1
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Godfrey: I was a sergeant, there was no officer in my platoon, so I was in charge of the platoon, so I had the right to do what I wanted,

2
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so I was told by one of the other officers not to go but I don’t see the point of staying here because we’re only being shelled, so we moved onto this little hillock and

3
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when we climbed to the top we could see the guns actually firing, they were down below us, just below us, so I got my machine, Lewis gunner onto him and

4
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erm they managed to shoot most of the crew and then the next morning we went out, er no, it must have been the same day, we went out and captured these two field guns, most of the crew were dead,

5
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one officer got away on a horse, we tried to shoot him but we only shot the horse. Er and he ran off, we chalked on there 2/13th London Regiment and after the war when I came home, I went to Crystal Palace,

6
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there were the two guns in the, in the, then war museum but of course they have gone now and anyway we chalked on those guns, it was because of capturing those two guns we only,

7
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we had one man killed and I think two or three wounded but we were very, very lucky and then the next morning this General Shea, our divisional commander,

8
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he came up, called for me and he pinned a ribbon on my breast, Military Medal, and then he told me, he became our Honorary Colonel afterwards and I knew him very well and he said he got rapped over the knuckles

9
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for that because he had no right to decorate without a GHQ permission or authority, that he said it was well worth it he thought and then I was told I would have a commission and I became an officer almost the next day before we moved on up to Jerusalem.

10
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Well then we moved on and the next battle was Sheria, and that was a very open battle and we had to advance I would think at least six, seven, eight hundred yards under heavy machine gun fire.

11
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The Turks were entrenched and they had a marvelous field of fire but we were told whatever you do, don’t stop, if a man is wounded leave him, don’t stop otherwise you will hold up the whole of us, you must keep going, the more you move,

12
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the less they will be able to hit you. So we managed to get right up to the trenches and then some of the men jumped in, they wanted to bayonet these Turks but I wouldn’t let them because I said no, you must take them as prisoners,

13
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so we just lifted them out of the trenches and sent them back, I didn’t believe in that because the Australians were with us out there and they were very brutal, they didn’t mind bayoneting anybody but I never, I wasn’t,

14
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I didn’t have any hatred, it seemed to me, I felt like I was doing a duty, I wasn’t hating the Germans or the Turks, I admired them for their bravery most of them,

15
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anyway we captured that particular position and that strengthened the whole of our advance and then we moved right on, we moved right out to Gaza then.