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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elaine Stewart of Uckfield Community Learning Centre, a volunteer from 麻豆官网首页入口 Southern Counties Radio on behalf of Mr Bentham and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Bentham fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was called up and trained and posted to York as a Lieutenant in Signals in Northern Command. I was mobilized with my section of 39 people trained in passing messages by Teleprinter which was very unusual at the time. I was then sent to Wimbledon, London where I developed a very bad cold, nevertheless when the Unit went to Liverpool to embark I accompanied them, coughing like anything. We spent three weeks in a convoy moving around the Atlantic to confuse the enemy but finally dashed through the Straights of Gibraltar. The following night we were off Algiers (which at that time was governed by the French). General de Gaulle was expected to join the French in Algiers but another French General Darlan arrived as well. The voyage went ahead but my cold got so bad that the Colonel held meetings in my cabin which I shared with five others. After some delays we were put ashore and I found myself Signal Master at the Regence Hotel in Algiers. During the night I was become so ill the Company Commander sent me to a casualty clearing station. Next day, I was taken by stretcher from one side of the football stadium at St . Eugene, a suburb of Algiers to the other. It was clear that the stretcher party had never practiced carrying people before as I had to cling first to one side then the other as they carried me up the bank and down again. After an X-ray, an orderly came and told me to take 6 May and Baker pills every three hours until I was cured. The pills were enormous, the size of wristwatches, and the first one I took shot out of my mouth. For the next couple of days the orderly visited me every three hours and we had the same trouble. After I had taken 36 tablets much to my relief, the Officer/Doctor agreed that I was sufficiently recovered not need more. I was discharged from the Casualty Clearing System to a General Hospital and a few days later was sent back to my Unit. I returned to duty 14 days after first being deemed sick.

I later learned that this was the first occasion that the tablets had been used for practical purposes as distinct from hospital tests.

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