“The partisans were pushing on, captured Spuz and were shelling Podgorica airfield from the mountains. Lt. M and I did a recce towards Spuz Bridge for positions – found a position, mined! We went carefully not knowing what odd Gerries were about. I had Betsy loaded – we found positions but very much in the open. However, his shelling was bad and he only had one or two guns – the shoot was a night one, just a fire plan, so we decided to chance it.

The troops got in that night. I took a cable truck forward to lay some lines, it was a horrible night – I had to walk in front most of the way, past partisan guns, stinking mules, lights going up. An odd shell or two, the clank of ammunition boxes – with a nervous driver. The shoot went off fine – we got some back; the bridge area, a mile away, was plastered. No one hurt. We did the same the following night.

476 came up and were ferried over the River Zeta on to the byroad to Spuz to shell the road between Podgorica and Bioce. We went forward to the outskirts of Spuz when Lt. M. and I went on the recce we were made very welcome by the locals, given warm, raw eggs and goat’s milk and the choice of a couple of houses for CP. We decided on one and the family – old man, woman and charming daughter – immediately moved out of their bedroom, the best room in the house, and gave it to us.

There were four beds in the room. The BC had one, Jimmy Barnes another and, who should occupy the charming daughter’s bed, but me. We only stayed there a few days, long enough to see the attitude of the Partisans to the Chetniks.

I haven’t discoursed previously on the different Yugoslav organisations because I did want to avoid the subject. However, I must say a word here. There were three bodies – the Partisans who were the peasant class, communists all, and wanting Tito; the Chetniks who wanted Peter – and the Metashi, bandits. The Chetniks and Partisans fought the Germans and each other. The Metashi fought everyone except the Germans. If any Metashi captured any Chets. or Parts., they tortured then shot them and vice versa – such horrible tortures too. At one time, they even did the same to British. We saw lots of Chets, handcuffed and blindfolded in Danilovgrad – they never seemed to go any further back, nor did the numbers ever seem to increase – they just disappeared.

The southern part of Yugoslavia – the part in which we were fighting was Chetnik country. The Partisans treated the civilians very coolly; anyone who spoke his feelings aloud just vanished. The old boy in our CP was a Chetnik. He had been an officer in the regular army. He treated us in strictly correct fashion, but refused to hide the pictures of himself in uniform, the king and his own rifle and sword – so he vanished. I was there when they came for him, an officer and four men, grim and silent. They just grouped themselves around him and went, the women white faced, sobbing and we, the brave English, couldn’t do a bloody thing – just what we were fighting against too. Then some more Partisans came and took the goat and the pig and the cow and the hens and went silently away. Ben and I spent a long while with that mother and that daughter that evening – there they were, liberated! Without a scrap of food, without their loved one and us making excuses for the English. I have never felt so small, so ashamed in all my life.

Some 3.7” Howitzers moved in behind us and I spent a full day surveying them in – just finished and we had to move again.”

Diary entry from 16th- 18th December 1944 from Sgt Observer Frederick Sidney Williams, 212 Bty, 111 Fd Regt in his family’s memoirs “Our Fred’s War”.

“H set off fairly early to Podgorica and the signs of the battle in that early morning air were depressing – smell of death, mules and horses, men, guns, vehicles lying everywhere – bodies on the river bank. A battery of guns, four, just dropped into action, tractors still on position, crews dead. All our own work! I suppose I should have gloated. Do the people at home know war like this? They never see this side. Curse everyone who causes men to suffer death; the physical and mental agonies of war.

We found a position for the two batteries, ours and the 3.7s. Got them in and gave the Gerries a few parting shots. Our command post there had been an old German military police headquarters and when I broke the door down, the table was still laid and the room full of stale cigar smoke. I met the three Partisans who had captured it, they fired onto it from a ridge a hundred yards in front and descended onto it – five Germans dashed out – unfortunately one got away.”

Diary entry from 20th December 1944 from Sgt Observer Frederick Sidney Williams, 212 Bty, 111 Fd Regt in his family’s memoirs “Our Fred’s War”.

“The Partisans were pushing on, captured Bioce Bridge and the village, then Klopot, they didn’t want us again thank you! A German corps was coming south down the line to relieve – should be fun – glad we ain’t wanted. It was cold, freezing, snowing and when we were told that we were going to spend Xmas at Trebinje it seemed too good to be true.

The journey was a nightmare, skidding trucks, dangerous roads, spent one night in an old deserted railway station at Petrovici, then on through Viluse to Trebinje, arriving on the 23rd – just in nice time.”

Diary entry from 21st-22nd December 1944 from Sgt Observer Frederick Sidney Williams, 212 Bty, 111 Fd Regt in his family’s memoirs “Our Fred’s War”.