loved swimming and took up cycling as soon as he could afford a bike. He joined the Nottinghamshire Branch of the Cyclists’ Touring Club where, on many of the weekend rides, he met Eileen Preston from Sneinton in Nottingham. Between 1934 and 1937 they made several grand tours of England on their bikes.

In 1937, John bought a plot of land on Moor Road, Papplewick and built a detached house with the help of his friends from Hansons. John and Eileen married in early 1938 and moved in to their new home.

In April 1942 Eileen gave birth to John David at the Basford Maternity Hospital, Nottingham.

After the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, John was first employed in building a munitions depot for the Government in south Nottinghamshire. In November 1942, John Hugh was called up for military service. He was assigned to the Royal Artillery and underwent initial training near Dumbarton in Scotland followed by artillery training with 25-pounder guns near Aberystwyth in Wales. He completed his training in March 1943 and sailed on a troop ship from Liverpool to join the British Tenth Army at Tripoli in North Africa on 25th August.

After the Germans were defeated in North Africa in May 1943, the Allied Forces planned the invasion of Italy. In July, the US Seventh Army and the British Eighth Army landed in Sicily and by the middle of August had succeeded in capturing the island forcing the Germans and Italians to retreat to the mainland across the Straits of Messina. On the 9th September 1943, the US Sixth Corps and the British Tenth Corps landed at Salerno some 200 miles further north with the objective of cutting off the German forces in the south and providing a beach-head from which to capture the port of Naples just 40 miles to the north. This was a hard fought battle and the Germans succeeded in driving a wedge between the British and American forces. There were heavy casualties and with the battle slipping away, reinforcements were hastily despatched from Tripoli on three Royal Navy cruisers.

These reinforcements were 1000 inexperienced troops recently arrived from the UK who had seen no active service, including Gunner J H Hole, and 500 battle-hardened infantry soldiers, who had fought their way from Egypt across the desert under General Montgomery. By the time these reinforcements arrived off the beach-head at Salerno the tide of the battle had turned and the Germans were in retreat. The scene was then set for one of the most shameful events of World War Two. Before embarking, this contingent of Desert Rats, many of whom were recovering from battle wounds, malaria and dysentery, were told that they going to Sicily, en-route to the UK for rest and recuperation. When they arrived at Salerno and discovered the deception, they were extremely angry and at first refused to go ashore. Some of them then refused to be drafted in to the Tenth Corps units to replace the men killed or injured in action. Nearly 200 soldiers refused to obey a direct order given by the general commanding the Tenth Corps. This amounted to mutiny - a crime punishable by death.

An armed guard of Royal Artillery men, including Gunner Hole, was assembled and ordered to disarm the mutineers and place them under close arrest. They were marched in to a barbed wire pen intended for prisoners-of-war where they suffered more humiliation: they were jeered as cowards by German POWs held in an adjacent pen. The mutineers were shipped back to North Africa where they were eventually brought before a court martial. Three sergeants were sentenced to death and the other men received between 7 and 12 years penal servitude. All the sentences were later suspended but the men lost their war pensions and forfeited their campaign medals. Many years later they were still trying unsuccessfully to clear their names.

Such was John's first active duty on foreign soil - guarding an angry and rebellious contingent of hardened, war-weary and demoralised infantry men who had fought heroically at El Alamein and Tobruk. He had to face the ever-present threat that he may be called upon to shoot should they attempt to escape.

On the 3rd October Gunner Hole was assigned to the 64th Field Artillery Regiment, attached to the 56th Division, which was then moving north around the eastern slopes of Mount Vesuvius close to Naples. Over the next three months the division fought its way north over rugged mountainous country crossing fast flowing rivers in steep ravines with the Germans holding the high ground in strongly-protected positions. Torrential rain in November and December made progress even more difficult and by the end of 1943 the advance had come to a halt hemmed in by flooding rivers and the heavily fortified abbey on the heights of Monte Cassino which dominated the valley leading north-west to Rome.

The Allies decided to circumvent this impasse by establishing a beach-head 70 miles further up the coast at Anzio, about 30 miles from Rome. This was a very risky strategy because to succeed it required a break-through past Monte Cassino to project sufficient strength to consolidate the beach-head. The first landing at Anzio on 22nd January was unopposed but rapid reinforcement of German forces contained the beach-head to an area sixteen miles long the coast and seven miles deep. The British landed the 56th Division, including the 64th Field Artillery Regiment on 10th February. There was intense fighting at close quarters as the Germans fought to drive the Allies back to the sea but the line was to be held at all costs . Allied riflemen, machine gunners, mortar-men, and tank crews fought at close range and refused to budge from their positions. Artillery forward observers brought crashing volleys of shells from 200 guns on to enemy units. By the evening of 18th February, the German Commander concluded that the attack to eliminate the beach-head had failed. After a month of fierce fighting there were almost 20,000 casualties on each side, rendering combat units close to impotence. A temporary stalemate had been reached.

On the 7th March, another artillery regiment took over the gun positions and the 64th, after six months of combat, left Anzio to start a lengthy journey to Egypt for rest and recuperation. They arrived at Port Said on the 3rd April and settled in to a large military camp near the Suez Canal. The weather was fine, everybody relaxed and, on the 12th April, John celebrated his 30th birthday.

Sadly this brief respite was shattered by devastating news from home. Towards the end of April a telegraph signal came through to the Royal Artillery HQ of the Middle East Forces with the message that John's wife had died from tuberculosis. Tragically, Eileen had passed away on his birthday in a sanatorium near Mansfield. Their two-year-old son, John David was being looked after by his aunt, Mary.

John was repatriated to the UK on compassionate grounds. He left Egypt and the 64th Field Regiment on the 1st May and was given several weeks compassionate leave when he arrived home. Subsequently he served on the Home Front with the 161st Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment until the end of the war.

In 1945 he met Theo Green who was serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a radar operator in the same anti-aircraft unit. The radar operators detected incoming enemy aircraft and fed their range, bearing and height to the gun crews.

John and Theo married in August 1946 at St James' Church, Papplewick after he was released from the army. They had two children: Roger Frederick born in 1949 and Philippa Mary born in 1952.

After his discharge from the Army John found employment with W. Appleby & Sons, a building firm based on Castle Boulevard at Nottingham. He stayed with the firm throughout his working life managing many building contracts and becoming a director before he retired in 1979. After retirement he gave his time supporting the local Boy Scouts troop and was an active member of the Hucknall Rotary Club.