Private First Class (ret.) Viktor Wellemín

“One day I went bathing into the bay near Tobruk and found a Czechoslovak ten-heller coin in my purse. With a small saw I cut the lion out, made a little hole above it, drew a cord through it and wore it on my neck as a sovereign sign of Czechoslovakia. One day, the cord had torn in two or untied. I was returning to the half-platoon which was stationed at a small hill when I found out I did not have the lion anymore. Because it was getting dark already, I thought I had to part with it. The next day I got to the place I was bathing in and sunbathing at previously and in the yellow sand I eventually found the yellow lion. For me, it was quite a miracle.”

"[It was a sunken ship] that was carrying supplies for NAAFI, which was the English canteen where you could actually occasionally buy something, a compote maybe. Our boys set out there, because I guess just a part of the ship was sticking out above the water, and they fished for the tins there which were something extraordinary for us. But the bay of the Tobruk port is pretty large, and our half-platoon was on the opposite shore. So we didn't get to it."

“Suddenly an order came in: ‘A convoy will be set up under the command of sergeant mayor Benát whose son will serve as his deputy. You will be transporting crates which need to be protected well.’ We drove through the whole of Germany. When at some town one would stand up on the deck of a lorry, one could see the whole country. It was completely flat with but a church remaining here and there. There were no houses left. We arrived to Prague, to Růžová street. Into this streed lead the rear gate of the state stamp- printing office. We unloaded those crates there. They were probably full of Czechoslovak banknotes printed out in England.”

"And when we passed through the Dardaneles, we were picked up by an English warship. They forced the Turkish crew to transport the almost-wreck to Haifa, where we stood anchored for two days, looking at the hill opposite us. In the evening the lights would come on, it was a lovely sight. But after all, it was getting rather constrained on the ship."

"Well, and that was, I should almost say that it was a lucky injury, because I remained kneeling on the mine which was jumping out, which then had a much greater dispersion, which was actually more effective than if it would explode straight away in the ground, like the other mines, the landmines usually were. And because I remained kneeling, the main force went right into the ground, and it threw me away some ten fifteen metres into a hedge, and I lost consciousness for a moment. By the time I'd crashed through the hedge, I was conscious again. Well, and I saw Grünbaum, he was one of the boys, and he was heavily injured. So we wanted to get him to the field ambulance that was set up some five hundred metres right behind us. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get him there."

“During the Dunkerque offensive of 28 October 1944 I was unfortunately seriously wounded. I remained kneeling on a mine. In front of me was a man named Grünbaum who dashed and lied down exactly as prescribed in regulation A1.1. The mine tore out his intestines so he ended up on the battlefield. Behind me was Ebl who lied on a mine and it blew off his leg. He was brought to a medical station at the battlefront but there he bled to death and therefore also did not make it. I wore rubber boots which I found in a fisherman’s hut, and a longer coat. Since I remained kneeling on the mine, I was blown some ten, fifteen metres up in the air. I fell through a hedge and thus regained consciousness which I previously lost. I even managed to reach Grünbaum, helping to load him up on a stretcher. But that was already unfortunately all completely useless.”

"So we were transferred to Jericho to sort of acclimatise ourselves, and unfortunately I got the boils. That is I had boils on my hands, on my neck and variously on my body. And our regimental doctor said that under the combat conditions there were there, and what with the level of hygiene, I wouldn't lose it, so he sent me to Jerusalem to our hospital. Our hospital in Jerusalem was one little wooden house with one room with about ten beds."

“Water was scarce in Tobruk. When I wanted to do my laundry, I took a petrol can, filled it half up with petrol and in it I washed my laundry. One would only need to hold it for a while before the laundry got dry and clean.”