大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's war site by Henryka McDuff for the 大象传媒, and has been added to the website on behalf of Sir Charles Jessel with his permission and he fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Sir Charles Jessel's war memories

During the Battle of Britain, my home in Goudhurst was on a site whereby many air battles were fought overhead. It was the 15th of September 1940 which was the height of the Battle of Britain. I remember seeing 15 parachutes in the air; these were either British or German who were shot down by the enemy, coming down into the area of Goudhurst where I lived. Then suddenly out of the blue a Spitfire came very low, at least I think it was a Spitfire, it could have been a Hurricane. It missed our house by a few inches and crashed about a quarter of a mile beyond on the farm which belonged to the house a tenanted farm. Many years later, it was dug up and there was a dead pilot inside it. I think he was Czech or Polish. I can't remember which. I was frightened that his plane was going to hit the chimney of our house, but it just missed by a few inches. That was a very exciting day, but I realised that because there were more British planes in the air and more Germans were shot down it was going to be a triumphant day for the Royal Air Force.

Another memory comes back to me as a boy on Lamberhurst golf course. When I was with the school Officer Training Corps (the OTC) we were dressed in our own uniforms, but during the holidays I belonged to the Goudhurst Home Guard. We ended up trying to do manoeuvres of sorts on the golf course, and I was then a Corporal. It was exactly like Dad's Army. There were people very much older than myself. I was like Corporal Pike. We were inspected by a General, whose name I have forgotten, but afterwards he was held responsible by losing Singapore to the Japanese.

Another memory comes back to me when I am talking about things that happened in England when I was in the Army. I was on leave. I was sitting in a train just over the bridge from Charing Cross, the train stopped and I could hear a doodlebug, which was what we called the V1's. It was making a monotonous humming noise, until suddenly the humming noise stopped. We realised there was quite a chance that the V1 would land on top of the train. The noise stopped, you knew the V1 was going to come down, and there was nothing we could have done, because we were all sitting in the train. I think that was the only moment, even though I was subsequently fighting in the Army, that I felt really frightened. I could not do anything except sit passively and wait and see whether this thing dropped on the train. Fortunately it did not, it missed us, and the train then proceeded to Kent, where I had my leave.

When I joined the Army I went to Sandhurst and I became an officer and subsequently commanded a troop of tanks, which was part of the 11th Armoured Division. This Division went through after the D-day landings, but when I joined them later in the year, they were already established on the River Maas in Holland. It was pretty bleak, it was a horrible winter, and I spent a lot of time just shooting across the river. Later the following year in 1945 we advanced on Germany and we were engaged in several tank battles, some with troops who were no more than Home Guards or school boys, who seemed very inexperienced; some with very experienced Panzer Divisions, who fought extremely hard. On one of the occasions when we were fighting the rather less experienced, youthful soldiers, one of my tanks was hit. The leading tank was hit by a bazooka.
I could see the flames going up from the turret. I knew something was terribly wrong, then we engaged in firing at the enemy. I was so concerned that the other members of the tank crew might be burned as well as the people in the turret,that I was foolish enough to get out of my tank and go and see if I could rescue them. This of course as an officer, is something that I should not have done, because I was in charge of a troop of 4 tanks, and once you were out of your turret you could not control other tanks.
When I got to the tank I found that the two crew members had in fact been able to extricate themselves from the blazing vehicle. They were sitting by the tank taking cover, so I was able to get back into my tank, where I received over the radio a terrific 'rocket' from my Squadron Leader for leaving my tank. Having acknowledged that I was quite in the wrong. I would still do the same again if I was faced with that position, because I wanted to know that my own troops were not burning to death, so I did not regret it at all.

Later on, we were engaged with one or two night battles. I think that they were before the previous battle. Night battles were very uncomfortable for tank troops to fight because you could not see the enemy clearly.
I remember seeing poor horses, which were affected by the shell fire, just breathing their last, in the light of shells that we fired.I thought of the terrible death that they were having. My own tank was stationary, right in advance, when somebody knocked on the turret. I said "Who's that?" He gave his name to me, and of course I'd known him from public school. I said "Oh,I'm Jessel" and he said "I'm Bramall." He was a Lieutenant in the K.R.R.C.(Kings Royal Rifle Corps), now part of the Greenjackets. He subsequently became Chief of Defence staff and a Field Marshal. When I met him after the war, he could not remember this incident, but it was one of the little cameos I remember very well. Of course he had had much more on his plate as a Field Marshal, and he had done many more things than I had.

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