John Bellamy. Showers on Thursday.

John Bellamy. Showers on Thursday, Maygog Publishing, Tasmania, 2004, pbk, 246pp,. ISBN: 0-9750548-3-X, $24.95

Nowadays, historians and commentators in the United States are increasingly referring to those who served in the Allied Forces in World War 2 as "The Greatest Generation. An Englishman, John Bellamy, was indeed one of "The Greatest Generation." He spent six years in uniform and, in his very readable memoir Showers on Thursdays, he recalls what life was like for an Englishman who served in an ambulance unit attached to battalions of the Parachute Regiment in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and, finally, at Arnhem in Holland.

Why the title Showers on Thursdays? An Army joke was that the Germans were so close and so intermingled with their enemies in the desert that they were rostered to use the British showers-"on Thursdays."

Bellamy was born in Canada in 1919 and reared in his mother's town of Ashby De La Zotiche in Leicestershire, the "hunting county." Life in England in the 1930s was difficult, especially for school leavers seeking work. Bellamy counted himself lucky to find employment as a clerk in the Leicestershire Health Department. His first year salary was 50 pounds! His sport was bicycle riding with a Club and 70 to 80 mile rides each weekend, summer and winter, built up his physique and endurance.

Called up in June 1940, Bellamy volunteered for the Medical Corps as he had some moral objections to a combat role. His descriptions of basic training will bring back memories for old soldiers. Army boots were hard and unbending. Various methods were used on the boots "to break them in"; "some were exotic remedies best not described in detail", writes Bellamy. Again, old soldiers will know what he means. Initially with a RAMC unit attached to the Tank Corps, he volunteered for a posting to the 10 Parachute Field Ambulance attached to the Parachute Regiment. Members of his Field Ambulance received the same parachute training as the paratroopers. Bellamy recalls it in detail. Consider the cold courage required to step off an 80 foot high tower into thin air and depend on an attached parachute.

October 1942 found his unit supporting the British Airborne in Algiers and later Tunisia. In July 1943 he dropped into Sicily. Later he was in Italy. Recalled to England his unit missed D Day but Arnhem lay ahead. Bellamy writes: "The 17th September 1944 is a date written across the hearts and minds of all who were at Arnhem." Six men of the 16th Parachute Field ambulance were killed; the remainder of the unit went into captivity.

Bellamy was transported with 150 other British prisoners to Neubrandenburg in North Germany. Here he endured eight months of near starvation rations, crowding (24 men eating, sleeping and living in an area 12 ft by 15 ft), and the bitter cold of a northern winter. Unusually for a prisoner of the Germans, he does not tell of brutality; indeed an old prison camp guard invited him and some comrades to his house for acorn coffee and he received kindnesses from German civilians on his walk of over 100 miles to freedom when the War ended.

A typical Englishman of his generation, Bellamy could be reserved and prone to understatement. On finding an old girlfriend engaged to another man on his return to England, his proposal of marriage to her was: "Does it have to be Charles?" He mentions going to Buckingham Palace to receive a medal from King George VI. For the record, he might have stated that it was an MBE and a citation would have added to his story. Also, an index would enhance the work.

Post War, Bellamy studied dentistry under an ex-servicemen's training scheme. Later he migrated to Australia, taking up dental practice on Kangaroo Island and lecturing to students in Tasmania where he now lives. For an English dentist to migrate to Australia reversed a trend, for over 1000 dentists from New South Wales went to England to work in the National Health Service in the 1950s and 1960s.

John Bellamy has a remarkable memory for detail and writes of his life smoothly and with humour. The Foreword to his book states: "As the events of the Second World War become dimmer in the memory of veterans, it is important that a permanent record of those times is kept." Bellamy has made a delightful contribution to that record. Highly recommended.

George Franki the reviewer like John Bellamy, studied dentistry after WW2 service. Later he served as a dental officer in the ARA in Australia, Korea and Japan.