Tommy Bage - Tommy's Story

Thomas (Tommy) Philip Fisher Bage and his twin brother Chris were both born on the 23rd July 1919 in South Shields. In 1940 Tommy joined the Highland Light Infantry and was posted to join the British Expeditionary Force in Rouen, France. But the British troops were badly equipped to deal with the German offensive, Tommy commented "This isn't war, it's cold-blooded murder." Unable to escape back to Dunkirk they went to Cherbourg where they had to destroy their remaining equipment and then board a ship back to Bournemouth.

In the middle of 1940 Tommy was sent with the Black Watch onboard the 'Athlone Castle' to the Middle East. Nearing the Spanish coast, they were attacked by German long-range bombers using bombs and machine guns. A few days out from Gibraltar the ship came under attack again, this time from submarine torpedoes. They disembarked on Gibraltar and within a few hours were under attack from Italian planes.

On leave back in South Shields in May 1943 he got married but after a few days he was ordered to return to the Middle East. Tommy delayed his return as he was on his honeymoon and was punished with 6 weeks' loss of pay and 6 months confined on other tasks.

In 1944 he was engaged in one of the worst battles in World War 2 the battle of Monte Cassino. Tommy could remember long before he reached this area, the smell and the silence. There was no sign of any natural life and everywhere the trees had been destroyed by the shelling. Tommy cut his arm on barbed wire and it had started to swell up. Eventually a surgeon looked at it. The surgeon told him that if he had been only a half-hour later in being attended too, he would have lost his arm.

Just past Rome, during an attack on an occupied village Tommy was blown off his feet by a shell. When he regained consciousness, he was suffering from concussion and had lost his hearing, fortunately after 4 weeks in hospital his hearing returned.

He advanced through Italy as far as San Marino then he was then posted to Patras in Greece in 1945. There he caught malaria and he was laid up for four weeks in hospital. In 1946 he was sent to Austria on occupation duties and in late 1946 he was demobbed.

After the war he worked at a timber yard and then at Harton Staithes, South Shields. Many years later he applied for his medals. In 2003 he recounted his wartime stories to his son John Bage who wrote them up. Tommy Bage died in 2004 aged 85, just a few months after his twin brother Chris.

More detailed account by his son John Bage attached.