Peter Middleton's Service in WW2

My dad, Peter Middleton, was born on 12/12/1921. He joined the Army as a boy soldier in 1935 and was stationed at Chepstow. He became a Royal Engineer in 1940 and was transferred to Sunderland. They were primarily involved in building defences such as ack-ack guns. There he met my mother, Dora Dixon-Cave, and they got married in 1941. He was then posted abroad and my sister, Denise, was born in 1942. He was shipped to Singapore, but at the time they arrived, the Japanese had just invaded so they went on to Ceylon. (Sri Lanka)

Now a staff sergeant, Dad was posted to Palestine. At one point they were all in a graveyard, starving, and were given a tin of bully beef. He was (I think) attached to the Manchester Rifles, part of the 8th Army. He was at El Alamein where Monty defeated Rommel. My Dad got jaundice and was sent to a hospital in Derna, Libya. When he recovered, he was sent back to active service. Eventually, the Germans were driven out of North Africa.

The British Army pushed the Germans back into Sicily and Italy. Dad fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944. It was so cold that the troops had to light fires under the trucks to get them going in the morning. At Monte Cassino, there is a British Cemetery and a Polish Cemetery which we've visited.

Dad heard that his brother, Jack, was stationed at Cortina, so he broke the rules, took a jeep and drove up to meet him. Jack was a warrant officer in the RAF.

When Dad was demobbed in 1945 he met his three-year-old daughter for the first time! He and Mum later had three sons in 1946, 1949 and 1951 and stayed together until they died, Dad in 2001 and Mum a year later.