大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Roger Marsh of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Harry Wood and has been added to the site with the author's permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

MEMOIRS OF A GUNNER
BY
HARRY WOOD

Chapter 6b

Moving across country now and heading for Belgium. Resistance men popping up all over the place, many of them jumping on the bandwagon and settling old scores. We stopped in a village one evening when a resistance leader informed us that 80 SS men were surrounded nearby, they would only surrender to the allies, and fight to the last man if the local Marquis attacked.

A commander and two men went out to fetch them and they came quietly.
After searching them, we all finished up with thousands of francs. I also had a Lugar pistol, but I felt no pity for the SS. The resistance men would have cheerfully cut all their throats if we had let them.

Rumbling across the countryside, we passed the huge cemeteries of Arras, Verdun, Amiens all First World War victims (will we ever learn to live peacefully side by side?). At last Brussels and what a reception, the streets were crowded with people, some climbed on the guns, rode on the bonnets of the vehicles and passed up wine and beer as we slowly passed through the city. We parked the guns in a park on the outskirts, a place called Woliwe St Pierre, this was the affluent part of Brussels. The Germans were miles away, so we didn鈥檛 have to prepare for action. People came crowding around inviting us to their homes but of course, we couldn鈥檛 just wander off like that.

One lady, about 35 years old, spoke perfect English and she said her name was Lucy and would my friends and I accept a dinner invitation. Anyhow, about 20 of us were going to booze up at the local grocers that night. They hadn鈥檛 any food but there was plenty to drink so we all sang songs and were really relaxed. The next morning Lucy was back with one of the officers, it appeared her family wanted representatives of our unit to have dinner that night: two officers, a Sergeant Major, a Sergeant, a Bombardier, a Gunner and myself, I couldn鈥檛 refuse really but I felt uncomfortable all evening. It was a large house, expensively furnished, the family wee ship owners. Bother her parents at the time were in Antwerp looking after their interests, Lucy herself was a member of the Belgian Red Cross, and expected any time to proceed to the front, and her brother had been missing from home for three years as a member of the resistance. We had vegetable soup, brown bread and corned beef supplied by the officers. This was all the food they had, but bottles of vintage wine covered in whitewash, from the cellars appeared on the table and was served in cut glass wine goblets. All this was wasted on me, I found the transition from the roughness of the past few months to a night of gracious living too much.

We were off the next morning to Jerry鈥檚 next line of defence, on the banks of the Escant Canal and the flat country of Holland beyond.

The gun position was a good one; we had plenty of time to dig in and felt quite safe from anything that could be thrown back. Evening came, and with it some German planes. They lit up our position with a flare prelude to the bombing, and then this Lieutenant Kitchen did a stupid thing by ordering Sergeant Lavera to send a man out with a spade to put the flare out. We knew that by the time flares reach the ground they are almost our anyway, but Holy Joe volunteered. 鈥淭he Lord will protect me,鈥� he said.

Those were his last words, we found him when the bombing was over; what a waste. The entire troop would cheerfully have shot that bastard Kitchen. The barrage went as planned the next day. We buried Joe in the afternoon; the local Belgian farmer making a lovely cross and his wife placed some wild flowers in a shell case to place on his grave.

Eindhoven was the next town and the huge airborne show was on. The sky was full of bombers and gliders and transport planes making for Arnhem, Nijmegen and Graves. At first it was fairly easy, we linked up with the American paratroopers at Keighel and Grave, but having only a single road to Nijmegen and Arnhem was our downfall. The road was about 30 feet above the fields and neither armour nor vehicles could move in the field or you sank up to your axles.

The tanks of the Guards Armoured were sitting ducks to the anti tank guns of the Germans. Some tried to escape by going down the banking, but even so, they sank down and became immobile. We were then brought in to pinpoint these guns with coloured smoke flares at the time that the Typhoon fighters peeled off and let their rockets go. This had the desired effect and we made slow progress. Then Jerry counter attacked and cut us off for two days, so we lived on lousy German rations of black bread and coffee made from acorns. It was hard work getting the guns into action, all of them had to be manhandled in the clinging squelchy soil. Normally we could drop into action and be ready for firing in a few minutes; here it was taking two or three hours. We finally made Nijmegen, only to use our guns to cover retreat of the few members of the Airborne, who made it back to this side of the Rhine so near and yet so far.

The country beyond Nijmegen was like an island as the Nedder Rhine ran through Arnhem and the lower Rhine through Nijmegen. In between was the village of Elst, which boasted a jam factory, occupied by our infantry and that was the nearest we got to Arnhem Bridge 3 miles away. We moved on to the island and bivouacked in an orchard, the guns were about 20 yards away all camouflaged; we couldn鈥檛 dig in as our spades fetched out water each time, but things were reasonably quiet and there were plenty of apples to stave off the perpetual hunger.

It was getting chilly now October was here. Then one night we got the usual orders to take posts and dashing across to the guns, found two of the lads in the ditch which was now full of water. We fired some rounds off, and then the field became a lake and our ammunition was below water. We fired what dry charges we had, but the water was still rising and in the darkness you can imagine the confusion.

Jerry had blown the banks of the Nedder Rhine and we had to get out fast as the water flooded the island. Only one road was use-able, back to Nijmegen and fortunately he didn鈥檛 follow up his advantage by shelling us. Thoroughly browned off we made our way back to Nijmegen and dropped into action near the power station. Strangely enough, this power station went on producing electricity all through the hostilities, to both friend and foe alike.

Sergeant Robson was getting worse now; he jumped at any signs of enemy action and was crouching down like a rabbit, when he should have been directing his gun. None of the other NCO's spoke to him, unless duty called but I felt sorry for him in his isolation.

A few days later we were No 1 gun, the sky was clear and our Northumberland Hussars gunners on the Bofor Ack-ack nearby were at the alert, as enemy planes were about. We could see their vapour trails in the sky but they were out of range of the Bofors.

Crack! Crack! Crack! A string of anti-personnel bombs strewn the position, we all ducked. I heard a bang nearby and saw the Bofor gun a mass of flames. Being the nearest, I dashed over, the armour was exploding but I knew that ammo doesn鈥檛 travel too far when exploded by heat, so I was able to get near enough to grab a Corporal and drag him away. Sergeant Lavero had gone around the other side and pulled out their Sergeant who had lost a leg. I knelt on the ground with this lad鈥檚 head between my knees. A piece of shrapnel had pierced his right cheek and shot upward behind his eye and came out through the top of his head. I placed a field dressing on his wound, there wasn鈥檛 much more I could do until the ambulance arrived. Meanwhile three other members of the crew were slowly turning black in the middle of the fire. Burnt flesh is a smell you never forget. My legs were sticky with blood now and I didn鈥檛 have any more trousers, even the quartermaster hadn鈥檛 any.

Ironic that I finally got a pair when the dead soldiers' possessions were being sorted out. Where was sergeant Robson? In his slit trench as usual.

Two days later, we moved to another position in a field nearby. A farmhouse was convenient for a cookhouse and the rooms were taken over for an officers' mess, our gun as No 1 ranging gun was furthest away, about 100 yards. It was rather quiet with no calls for firepower, so we managed to fill some empty ammo-boxes with soil to use as protection as it was still too waterlogged to dig very deep. Grub was shouted up about 5pm and a strangely quiet sergeant Robson said, 鈥淭ake all the lads Harry, I鈥檒l be all right on my own鈥�.

This was unusual as we usually took turns, three men at a time, as we could by now do each others' jobs there was no question of the gun not firing if any orders came through. I was first back to relieve Robson and was about 10 yards away from the gun and the spot where he was crouching when a shot rang out. I ran forward to see him holding his left wrist where blood was pumping out at an alarming rate. Obviously the artery was severed so I put a tourniquet on his arm to stop the bleeding and put a field dressing on the wound. 鈥淚 kicked the stem gun and it went off,鈥� he said but he didn鈥檛 fool me.
There were powder burns around the hole in his wrist, but the 38 slug had torn a bigger hole at the other side where it had come out and the jarring effect had fractured his collar bone. His nerve had finally snapped.

Two hours later I was sent for, to be interviewed, by the battery commander and two more officers. I told the truth as it occurred and no more. What they wanted was a witness to a charge of self-inflicting a wound; a court marshal offence, but I wouldn鈥檛 give them this satisfaction. They were the guilty ones, all these years they must have seen him cracking up and did nothing about it.

He couldn鈥檛 have been a coward at heart because in 1940, at the age of 19, he was awarded the Military medal in France for bravery.

I went back to the lads in the detachment in charge of the gun now, but that nagging feeling that all hopes of promotion were left behind in that Officers' Mess. Number one on the gun team is always a sergeant, but instead of receiving this extra stripe, an NCO came from a re-enforcement regiment to take over. He was a decent sort, Sergeant Holmes, came from Leeds and had served most of the war in Iceland. Well he would find our situation different from meeting angry polar bears.

Pr-BR

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