Visit revives memories of conflict for Dudley war veteran

"I sat upright in my bed and wondered what to do next. It turned out to be a fireworks display, but I thought I was back in the war."

The flashback happened last week, during an emotional return to the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War.

Mr Aston, from Dudley, was one 14 veterans who were taken on a return visit to the battlefields of Monte Cassino, where around 14,000 Allied troops were killed during some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict.

It was a bittersweet return for the 89-year-old, who lives in Coleridge Rise, Lower Gornal, with his wife Lilian and son Paul.

During the trip, he attended a service to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the battle, and he also shared a joke with Prince Harry during a reception at the British Embassy in Rome.

But he said there were also moments of sadness, as he remembered his fallen comrades, and in particular a close friend who was killed as his convoy made its way to Monte Cassino.

"When we went around the cemeteries, somebody asked me if I knew any of the people named on the grave," he says.

"I said I didn't know them personally, but I had probably seen some of their bodies."

Driver Aston, who served with the Royal Corps of Signals from 1943 to 1947, was attached to the 2nd Battalion of Carpathian Rifles - a Polish unit - during the assault on the Italian town of Cassino which ended in May 1944.

The week-long trip had been organised by the Monte Cassino Society, and paid for by the Big Lottery Fund. A total of 101 people went, including family members.

Mr Aston told the prince he had to travel alone because his wife had been ill and had to pull out of the trip.

"He told me not to worry, there were lots of other women around," he said.

He met the prince during a reception at the British embassy in Rome. Earlier in the day, they had attended a service at the Cassino War Cemetery.

His role in the battle - which is often described as the forgotten campaign because it was overshadowed by the D-Day landings - was to lay the telephone wires that connected the observation post to the artillery, supplying them with details about the range for the artillery.

Many times, however, they ended up delivering the information in person.

"The wires often got blown apart and it was easier to relay than repair," he said.

"We were often blown up and had to relay, so we dug slit trenches, big enough to take two men."

He said the noise from the shelling was phenomenal.

"It was deafening," he says. "We in front of the artillery, and they were firing the shells over our heads, and the Germans were also firing them back at them. We were there, caught in the middle of all this. We weren't in any danger because the Germans were going for the positions behind us, but it was very frightening."

Sadly, one man who did not make it to the battle was his close friend Douglas Earl, a corporal who was killed at the age of 26 in a motorcycle crash.

"We were travelling in convoy, we had passed through a town called Foggia, when shortly afterwards we came to a railway level crossing," he says.

"This crossing was not manned, and did not have a barrier, also it was on a double bend in the road.

"I was driving the last truck to go over the crossing, and shortly after the sergeant rode past shouting 'Stop!'.

"We all stopped, and we were told Douglas had been killed by a train on the crossing, it was an American freight train.

"It hit me very hard at the time, we were good friends. He was a quiet man, not the regimental type of corporal, we were on first name terms.

"I later discovered his wife was expecting a baby."

During the trip he visited the Abbey at Monte Cassino, which was rebuilt after the war, and the ruined village of San Pietro Infine which was left in its bomb-ravaged state as a memorial. The servicemen were also taken to Cemetery Sangro River.

The conditions of the series of four attacks were infamously tough, with soldiers having to climb steep terrain, brave terrible weather and withstand relentless Nazi bombardments.

The four-month battle was viewed by Winston Churchill as crucial in securing Italy and the liberation of Rome on June 4, but became overshadowed by the Normandy landings and the Battle of Arnhem.

MP Nancy Astor was reported to have later dismissed the men who took part in the Italy campaign as the 'D-Day dodgers'. She denied ever making the comment, but it became part of forces' folklore, and the basis of a popular wartime ditty.

During the reception, the prince paid tribute to all the veterans who took part in the battle, saying its reputation as 'the forgotten campaign' made 'no sense at all'.

"These guys were being asked, directed to walk through open ground knowing they were going to lose most of their friends and probably themselves as well," said the Prince.

"This deserves as much recognition as everything else, it was a huge ask.

"So I take my hat off."

The Allied attack on the monastery at Monte Cassino and the German Gustav defences began on January 17, 1944, and over the following four months they were assaulted four times by Allied troops. The monastery was controversially destroyed by US bombers, and the final attack in May saw 20 divisions attacking along a 20-mile front. The Germans were finally driven from their positions, but at great cost.

The morning after the allies took control of the position, Mr Aston remembers being ordered to drive into the town centre, and he remembers witnessing scenes of total devastation.

"There were hardly any walls standing, and on one of the few walls left somebody had painted an arrow on it, saying 'Rome'. I was a bit shocked, but we had become used to seeing scenes like that."

The following day he had been sent to pick up four men at an arranged spot on the side of a hill near the town.

"When I first stopped at the agreed spot, I saw there was a lorry and a large gun parked in an area just off the road," he says.

"I did not take much notice until the gun fired a shell towards the German position, followed by several more shots. Then the sergeant of the gun crew came up to me and asked how long I was going to stay there.

"I told him I didn't know, and he said if he were me I wouldn't hang around. He had just fired six shots a the German position, and once they got a fix on our position they would definitely return fire.

"On his advice, I went to the bottom of the hill, and when the men saw me, they asked me why I hadn't stopped where we agreed.

"Just at that point a shell exploded near where I had been parked. Then one of the men said, 'Jim you have done us a favour. Otherwise we would have had to walk back to camp'.

"That was a bit of army humour."

One moment he would never forget came the following May, when he was trying to make his way through the northern Italian town of Poggibonsi.

"I could not drive through because all the people of the town were in the streets waving their arms in the air and shouting something.

"I soon heard what they were shouting, it was 'Guerra finito!', which is 'war finished'.

"The doors of my truck were pulled open and we were pulled out. We had our hands shaken by all the men and we had never been kissed by so many ladies in such a short time.

"Knowing that the war was finished was a funny feeling, everything was peaceful, and you notice the birds singing, there is a sense of contentment in knowing your life is not in danger any more."

After the war, he would serve another two years in Italy, but he was allowed to return home for Christmas.

During his last few days in Italy, Jim remembers asking a woman just outside Perugia if she would help with the men's laundry.

"She didn't speak a word of English, I spoke a little Italian, but somehow we managed to communicate, using a bit of sign language.

"They were quite happy to help because, for one thing, the money we paid them came in useful, but also, we had got some soap powder."

He says that one day she showed him a photograph, and managed to explain that it was her son, a soldier in the Italian army whom she had not heard from for some time.

"She asked me if I could find out where he was. I asked my officer, he said it was a long-shot, but he would ask the Red Cross.

"Some time later he told me he had some good news. Her son was in the South of France, over the Italian border, and he was safe and well.

"I broke the news to her on the day I was leaving, and she just broke down in tears and kissed me.

"I told her I was going back that day, so she gave me a locket with a bit of wood in it, she said it was a splinter from the Lord's cross.

"She said 'that will keep you safe until you get home to your mum'.

"It must have been true because I came home safe and well."

However, his return to the family home in Grange Road, Coseley, was tinged with sadness.

"It was in the afternoon, and I didn't have a key, so I went around the back of the house.

"My dad had gone out to the pub up the road for a pint, but I knew my mother would be sitting in the back room.

"When she opened the door, she put her arms out to hug me, but she was reaching into the wrong place.

"Then I noticed she was not wearing her glasses. While I had been away, she had lost her sight. But she never told me because she thought I had enough to deal with, and she didn't want me worrying."