The Story of CYRIL ASKEW

...I really didn’t expect these rules to be applied given the circumstances. None of us was inclined to argue so we were immediately off by rail to Karachi. I stayed there for a short while waiting for arrangements to be put together, then went down to Bombay where we boarded ship for Blighty.

I embarked onto the 'Reina del Pacifico' which was a luxury liner converted to troop ship duty. This was in early 1944 and our convoy was the first to cross to Aden taking the route through the Suez Canal and across the Mediterranean which had just been declared clear of enemy submarines. We had an accompanying Battleship and some heavy escorts as it gathered to become a large convoy bringing much of the 8th Army home from North Africa. We called in at Gibraltar where the convoy re-formed; from there we crossed the eastern Atlantic home into Liverpool.

It was hard to believe that so much had happened during the years I’d been away. When we passed through the Straights of Gibraltar seven years earlier, the Spanish Civil War was full on. We had an uneventful cruise back home and I found myself standing outside Exchange Station waiting to be mustered onto a troop train off towards Southport. Standing there in uniform and bush hat, leaning on my rifle, a passer-by stopped and asked, "Are you going abroad, son?" He would have been amazed to know half my story of the last seven years!

Once on the train we were quickly out of Liverpool centre. Of course I recognised it all, despite the bomb damage and the long period away. I could see our house from the train and that was all that I could think of. I had left home in 1936, yet here we were in 1944 and I was passing by – so close, yet not allowed home. It was too much to bear.

We were heading for Harrington Barracks in Formby. It was an amazing coincidence that the RSM on the train had been my Instructor at the Depot in 1935. Apart from him, I hadn’t seen anyone around here in more than seven years. It was fantastic to be home, yet I needed to be home, not teased by glancing at our house from an enclosed and sealed railway carriage.

We stopped at the Station and lined up ready for the march to the nearby Barracks. There were police on the station platform, both military and civilian, and nobody was allowed on or off whilst we assembled...