Former Bognor soldier remembers the first days of World War II

Joe Counter was in France by September 11, 1939, just eight days after the beginning of the conflict was declared by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in a sombre radio broadcast.

Mr Counter said: "We were all dead keen for it to happen.

"It meant we did the bayonet drill much faster and with more meaning."

He had joined the Cameronian Scottish Rifles in 1936 aged 16. He travelled to Scotland to enlist and lied about how old he was to ensure he was taken on.

He spent the first two years of the war fighting in the infantry before he volunteered as a paratrooper.

They were told they had about 30 minutes of battle in them and were handed a day's worth of food and two days of ammunition, he said.

"We were put in Dakotas (planes) and flown at night from England to Gibraltar.

"The little windows could be pulled out and we had to stick our rifle or sten gun out and blaze away at whatever was attacking us," he stated.

He was soon in North Africa. He recalled: "They stopped using paratroopers and we became the front line to the American army."

His fighting ended when he was taken a prisoner of war in 1942 for two-and-a-half years.

His German captors moved him around so often he lost track of where he was being held.

But he said he had faith he would get out safe and well. "We never doubted we'd make it home alive while a PoW," he explained.

However, the food was atrocious. Boiled rice was available through his work in the rice paddy.

"And when we got coffee from the Red Cross parcels, we'd barter with it '“ swapping it for milk so we could make rice pudding.

"When we were released, I was put in a brothel for two weeks. Not for the women '“ so the women could feed me.

"I went into the camp 11 stone and came out eight stone," he added.

Mr Counter, 86, was recalling his war service in his local newspaper, the Rouse Hill Times.

He has lived in Riverstone, some 30 miles north west of Sydney, for more than 40 years.

He and his wife Pat emigrated Down Under as '10 Poms' in 1966 after having lived with their children in Hatherleigh Gardens, Bognor, for some years in the 1950s and 60s.

His brother-in-law, Bill Cairns, said he hoped the news about Mr Counter would revive memories among those who knew the family in Bognor.

Mr Cairns, of Westergate Street, Westergate, said: "Joe is a pillar of the local community and is still the life and soul of many activities.

"His main pastime these days is his involvement in the local branch of the Retired Servicemen's League.

"He is also responsible for arranging the local annual Anzac parade.

"Joe and Pat still enjoy good health and their life together in Australia.

"They have been Australian citizens for some years, as are their children who accompanied them to Australia.

"They are now grandparents and great-grandparents of numerous Aussie-born children."

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