大象传媒

There are some things you remember in a war for no apparent reason - one of my memories was of one shot my gunner made during our travels through France and Belgium in late August, early September 1944 with 'B' Squadron, 1st RTR.

We had settled down for the night in someone's backyard and as the early morning came we roused ourselves from our sleep still in the tank. I climbed out to have a stretch and have a look around. There was a bit of ground mist after the rain the day before and we were on one side of a valley. Having roused the lads I started to have a shufti around with my glasses along the far slope of valley.

There appeared to be a road coming over the hill at a slight angle from right to left going down into the valley. Suddenly a small Volkswagen appeared slowly moving over the brow. Coming to a stop, the commander stood up to survey the area in front. Having apparently satisfied himself all appeared safe he continued to slowly move forward. He was followed by a four wheeled armoured car, again a pause was made, same procedure and again moving slowy forward. Next, to my amazement, came an eight-wheeled command vehicle with what appeared to be a 'bedstead' type aerial over the top, I thought 'what a target!'.

I called my gunner,Denny Wells, up on the turret to take a look and said 'how about it?' He said 'It's a bloody long way!' I said 'if it came off they'd never know where it came from', so having a guess at about fifteen hundred yards, we turned the screw on an H.E shell to give a delayed action on impact. We used H.E because a near miss would probably damadge it anyway. By the time we were ready the eight- wheeler and escort had come to a stop again.

Now, these eight-wheelers, by design of their shape, give the appearance of a large black triangle in the middle of the body. So having this as an aiming point with the lads watching, we let fly. Now if you are behind a gun about to be fired you close your eyes until the gunner fires, then when you open your eyes you can clearly see the projectile in flight, it appears to be all over the place rather than in a straight line.

Anyway, much to our amazement and surprise we hit it smack on target, bits went everywhere, it literally disappeared in a cloud of smoke and debris, Our only disappointment was that with everyone watching we didn't have another shell in the breech to follow it up for a pot at one of the others who promptly disapeared down into the valley.

Anyway, that made our breakfast taste a lot better than usual!!

Reg your vet

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