大象传媒

Kervenheim recalled

It was early February 1945, in the hallway of a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Kervenheim, a small town somewhere in war ravaged Germany. My gaze momentarily moved away from the stairs leading down to the cellar as I suddenly became aware of my reflection in an ornately framed, full length mirror on the adjacent wall.
And what did I see?
There I was, in a muddy khaki uniform, wearing a battered steel helmet covered by camouflage netting and all dressed up in 'battle order' (as it was called), with it's webbing straps, pouches and back pack, carrying my basic necessities and emergency rations.
Hooked on to my belt were several Mills grenades, plus a few volatile phosphorus and smoke grenades, plus an additional eight, 2 inch mortar bombs in a couple of pouches slung around my neck. Hooked on to my back webbing was a standard 75a antitank mine (it's detonator was in a small flat tin wedged far away in the water bottle at my side). Sticking out of my back pocket was the handle of a Mauser automatic pistol while the handle of a throwing knife protruded out of my gaiter. And of course my fully loaded rifle with fixed bayonet in my hands plus several bandoliers of rifle ammunition draped around my shoulders..
Dressed to kill indeed!

The reflection was not that of the fresh creamy face of a lad of 18 that I had been only a short while before. Instead I saw a grey face, drained of human emotion during the last 5 months in 18 Platoon, 'D' Company, 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment, with which for the last 6 months or so, I had been virtually constantly on active service in Europe.
Initially we had spent some months in the front line, existing as best we could alongside the rivers Maas and Rhine often living fully dressed for days or weeks, mostly during the deep snow and cold of the Winter of 1944, hiding and sleeping rough in abandoned enemy dugouts or ruined farm buildings by day followed by constant patrols from dusk to dawn wearing every bit of clothing I had underneath the white snow suit.
No wonder I had finished up like many others in the battalion in a military hospital in Helmond suffering from exhaustion and exposure. Ah! that comfortable bed, the hot baths and peace, perfect peace.!
But soon after, that short episode, that mad, night time trip under fire across the River Rhine in a Buffalo, an amphibious tank-like tracked vehicle with a heavy calibre machine gun mounted on the front and with the top edges of the vehicle just a few inches above the rough water.
But now I was at Kervenheim and in real trouble, for this was my first full attack.

It had all started with the previous sleepless night, jammed in a hastily dug slit trench I had dug on a hill on the outskirts of the town, some of us being partly sheltered by doors torn off their hinges from a nearby building. Then being roused in the morning darkness for a quick cup of strong hot tea followed by the dawn start of a full blooded infantry attack with A, B and C companies emerging from a wooded area and in line abreast attacking across a large open field under the cover of a creeping artillery and machine gun barrage which was supposed to lift forward for a few hundred yards every time a salvo incorporated coloured smoke shells. We in the remaining D company followed behind, swearing at the occasional shell bursts from one piece of artillery that regularly dropped into the gap between us and the other companies as we advanced up and into the wood that they had vacated.
And for good measure the Middlesex regiment was maintaining a constant stream of machine gun fire over our heads.

But it was soon obvious that something was going completely wrong with the timing of the creeping barrage which apparently started to fall on the leading rifle companies as they rushed in on the first buildings in the town. The enemy then opened up with concentrated machine gun fire, the whole attack collapsed as any survivors ran or crawled back through the artillery smoke barrage seeking the relative safety of the wood which my unscathed company had occupied when the main attack had started
But then the enemy's mortar attack had opened up on my company, with mortar bombs exploding in the trees over our heads and with shrapnel flying in all directions, the whole area quickly became untenable.
We could not go forward, and we would have been exposed in the open if we went back so we swung to the left, scampering through the trees till we came across a narrow country lane which led straight up into the town. then gradually made our way up the road, taking advantage of the roadside ditches to get to the town.
This move then brought us under the fire of German artillery, including the air burst shells of the dreaded 88 millimetre guns, plus my first experience with what we called 'moaning minnies', in reality multiple launched rocket mortars, though I think their true name was something like Nebleworthers, which delivered concentrated blanket cascades of mortar bombs. But by taking full advantage of the cover provided by the deep ditches at the sides of the road we managed to reach the outskirts of the town where we made a frantic assault on the first house where, having first dealt with a machine gun post manned by paratroopers in the front garden, we gained a toehold inside and spread through the building using grenades and sub machine guns to deal with the enemy room by room.

But back to my task - trying to ignore the gunfire and grenade explosions in the rooms over my head and in the attached farm building, as the rest of the platoon fought their way from room to room as I kept my rifle pointing my rifle down the dark stairway into the cellar, my finger partly squeezed on the trigger and waiting to instantly kill anything that moved in the darkness below.
I sometimes still recall the thoughts that flashed through my head at that instant . How on earth did I get to be in this position? After all, I was only just a simple country boy but finding myself in a position of having to kill or be killed and, seeing the way things had gone in the last few hours, it was unlikely it seemed that I could not hope to remain unscathed for much longer.
And should I survive the current attack there would be many more to come during the following months, so what physical and mental condition would I be in after all that lot.
My heart sank, the situation was hopeless, there could be no future for me.

Slowly the firing slowed down and I was relieved of my post at the head of the cellar stairs.

It seemed that the platoon had suffered previously from attacks from German soldiers who

had hidden in cellars, so after shouting down the stairs to give any that might be below a

chance to surrender, a couple of grenades were despatched downwards to make sure that

the situation did not happen again.

With the house secured and Paddy and his machine gun posted amongst the straw bales in the outbuilding we started to attack the next house in the road. This was made more easy by the presence of a large hole, obviously caused during the artillery bombardment, in the flank wall facing us so the first couple of sections of our platoon had only to dash across the ten feet or so distance through an open yard and into the building
The sound of gunfire quickly broke out inside and I figured out that some of the enemy might try to escape through any front door facing the road, so I dashed out through the gateway to get a shot at them. And I was about half way through the opening when I realised the shear stupidity of my actions, as the road outside must have been in full view of the enemy. So I literally just threw myself back into the comparative safety of the open yard but as I did, I heard a crack and something burned a strip across the strap of my helmet.
But things were going badly in the second house and we all had to withdraw back into the first one but as we did a missile from a bazooka hit the outbuilding, killing Paddy and injuring others and also setting fire to the straw so the outbuilding too became untenable.
Back in the first house I was ordered to take up a position on the first landing on the stairs and to fire at the windows of another building visible through a leafless tree. As I did there was a load explosion in the top of the tree, this presumably a shot from a bazooka and aimed at my position and which really shook me.
There were simultaneous explosions downstairs as the Germans launched their first counter attack on our isolated platoon and I was ordered back down the stairs, passing through the hall and taking up a defensive position by a small window. As I did, Scotty, who had taken over Paddy's machine gun spotted a German crawling up towards the building carrying a bazooka.
For some reason, Scotty shouted at the man, and as he instinctively looked up, Scotty fired a burst from the Bren gun at his unmissable target.
At the same time a group of the enemy rushed through the front door of the house firing as they came. My natural reaction was to turn round and run back in to the hall and return the fire but Lance Corporal Allan told me to stay put and he rushed back into the hallway to tackle them. This resulted in a massive exchange of fire, at the end of which, most if not all those in it were killed, including, Corporal Allan.
But it was now getting late, we were on our own except for some members of 17 Platoon who had got into a house across the road. I believe that smoke grenades were then tossed into the roadway, so allowing them to join us and there we were, completely cut off from the any support from the rear.
As the night drew on we were attacked several times, in complete darkness apart from the flames from the burning outbuilding and the occasional exploding rounds of ammunition and grenades dropped by our men when they were hit. One by one we cleaned and oiled our rifles and when any Bren gun was being serviced, everyone had to stand to.

As dawn broke we could hear firing as another battalion, possibly that of the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry attacked across the rear of the enemy forcing them to withdraw and we were able to eat our emergency rations of corned beef and hard biscuits and boiled sweets.
I was asked to remove any personal items from Cpl Allan's body so that they could be sent back to his next of kin and also one of the two identification tags that we all wore around our necks. Some of the personal items had blood on them and I still recall wondering whether it would be better for me to destroy them as they might well cause even more distress to the next of kin. On the other hand I felt that it was not up to me to deprive them of any of their relatives possessions so I bundled everything up into a paper bag and handed it in.
I assumed that we would be burying our dead later that day but, as happened after every other attack we subsequently made, it was only an a short while before we were told to move on.
So in silence, tired and dispirited we trudged off to the next fight.
Gil Attwood November 17th 2003

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