Cookies and kit bags

“When I was about 12, around 1943,” emails David Binnie of Broughty Ferry, “a regiment of American troops was posted to Dundee.

“I lived in Peddie Street at the time and that whole junction of Peddie Street/ Hawkhill /and Pennycook Lane was just awash with American troops. About half way down Pennycook Lane on the lefthand side there was a school gate from which some of the troops were emerging. This was the billeting station.

“I was just a nosy wee boy with my piler wandering down among them listening to them speaking and admiring their uniforms.

“One soldier came out of the school gate with a long strip of paper in his hand and said to me: ‘Hey kid, where is this?’ I looked and saw it was Corso Street and told him it was just up the road. I said: ‘I’ll show you if you want.’ He replied: ‘We’ll have to get my kit bag first. It’s in that other school across the road.’ (the old Hawkhill school at the foot of Peddie Street).

“We went to the school playground and, sure enough, there were dozens of kit bags. He said: ‘You’ll easily find mine, it has a white Christmas tree painted on it.’ I did find it quickly, placed it on my piler and said: ‘I”ll show you where Corso Street is now.’

“When we passed Pescini’s ice cream shop at the corner of Corso Street and Peddie Street he asked if he would get cookies there. I said I doubted it, but he went in and came out with a bag of biscuits which we shared as we went along Corso Street.

“When we reached his address and took off his kitbag from my piler he gave me a good tip for my troubles. I went back down the street to see if anyone else was needing directions .

“I don’t know how long these troops were billeted here but for a few weeks I used to see them doing their early morning PT in Peddie Street.

“I later learned that many of them lost their lives in the Italian campaign. Many years later I saw an American war film and the troops were seen arriving at a railway station with the words Dundee printed as their arrival point. Needless to say, it was none of the railway stations in Dundee during the war.”