 In September 1940 he was conscripted and served as a field artillery signaller while Joan and their daughter Anne Patrizio were evacuated to Cornwall.While serving in the North African Campaign, Temple began work on a novel-length "Four-Sided Triangle" but lost the half-finished manuscript during a battle in the Tunisian Campaign at Takrouna.He subsequently participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, during which he learned of the birth of his son Peter and the subsequent invasion of Italy, where he lost a second manuscript of "Four-Sided Triangle" during the Battle of Anzio.