WWII Interest.- Manuscript Diary

Manuscript diary compiled by Major H.D. Woolley from the Royal Artillery, 150th Battalion, Light Anti-Aircraft in the Western Desert Campaign, covering the years from 1939 to 1944, provinding a first-hand account of many wartime events, from his time aboard the SS Anselm ("Our first morning at sea was beautiful. Bright sunshine and good visibility. I was up on the top deck looking around when I was joined by one of the Ships Officers. He volunteered the information that "we were bound to get them on a morning like this" and when I asked who "them" might be, he answered the Boche [German] bombers. I had a look round and there seems to be ships in every direction, stretching for miles, in other words a beautiful playground for bombers...On the morning of Jan 5th we steamed slowly into Freetown anchorage, and had our first view of Africa"), his arrival to Egypt and the march through the Libyan desert ("The earth was practically flat a dirty shade of brown. This was my first sight of the Western desert and I viewed the whole place with a feeling of deep depression...We were to proceed with all speed to a place called Hattiget Kabash and take over gun positions on L.G. 75), the shooting down of an Italian aircraft (the Italian plane never had a chance. It was crusing alongabout 20000ft up when about 8 of our fighters appeared all around it, like wasps round a honey pot. It twitched about a bit and just before it went into a vertical out of control dive, two of the crew bailed out. The plane finally crashed into flames about 3 miles away from us"), his involvement in the 1st battle of El-Alamein ("It must have been around 6.30am and I was in the middle of 5GH's HQ area on foot, whne the Boche set about us. They must have advanced to positions practically on top of us before first light, because from the East which I was approaching came a wicked Breda and automatic fire. The air was full of white whining tracer bullets...the enemy stuff was flying all around, about 2ft above the ground, and every minute or so there would be a sickening smack or thud as a bullet found a home in one of the many articles lying around on the ground...the anti-tank was the first of our weapons to be knocked out...the Boche now concentrated all their fire on the one remaining 25pdr...a good deal of rifle and amchine gun fire was going on, but we couldn't tell who was firing, where from, and at what"), his being taken prisoner by the Germans ("I ordered my men to sit tight and remember saying no one is going to put his hands up to any lousy squarehead. This was pure bravado and no doubt very stupid, but i didn;t want myself, or any of the men either, to feel that we had surrendered") and handed over to Italian troops ("We were each given a tin of Italian bully beef, one square biscuit as hard as iron and reloaded into Italian trucks"), the flight to Lecce in South-West Italy and subsequent transfer to Veano, near Piacenza, the news of the armistice in September 1943 ("The Commander confirmed that the rumour was indeed a fact and that Italy had surrendered"..."We also heard that the Boche had ordered all eligible Italians to rejoin the colours, but that badoglio had in turn ordered all such eligible not to report for service, but to go into hiding in the mountaines and stay there"), the search for a safe hidehout by a farm run by an Italian family, the news of the Allied troopes landing in Naples and the journey to Switzerland, 3 volumes written in pencil, various bindings, 1939-1944 (3)