I cannot guarantee that the information enclosed is 100% accurate but it is reasonbly close. I have had to rely on what I gleaned from books and from writing to various people and organisations and from interviewing a former member of the R.S.R. I can only hope that the reader finds it as interesting as I did in compiling it.

GUNNER STANLEY ARTHUR SIDNEY CARTER
20th. July 1922 - 8th. December 1944

Like so many of his contempories Stanley enlisted into the Territorial Army in 1938, when the war clouds were beginning to gather. There were other reasons beside patriotism for joining the T.A. amongst these were the social aspect, many sporting features, frequent dances, and many people would be affected by the presence of the Unit. Of course the serious side of the T.A. had to be accepted, there were weekly parades to attend and occasional week-end camps and the obligatory Annual Camp, these occasions were necessary for the young men to learn the deadly art of war.

The Unit that Stanley joined was the 304th. Searchlight Battery of the Royal Artillery, based at the Drill Hall, Flodden Road, Camberwell. When war was declared on the Sunday 3rd. September, all Territorial Army Units were immediately mobilised, this meant that all members of the force were required to dress in their unifrom and report to the Drill-Hall, and from that time they were in effect Regular soldiers.

The fact that Stanley's unit was an integral part of the Anti-Aircraft defence of London meant that they were quickly allocated to as position outside the capital, most of the search lights were placed on individual sites and these were often somewhat remote. The living conditions were rather primitive at first, probably a tent to sleep in would be the best they could hope for. Gradually the condition improved but essentially it was a lonely existence, in the middle of no where, just the searchlight, the generator (to power the light), a light machine gun ( to deter some planes from diving on to the light) and the crew, comprising some half-dozen men.

As the war progressed into 1940 and the enemy began to attack more frequently and heavily, all anti-aircraft units began to find the going tough. However with the end of that year the attack slackened and changes began to occur in the defence system, nevertheless the Germans could and did put in some hard attacks and therefore it was necessary to maintain large forces to cope with the sudden but infrequent flurries of attacks.

With the beginning of 1943, the general trend was improving for the Allies, the Germans had thrown themselves at the Russians, and this was absorbing a great deal of their energy. The battles in North Africa had been brought to a satisfactory finish and the Allies were priming themselves for the attack on Italy.

All this meant that the ability of the Germans to mount any meaningful air-attacks had receded so that a large number of men hitherto tied up in air defence could now be freed for service in other units and other theatres of combat. As a result of this change Stanley found himself bound for the Middle East as part of a large reinforcement.

At this point it becomes necessary to digress in order to assist the reader to digest a number of relevant points concerning the Middle East at that time. The Allies were faced with the task of crossing the Mediterranean Sea in order to attack the Germans who were firmly established in the Adriatic and Aegean sea's. On many islands there were airfields and radar stations.

It was therefore necessary for the allies to deal with these islands and their installations in order that the main effort against Italy and Greece should succeed. To cope with just such a situation the British had at the beginning of the war developed an organisation specifically for this type of operation, they were known as the Commandos. Each Commando was alloted a number, their strength was usually 400-500 men and each Commando operated as a separate unit. Other Special Services units were formed, such as the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Squadron (SBS). At a conference of the Combined Services, in 1943, it was agreed that all the Special Service units would be brought up to strength and that a new Special Service unit would be formed, whose objective was to supply extra fire power with heavier weapons to the existing Special Service units and it would be known as the Raiding Support Regiment. The basic function of all these units would be to deal with the various islands in the hands of the enemy.

It was coincidental that Stanley's arrival in the Middle East and the decision to form the Raiding Support Regiment should occur at the same time but when the call went out for volunteers for this unit, Stanley decided to put his name forward and was accepted.

THE RAIDING SUPPORT REGIMENT

I have covered on a separate sheet the training syllabus and requirements of the newly formed regiment, however it was formed on the 10th. October 1943 at the Base camp ta Azzeb, Palestine, now of course Israel. The training took place over a large area, some time was spent at the school of mountain warfare in Syria, where they actually spent some time learning to ski. The endurance marches, when they carried Bergan packs loaded with 70 to 80 lbs of gear, took place in Palestine.

They were then sent to the Parachute training school at Ramat David where they made their compulsory seven jumps from such aircraft as the Hudson and Wellington. Shortly after Christmas, 1943, the regiment embarked on the troopship Devonshire at Port Said, Egypt, and after 7 days steaming arrived at Taranto, in the toe of Italy, later on the regiment would make a base at San Materno. At this time the SBS had been making a series of reconnaissance's of the islands off the coast of Yugoslavia and found that the Germans were in the process of occupying many of them. It was decided that the nearest of the islands to the Italian mainland, Vis, should be occupied by the Allies.

The island of Vis had been used for some time by the Partisan forces of Yugoslavia as part of a naval base and part H.Q.s of the resistance forces, so there were delicate negotiations with the partisans to accept Allied troops there. On the 16th. January, 1944 the germans invaded the islands of Brac and Hvar, these were adjacent to Vis and on the 17th. January elements of No. 2 Commando were landed on Vis. Within the next three weeks the remainder of the Commando landed and additional forces such as a light anti-aircraft battery, R.A.F. personnel and a machine-gun detachment of the Raiding Support Regiment, at the end of February No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando was on the island.

The Germans never invaded Vis, but nevertheless tried to make life as uncomfortable as possible with frequent air-raids, but in spite of this the Commando units made many raids on the various Islands in the area, capturing many prisoners and material and keeping the enemy on continual alert and great strain. C battery R.S.R. had the disadvantage of only being partially trained in the use of their machine-guns when they landed on Vis and they literally had to learn under combat conditions. Other batteries of the R.S.R. arrived on the island for short periods but they were withdrawn to Italy and prepared to land on the coast of Yugoslavia to assist the partisans, this they did in May. It was July before C battery were withdrawn from Vis and they had occasionally assisted the Commando's on the various raids that had taken place. In the June of 1944 the Allies had of course invaded Europe at Normandy and the Germans were being forced into retreating back through the Balkans to their homeland. The Allies kept up the pressure in Italy and by September a great deal was happening in Greece and Yugoslavia.

Research has led me to believe that the next move that Stanley, and of course his battery, were involved in was part of FOXFORCE, this comprised of No. 9 Commanmdo, L.R.D.G., S.B.S., and 2nd Independant Para Brigade. They were landed on the island of Kithera, which is off the South West tip of Greece, here they were initially resonsible for the security of the naval base at Avlemon but shortly after this they moved to the South West corner of the island, this took place in the middle of September. A similar force, code named BUCKETFORCE, comprising parts of No. 4 (R.M.) Commando, R.A.F. Regiment, some of the S.B.S. and L.R.D.G. and a battalion of the Highland Light Infantry, a naval section and a large number of British and American correspondents were landed just south of Aroxos, to obtain control of the port of Patras, on the Peloponnese.

Whilst this was all going on word came that the Germans were in the process of pulling out of Athens and heading northwards. Orders were given for FOXFORCE to secure the approaches to the port of Piraeus, the gateway to Athens, to enable relief convoys of food and troops to land. By the 24th. September, the enemy had withdrawn completely from the Peleponnese and had left the Greek Security Battalions to maintain law and order, both FOXFORCE and BUCKETFORCE were instructed to move into the mainland as swiftly as possible and to advance to Athens.

Once the troops landed on the mainland they were feted as heroes and given a tumultuous welcome from the population, by the middle of October they were marching through Athens, in the form of a Victory Parade, they were still being feted and fussed by the people, who at this time were very close to starving.

The British troops made every effort to assist the Civil Power to return the country back to normal, particularly with the distribution of food and other essentials but also helping to repair the water and electricity services. However there were political problems of great magnitude developing, simply stated it was that the communist controlled partisans known as Elas, wanted nothing less than the control of the country. They had made very little effort to support the Allies in ousting the Germans from their country, despite the fact that they had been liberally supplied with weapons for such a task (a fact that the British were to regret as they were used against their own troops). The British Commander, General Scobie, had the unenviable task of coping with both the military and political problems. He asked for more troops to be sent and carried out the policy of having troops on the streets where the population could see them and where they could quickly cope with the increasing number of shootings and disturbances that were taking place. General Scobie decided that the one factor that would influence the restoration of peace would be the disarming of all factions other than the police, and to this effect he decreed the the 10th. December was the deadline for the handing in of all weapons.

Faced with this declaration and realising the still quite small number of British troops involved, Elas decided on an all out attempt to overthrow both the Civil Government and the British Army, to this end they began to pull all their forces out of the mountains, where they had been avoiding the Germans for some years, and began to concentrate in the area around Athens, where as the old adage goes; "He who controls Athens, controls Greece".

In the period just after the war and indeed whilst all this was taking place it was believed by many people in both Britain and the U.S.A. that the forces of Elas represented the wishes of the people of Greece, the truth was soon to become apparent. As the beginning of December arrived the tension in Athens became almost intolerable, daily more and more groups of Elas men were opening parading the streets. The British soldiers for their part acted as British soldiers have nearly always done, an easy going friendly spirit, gently chafing the trouble-maker and playing with the children, this unfortunately was to prove the undoing of many of them.

On Friday. 1st. December, Elas organised a mass meeting in Syntagma Square, ostensibly it was meant to register disquiet at the aims of the interim Government, in practice it was used to demonstrate to the authorities how tight was the grip of Elas on the situation. The demonstration began quietly and the very large crowd were relatively passive, it was the first time for years that people had been allowed to gather together. Gradually, however, the tension began to build and then the crowd, whipped-up by the Elas men began to move towards the Government buildings, the police who were there specifically to prevent this happening panicked and began to fire into the crowd and several people were killed. The effect of this exceeded the expectations of Elas, who then capitalised on the resulting chaos by coming onto the streets fully armed in support of the people against the police.

The first priority of Elas was to neutralise the police and in particular the police-stations and to this end a series of attacks on police-station began on Monday 4th. Decemeber. It was during one of these raids that the British troops received an urgent call for assistance from a police-station that was in danger of being overun, the troops responded to the call and in the process were actively engaged against Elas, this was in effect the beginning of the Civil War.

It is not commonly known that at this time the strength of Elas was in excess of fifty thousand men, all fully armed, they even possessed some artillery and tanks that they acquired when an Italian division surrendered to them. As soon as fighting began all the British troops were pulled back into an area of approximately one square mile, where they made strong points at strategic positions. The tragedy was that all the British troops concerned had for years been fighting an identifiable enemy, one that wore an established uniform and fought in an understandable manner, now they faced ordinary citizens, the same ones who but a few short weeks ago were cheering them. slapping their backs and telling them what fine fellows they were.

These same people now produced a rifle from under their clothes and shot them, very often in the back. It took a while before the British soldiers came to terms with such treachery and it was into this cauldron of street fighting in narrow, mean streets and alleys that Stanley and C battery R.S.R. found themselves literally fighting for their lives. They were vastly outnumbered, hopelessly trying to avoid killing the innocent and yet being fired upon by the apparent innocent. On Friday 8th. December, probably as part of the inevitable patrol, trying desparately to keep the hordes at bay, Stanley was fired on by a sniper and was fatally wounded, he was taken to the 97th. General hospital where he died the next day.

The real tradegy was that on the 3rd December the majority of FOXFORCE was standing on the airport just outside Athens waiting to be airlifted back to Italy when as a result of an urgent request by General Scobie to retain these first class troops they were ordered to return back to the city.

The Civil War was to last five weeks and to cost the lives of two hundred and fifty British soldiers. In early January, 1945 Elas sued for peace, although this was the end of British involvement in Greece the Civil War broke out again and was to last a number of years.

Compared with other larger campaigns that the British soldier had been involved in during the course of the war, the Civil War in Greece rated as probably the nastiest and most difficult action of the war.