大象传媒

Bob was now posted to Moor Park where he was in photo-interpretation, straining his eyes through powerful lenses and calculating heights of buildings and other structures. By this time D-Day had arrived, the Aliies had finally invaded and were pushing the Germans back towards the Reich. Then towards the end of the summer Montgomery was urging his idea for an Allied airborne landing and a lightning crossing of the Rhine. This was to culminate in the disastrous Operation "Market Garden". Bob was earmarked for the Airborne forces and now wore the prized red beret, with the Royal Engineers badge. Whilst at Moor Park he often used to see General "Boy" Browning (the husband of the novelist Daphne du Maurier) who was in charge of part of the operation walking about, asking questions and he remembers that Browing was never snobbish but would talk to anyone and ask them what they thought, regardless of rank.

The day came and Bob and his unit took off for Holland in a Horsa glider, towed by another aircraft. There was also another bigger model also used by the British, the Hamilcar which could carry a jeep or light artillery guns. There were also the notorious American-built Waco gliders, which many British troops flatly refused to fly in as they had a nasty habit of breaking up in mid-air; in fact there was nearly a full-blown mutiny when a number of troops were told they were to be transported in those death-traps. Bob and another soldier were the "arse-end Charlies", whose job it was when the glider landed was to separate the fuselage from the tail by cutting the wires that held the tow together, so that all the troops and euqipment could be unloaded quickly. Over the North Sea they went and some time later the airborne forces landed on Renkum Heath, near the village of Oosterbeek.

"Market Garden" turned out to be a bloodbath and needs no further elaboration here. 10,000 troops were sent over to Holland and less than 2,000 returned. Bob would always recall that the weather was dreadful, heavy rain non-stop and they were hiding in sodden trenches in the woods, listening to the shouted propaganda that the Germans were broadcasting to them from loudspeakers slung up in the trees. At one time they were huddled in a trench, wet through, muddy and filthy, hearing a German shouting to them, "You are surrounded. Surrender and you will be well treated. Please wave a white handkerchief to show you are surrendering!" Then one squaddie, an East End Cockney Jew called Jack Morgan (nicknamed "Grandad" as he was in his thirties) said, "Where the F*** do these bastards think we're going to get a clean snot-rag from then?" which cheered them all up no end. Ever afterwards Bob always swore that Jack saved their sanity for them, joking non-stop and with a terrific sense of ribald humour.

Somehow Bob and a friend got separated from their unit in the melee and they decided to make their own way back to the Allied lines. They were walking through a small village and a Dutchwoman spotted them, calling to them in English that they were going the wrong way, towards the German border. She hid them both, at the most appalling risk to herself, in the cellar of her own house - that was used by the Gestapo as their headquarters; although she and her husband had been kept on as caretakers. There they stayed for several days, fed and hidden. Ironically it was probably the safest place in the village, the Gestapo never thinking that British troops would dare to hide under their very noses. Then for some reason the Gestapo decided to move out and Bob and his friend thought now was the time to go. Before they left, Bob helped himself to a couple of armbands (one SS-Gestapo issue and another of shoddy material with insignia glued on, used by Dutch personnel employed by the Germans), thinking he might as well have something out of them. (Many years later he passed them to me when moving house and retiring back to Norfolk).

The two moved south and befor long met a Dutch family by the name of Peters who welcomed them and said they could use their garage attached to the house to sleep in. For some days Bob and his friend went out on patrol and into hiding, leaving sweets for the children on the beds they had in the garage. In the evenings when they returned, the sweets would have disappeared and in their palce would be ripe plums left for them. Soon they received word that they and others in hiding were to be evacuated over the Rhine, so on their last night they cooked a meal with their rations for the Peters family - who all burst into tears because they had not seen such food for a very long time; also the outside world did not know that the Dutch were starving and reduced to eating tulip bulbs. They left what food they could spare for the Peters before leaving, hoping the family would be all right.

Soon Bob and his friend met up with other British troops and were taken over the Rhine by night into Allied-occupied Belgium, meeting up with Jack Morgan and some of the others. They spent the night in an abandoned rat-infested Belgian cavalry barracks and were told they would be flown back to England in the morning. Next day Jack Morgan investigated the latrines on an urgent errand and found them so disgusting that he swore he would wait until he got home, which he did - all the way from Belgium to Britian. Once the Dakota touched down, Jack jumped out of the aircraft door without waiting for a pair of steps and flew across the runway to the nearest buildings, returning with a blissful smile on his face.

When Bob and the survivors were being de-briefed an army doctor talked to them, saying, "I know you're all feeling pretty pleased with yourselves and glad you're back but I'll warn you now, you will feel bloody terrible afterwards in yourselvesd". Nowadays one would say that he was waring them in advance of post-traumatic stress disorder, but of course such a condition was not really recognised in those days. Afterwards all were granted home leave and Bob returned to Mill Hill, filthy, tired and unshaven but with head high. The frist thing he did when he got in was to take off his dirty battledress and had a long, hot bath to wash off the accumulated grime, feeling much better in himself. Then off he went to bed, but awoke at least 20 times that night, screaming from terrible nightmares and waking my grandfather who kept going into his bedroom and saying, "It's all right, boy. I'm here, don't worry". (My grandfather had been a medical orderly in the RAMC on the Western Front in World War 1 and had no doubt seen such cases before, which in his day was called "shell shock"). To this day, Bob still has the odd nightmare about Arnhem.

Whilst at home my grandmother asked Bob to go to Edgware on an errand for her, so off he went to catch the local 240 bus. The road from Mill Hill to Edgware still dips down at an acute angle at one point where crossing the Deansbrook stream and as it did so, it made Bob think back to when the tow rope detached from the Horsa glider and it glided down very fast and steeply towards the ground; and he felt so panic-stricken that he rang the bell and asked to be let off. The conductor asked him if he was all right and Bob replied, "No, not really. If you don't mind, I'll walk". So he walked to Edgware, did what he had to do and walked all the way back. When Bob entered the house my grandmother said, "You've been a long time. Anything wrong?" and he was obliged to tell her what really happened. At that time the family heard the news that Bob's cousin Charles (who had been in the Hampshire Regiment and had been married only a few weeks before) had been killed by blast at Nijmegen, also during "Market Garden".

To be continued in Part 3.

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