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William Oloman
Bill Oloman was in the Territorial Army from March 1939. Billy did his peacetime training in Low Fell once a week. Each year the TA went away for two weeks to various camps, including Halton in Lancashire.
He was called up on August 28th 1939, just a few weeks before war was declared and he joined the Royal Engineers where he rose to Company Sergeant Major. He was demobbed in May 1946.
In December 1942 he was posted to North Africa and sailed, December 22nd 1942 on the Strathalan, which had been a P&O Liner. The ship was torpedoed, he was picked up and taken to Oran then straight onto another troop ship where they were put straight onto another troop ship and taken to Algiers. They than followed the war through North Africa finishing in Tunis. When the campaign finished about September/October 1943. The aqueduct had been bombed, as engineers it was their job to get electricity and water back to various towns and villages.
In December 1943 Billy went to Italy, they landed in Taranto and went straight up country to Bari, where they were for only a few days before going to a place called Cervinaro which was not far from Monte Casino.
The troop was there for four to five months, again repairing aqueducts, reinstating water supplies, electricity and generally getting utilities back to normal Bill said "In our company we were like a contracting firm, all self contained sections. As a Sergeant, I was in charge of B section which was responsible for the oil and water pipeline (only because I was a Heating Engineer). When I became a company Sergeant Major I was in charge of them all! "
From there, Billy went to Naples, but they were only there a few months. In Naples they rebuilt the Royal Palace (which the Yanks had hit with bombs about six times) it was then used as the NAFFI. After Bill left Naples he went to Palestine.
The only time that Bill and his fellow soldiers came under dangerous fire was in Medjez-elbab in North Africa, when they were building a bridge. As they were engineers they relied on the infantry to give them cover. Usually Bill's unit only moved into an area after it had been made safe.
Bill and his men stayed in North Africa approximately 12 months, about the same time in Italy, then they moved on to Palestine where they built camps for housing recruits.
The men did quite a bit of maintenance on oil lines in Palestine, The men really had nothing much to do with the people of Palestine as there was trouble, even in 1944 between the Jews and the Arabs. Apparently the Jews left Palestine before the Germans came, leaving all their land and property. When they came back, the Arabs had taken over everything.
The Arabs, in fact planted orange trees and lemon trees. When the Jews returned, the Arabs refused to allow the Jews to reclaim their property; stating that they had worked hard to make the orchards, so fighting started.
Billy did get a months leave from Palestine in December 1945, but went back to Palestine for another few months until he was de-mobbed in May 1946.
I asked Bill had he met anyone from Whickham on his travels. "I met one chap from Whickham who lived at Watergate, who was a bricklayer, he came to our unit for pre-vocational training."