June 2, 1942                                                                                                

Well, here we are back in camp doing nothing in particular. The weather is fine, I had a good bath, we were paid yesterday. The war situation is much brighter and I feel fine. The manoeuvres finished on Sunday afternoon and we returned to camp the same day. We had a little excitement the last few days, fighting at all times of the day and night. Several heavy trucks attacked us but were repelled by the guns, though we suffered casualties both in personnel and equipment. The extent of these casualties is assessed by an officer or officers known as “umpires” whose decisions are final. The other two batteries were both captured early in the fight but “P” battery carried on almost twenty-four hours longer. However, our supporting infantry let us down and a heavy machine gun put us out of action promptly.

We had a little excitement on last night when one of the boys “R” battery was accidently killed by the ration truck. It seems that this poor chap was sleeping under a heavy tarp near his vehicle and never knew what hit him. The ration man felt pretty bad about the whole affair, though evidence proved he was in no way to blame. The second bit of excitement occurred on the way home. One of the guns broke loose from the limber on a steep hill. The driver was startled to see the gun pass him doing about 40 mph, so stopped short. The gun went wildly down the hill, upset and landed with a crash on its back. I was riding in the major’s car and arrived on the scene shortly after. The damage was quite severe and will probably run about a thousand dollars. I can’t imagine why something isn’t done about this particular weakness in the trailer hitch, as it always breaks in exactly the same place. To date, we have damaged three guns per battery, some of them having been smashed three times. We go to the range again tomorrow so I guess I had better sign off and get to work on my web equipment (Blanco) promptly.