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Stan W Scott. Regimental number 5835939.
I belonged to 3 Troop, No. 3 Commando, as from 1943-1945 to disbandment.
And I went to the 13th ITC Maidstone.
And at that time I must have been - without boasting - the youngest instructor in the British Army.
But putting it quite frankly and quite bluntly, there's one thing that always struck me.
I could not stand - although I wasn't a slouch - I couldn't stand the ***.
"Blanco this, blanco that... Paint this, paint that... Polish this, polish that..."
And I was lucky, cos one day I was told to take my platoon up to the gymnasium where we met
three officers out of the Commandos.
They wanted volunteers to come in to replace the casualties that No. 3 had inculced [sic] in Sicily and Italy.
You got sent from Wrexham to a little place in Scotland, the Highlands, called Achnacarry.
Lord Cameron of Lochiel had donated his grounds for training purposes for Commandos.
It wasn't the only place, but there it was.
We got there. And from the station at Spean Bridge you marched to the camp,
which was about eight miles uphill and downhill. It was raining.
But I always had a motto: "Travel light is travel right."
And it proved a point that day, because we come out of the train on the wrong side, formed up on the road,
kit bags on the wagon. And we all thought we'd get transport. No, you marched. And we marched.
But I was travelling in battle order, as it was called.
There was three blokes with us wearing greatcoats and full marching order with a large pack, small pack, water bottle, the lot.
Well, when we got to Achnacarry they wasn't there. We all stopped and the sergeant was saying to us:
"Anybody with tapes, take them off, cos you're all back to normal. You're nobody here."
"And if you've learnt anything in your past training, forget it - we'll teach you our way." And they did.
And then all of a sudden these three geezers turn up. And the sergeant says: "Go to the office."
And they went across to the office. And they come back and presented themselves to the sergeant and he said: "Yes?"
They said: "We've been given railway warrants to return to our units." They'd been RTU'd straight away.