WHEN Ernie Morris set out to fix a broken communication line during a break in intense fighting in Italy in 1944, little did he know it had been deliberately cut by a sniper who was lying in wait for him.

The Second World War veteran would have died there and then but for an incredible stroke of luck.

As it was, he returned to his unit a hero, complete with trophies including a Luger pistol and a set of sniper’s binoculars.

Mr Morris, who at the time was a radio operator with the 6th Battalion Black Watch, fighting the Battle of Monte Cassino, said: “I’ve never told anyone this. I was running a 10 line switchboard, and one of the lines got cut.

“I was sent out to repair it. When I found it, it was a clean cut. Then, as I repaired it, a bullet whizzed past my head. There was a sniper in a tree who had cut it deliberately then waited for someone to come. I just had a revolver. I turned round and fired in his direction. I got him right between the eyes. It was complete luck.

“I took his binoculars and Luger and everything, but I lost it all later, when I got wounded.

“When I got back, the commanding officer said, ‘You’re a brave man, you just came through a minefield’.

“Another time I took three German prisoners; they were only aged 17. One of them was crying and when I asked him why, he said because he’d been told we were ‘devil women, who killed all prisoners’. I said, ‘That’s a load of rubbish, I’m taking you back for a hot meal’.”

Mr Morris, whose father Ralph was a First World War veteran, had started the Second World War fighting in North Africa, before being sent to Italy where he fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino, the famous Allied assault on German forces hiding in catacombs beneath the ancient monastery overlooking the town of Cassino.

The 89-year-old said: “There was one incident in North Africa, when we were walking in the dark, attacking a German position.

“There were three of us together, when all of a sudden we heard a shell coming over. My father had been in the First World War and he said, ‘A live coward is better than a dead hero. If you hear anything coming get down’. We did, we all got down. The other two were killed outright and I didn’t get a scratch, didn’t even go deaf.

“The corporal wasn’t quite dead and I put me arm round him and my hand went right in his back, there was a great big hole in his back, and he mentioned his girl’s name and then he died. I’ll never forget that.”

Mr Morris describes the fighting in Italy, particularly at Monte Cassino, as some of the most intense of the Second World War.

It was there that Mr Morris was badly wounded by a mortar bomb blast, which effectively meant he could no longer take part in active combat. He was hit by 42 pieces of shrapnel, in his neck, shoulder, elbows and knees, as he joined in the assault on Monte Cassino.

He said: “I had to go to a ‘personal selection board’ to see what they were going to do with me. This officer said, ‘What would you like to do?’. I said, ‘Can I go home?’. He said, ‘Oh no, not yet, we can still find you a job’.”

Mr Morris, of Penkhull, finished the war as a welder, working on 44-gallon petrol drums and fixing pipe lines through Italy.

After the war, he continued working as a pipe fitter and welder, eventually working for Michelin.

The widower, who was married to Lilly, has one daughter and three grandchildren.