In 1943 the Scouts were sent to Canada to learn to ski. This was to prepare them for work in the Italian Alps to search out ways through the German defences. The Lovat Scouts were a very close and friendly regiment and when in Canada they made friends with the locals again; this time though it was the bears!

Feeding bears

It was at this time that Mr Munro had his worst journey. It wasn’t coming from the Faeroes or during the three weeks crossing the wild Atlantic but on the train through Canada to Jasper. He had tonsillitis and by the time he got there he couldn’t lift his head. In Canada they went on long skiing expeditions until they were ready to go to Italy.

Lovat Scouts with their skis

In Italy Mr Munro was batman to Major Brooke from Mid Fearn. It was his job to look after the officer and make sure everything was all right for him. He used to set the table for dinner and serve food and drink to him and the other officers, wash his clothes and lay them out for him and polish his boots. He only did the cooking once! He was cooking marrow fat peas and even though they were cooked for ages every one of them bounced off the officer’s plates onto the table when they were served. Once when the officer was away Mr Munro borrowed Major Brooke’s kilt to dress up in for a photo.

Mr Munro dressed in borrowed kilt

Major Brooke was a very daring man and often went out at night to near the enemy lines to spy on them and find out where their guns were because they were always moving them. He would then telephone back to let headquarters know where they were. Mr Munro, because he was his batman, always had to go with him and it was his job to carry everything. This was part of the Scout’s job. Once when they were engaged in taking the ‘Gothic Line’, a line of mountains across Northern Italy where ‘Jerries’ had cemented themselves in so no one could pass, the Scouts were sent out to find a way through. They were sent out in twos to try and find a path. Some were killed but one man made it. He found a path. He was Donnie Davidson from Skerra, where he had been a ghille. At one point as he lay hiding he could have put his hand out and caught the passing Germans by the legs of their trousers. He didn’t though and made his way back and reported about the path. It was later used by the allies to break through the German line. Mr Davidson was decorated with a Military Medal for this.

On one occasion Mr Munro remembers being scared but it was not under fire, it was when he had three German prisoners to guard and escort all by himself. They could easily have overpowered him if they wanted to. The Scouts were used sometimes to escort prisoners and Mr Munro remembers the strange and sad story of two scouts who were escorting German prisoners for the Americans and they had to accompany them all the way to America. Sadly the boat they were sailing in was torpedoed off the coast of Northern Ireland and they were lost. The body of one of the Scouts was never recovered but the other was washed northwards and came ashore just under his mother’s croft.

Mr Munro always felt that there were many times that the Lord preserved his life. Once when they were all sheltering from heavy shelling in a house he didn’t feel very safe and decided he would get out of there and make for an ice house which was more underground and covered by earth but every time he would make to run for it the shelling would start up again so eventually he gave up and stayed where he was. When the shelling finally stopped he left the house he was in only to see that the ice house had received a direct hit.

Mr Munro didn’t get home right away after the war finished he had to go to Greece. Eventually he did return home, having been away six years but his little girl wouldn’t go near him. She thought he was a stranger.
Once he was showing his wife some of the photos of his friends. ‘This man was a sergeant, this one a corporal, the other a lieutenant’, he told her. His wife turned to him and said smiling, “And what did you do - nothing?”
….but she knew like the author of the ‘Story Of The Lovat Scouts’ Michael Leslie Melville that” every scout who came through those months fighting in the Apennines had well and truly earned his Italian Star and could wear his blue bonnet with, if possible, even greater pride than before.”