Final salute to a real war hero

Here Marion Brennan remembers veteran Alex Franks, whose funeral is being held today.

An ambulance driver with the legendary 7th Armoured Division, The Desert Rats, Alex Franks experienced every major battle of the famed North African Campaign.

Despite never firing a gun during his time in North Africa, he was captured by enemy forces and thrown into a concentration camp.

The great-grandfather-of six, of Wheaton Aston, lived to tell the tale and arrived back home in May 1945.

Two years ago, at the book's publication, Mr Franks told the Express & Star: "When I got back from the war people told me just to forget about it but I couldn't.

But it was not until the late 1980s that he finally put pen to paper and started writing his memoirs.

His story, Noncombatant, was published by Midland advertising guru Trevor Beattie, a major supporter of the Staffordshire Regimental Association.

The book tells the story of his capture by the Italians at El Agheila in Libya and being aboard the Italian ship Ariosto SS which was bombed by the British and sank in February 1942.

He said: "Around 300 of us were kept below deck without food or water.

"The ship was torpedoed by the British. I went looking for some food in the crews' quarters. I found a life jacket and some Scotch whiskey, which I drank with some other men. When the ship was going down I knew I had to jump in the water. The water was freezing. I managed to swim to a nearby Italian ship and was pulled aboard."

Brought up in Oldbury, Mr Franks later worked for the town's Albright & Wilson firm after the war but found that his experience in the concentration camps of Italy as a prisoner-of-war affected his working life, so that being shut up in the factory was difficult. After 12 months he was given a chauffeur job which he held until he retired.

He dictated his memoirs to an old comrade-in-arms, the late Tom Swallow, after the pair met up in 1987 for the first time since they were in a Russian concentration camp together.

But they remained in dossier form for two decades, until Staffordshire Regimental Association members sent them to Mr Beattie.

Widower Mr Franks was invited to join the association's Hednesford branch as an honorary member five years ago and enjoyed the companionship of his fellow veterans. His wife Irene had recently died and he was struggling to come to terms with the loss.

He said: "They were a real grand crowd and they helped me come out of my slight depression. They wanted to borrow my book and thought it was really good.

"I'd wanted my grandchildren to know the story, but I didn't think it was good enough to be published. I didn't think it was 'blood and thunder' enough for the children of this generation.

"Youngsters used to ask me how many Germans I'd killed and I'd say 'I didn't, other people did, I picked them up afterwards."

His detailed recall of events was remarkable. But he said: "It was that bad that you do remember. People would say 'Forget the war' but you can't. I used to have nightmares about the horrors."

His story moved from battlefields and the high seas to capture and confinement in the concentration camps of Italy and Germany before liberation and the return home.

"In my experience, the Russians were the worst," he said. "They starved some prisoners to death, giving out a ladle of boiled dandelion leaves a day. At least we got 4oz of bread with it, even though it was mixed with a good percentage of sawdust."

Mr Beattie, a former Wolverhampton Polytechnic graduate, whose grandfather fought at the Somme, described the book as 'an incredibly powerful piece of work.'

He said today: "I would like to see the movie of his life, the book is already there. His stories are more outrageous and exciting than many war films I have seen.

"The fact he never fired a shot in anger and that he had experience of places like Benghazi and Tripoli in Libya, where conflict continues today, is staggering to consider."

The pair met during a battlefields trip to France where the advertising boss confessed "he drank me under the table."

He said: "He told me that he only had one thing left to achieve and that was to publish his memoirs. I made a promise to him that he would be sat at a trestle table in his uniform with a line of dignitaries queuing up to have him sign his book.

"It was mission accomplished. Although we've lost him, his was a life well-lived."

Gordon Taylor, chairman of the Staffordshire Regimental Association's Hednesford branch, organised a guard of honour outside the chapel.

Regimental mascot Watchman V headed the funeral procession and The Last Post was also played.

He said: "Alex was a gentleman, softly spoken and unassuming. He was one of the guys who did it for us, so we can all walk the streets more safely today."