PALESTINE
The Divisions then withdrew and I moved back to Naples and then to Bari where we handed over our equipment and moved over to Palestine.
. We stayed in Palestine from July to Sept. and then made preparations to move back to Italy but owing to various reasons, we were turned from Egypt back to Palestine and stayed there a further four months and our time was spent in Unit training and latterly on the construction of camps for various units of the brigade. We were all also given leave and generally settled down to a peace time existence. At the end of our stay in Palestine, we undertook the preparation of Headquarters for the troubles that were already breaking out with the Jewish Nationalist Forces and whilst we were there they blew up a portion of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Many raids were made on units for the purpose of stealing arms, equipment and also on the large cantonment camps such as Sarafard, which were dotted throughout Palestine. During this period we were on peacetime military construction and had excellent trade training for all personnel, but by this time we were getting a little tired of our peaceful existence and at last were moved back to Italy to take over from the 76th Division.