大象传媒

The autumn and early part of winter was spent in Holland where it rained and was muddy everywhere. One of our sites was near Sittard where we found a very nice farm near a pit with showers, and we were glad to spend some days there in the relative comfort of the farm buildings. The highlight of the stay being the efforts of us all Dutch farmers and English soldiers, to get a small bull to mate with a large cow! Holes were dug for the cow's rear end to stand in, bales of straw were brought to make a platform for the bull, and much lowing and bellowing went on, but whether the mission was accomplished we'll never know, as we moved on. Certainly the young bull did his best, responding equally well to cries from the farmer's daughters as much as those of the soldiers.

Maastricht is known now for its treaty, but for us in 1944 it was known for rain and mud - oh how it rained and with the Maas being in spate, the water on the land had nowhere to go. We were not sorry to receive orders to rejoin our unit at Bilsen where it had been withdrawn from the action for a well-earned rest. But first we had to get there.

I was in charge of the detachment and always did the navigating usually without too many problems, but this time we came across "American English" being near the US Sector. I chose the route and set off leading the column on a motor-cycle map reading as best I could. All went well until we came to cross the river and I read a sign "Bridge Out" to mean out of the Sector. Oh! Dear, it turned out it meant the bridge was out of action, having been blown up. All was not lost for in the best tradition of an army, the cooks took over a nearby cafe and prepared a meal whilst the rest manhandled everything round to face the other way. All this in heavy rain. We were soon on the way again and as I rode on in the rain, the water collected on my face, ran down my neck and settled in a large pool in my groin - nasty!
When we got to our billets I put the bike behind the house and never rode it again until after the cease-fire. I've had no desire to ride one since either.

I was billeted with my new Lance-Sgt. with a family called Vanstraelen who like all the people we came in contact with were very grateful it was the British who were with them and not the Germans, and showed this in many ways. On this occasion the parents gave us their best bed in the front room. Most likely to make sure that we were not tempted by their teenage daughters. What their initial thoughts were when I started to get out of my wet clothes and the rivulets of water started running across the tiled floor and into the living room, I do not know. We however, were very pleased to be indoors again and to be sleeping in a bed once more. Whilst we were in Bilsen our extra stock of rations came in useful as every day the men would collect something to help towards the evening meal prepared by the people with whom they were billeted. One day a large staff car stopped in the road alongside the guns and an officer enquired of Sgt. Mawson details of the unit. Frank was later to say that he asked for some identification before he gave the information to- General Montgomery! He gave a bunch of newspapers, which were a day older than the ones we had!

Soon however, we were off again, finding ourselves outside Namur at Christmas time and then came the German offensive in the Ardennes resulting in the British 2nd.Army taking over part of the U.S. Sector. We were sent to take up a position south of Dinant and I decided, wrongly it turned out, that the road through the cliffs by the river was too narrow for the larger radar so opted to take an alternative route across the hills. It took a long time, sliding down slopes, winching up hills, to reach our gun site. The terrain was covered in snow and ice and most unpleasant.

Although we kept a radar watch the battery was asked to fill a field artillery role and to use a new proximity fuse. The first time we used it was in a snowstorm and we all wondered, especially those on the guns, whether the heavy snow would activate the fuse. This was reasonable, as we had had a gun barrel burst when firing earlier in the campaign killing one of the gun layers. This time all was well and later it was reported that the "number of enemy dead was most encouraging." Not for the poor bloody corpses, I suspect.

After the Ardennes it was back to the routine in the North where the next big action was to be the Rhine crossing. It was still cold and freezing at night and a bivouac in such conditions is not good news. One slept on top of one's clothes so they were warm enough to put on in the morning, assuming that you were foolhardy enough to want to take any clothes off at all!

The artillery barrage was once again quite long and noisy and then the Dakotas came over towing gliders and meeting fierce ack-ack fire. It was galling to see planes being shot down and gliders falling apart in such large numbers and being unable to do anything about it to help. The Rhine was crossed eventually and the march towards Hamburg and Berlin continued. We were on the northern wing and our destination was the Schleswig-Holstein area.

We spent one night or so at the Wehrmacht barracks at Fallingbostel where we found large quantities of china all edged with the German field grey. I brought back one dinner plate as a souvenir and gave it to my mother and I think she passed it on to Inge, my German born sister-in-law.

The Elbe was the next barrier and we found ourselves at Luneberg where we had to do a recce. down towards the river. This was quite an ordeal as the civilians had long gone and we were wandering around deserted farm buildings with cows and pigs loose everywhere, but we knew we were being watched from the hills on the other side of the Elbe. Fortunately Gerry decided not to give his whereabouts away by firing.

I think this was the last Commando action of the war - crossing the Elbe - and soon droves of prisoners were coming back down the road, often with little or no escorts. We "inspected" them at irregular intervals for any army property i.e. watches, cameras, binoculars etc. Most were very dirty and tired, but we found one soldier well turned out with a haversack as square as any guardsman's. We found out he was a paymaster and his back-pack was full of brand new 50 mark notes, all in neat rectangular bundles. They were a beautiful white and about the size of our fiver of the time. Our haul of marks filled 3 large bags and we decided to bury them, as only occupation money was legal tender at the time. We could not bring ourselves to burn such wealth, or hand it over. If only we had hung on to it, as shortly afterwards the currency was "legalised" again. We immediately went back to the field but in spite of a lot of digging we found - nothing. The men swore they knew nothing of its whereabouts, but somebody had taken it!

By now the war was nearly over and we took up position on a canal east of Hamburg with our Russian Allies on the other side. Daytime was spent swimming in the canal until we saw the odd body floating about. At night we stood to and there was always much gunfire as fleeing civilians and troops tried to leave the Russian zone. Hence the bodies in the river.

Each evening we formally saluted the Russians by turning out the guard in our battledress uniforms rather than fatigues but the Russians would turn up in multi-coloured and mixed uniforms red, dark blue, khaki and sometimes a mixture of all three.
They looked a right sight, but of course they also looked and were, very tough, so we did not laugh too much.

May 8th was V.E. day and this found us in a village near Geestacht on the Elbe where we took over a "pub" or bierhalle as a place to go for some relaxation. Fraternising was not allowed and to be truthful, most of us were not in any hurry to make friends with the civilians.

However, it was really quite pleasant, but it could not and did not last, as we moved to a concentration camp called Neuengamme. There was evidence of buildings that had possibly been gas chambers but by this time it was full of - we were told - high level Nazis and their sympathisers.

A couple of years ago we were on holiday at Islantilla in Spain and talked with two German ladies and in trying to make conversation with the one who did not speak English, whilst Joyce was hi-jacked by the other. I mentioned this camp and it's inmates and got the reply that her Father was there at the time. She had no hang ups about this as her Mother had divorced him because of his Nazi past. This just shows what a small world it is, and that you never know to whom you are talking.

The camp was run by the inmates, in particular a 21-year old Hitler Youth graduate who was an absolute bastard to his fellow prisoners. His favourite punishment was to make offenders stand at attention outside in the sun for hours at a time. If you think this is easy - try it for 15 minutes.

We tried as usual to make ourselves comfortable and soon had a Sgt's. Mess decorated anew complete with murals. Again it did not last long as it burned down - was it an electrical fault or vandalism by the prisoners who had done it up so well?

An army of occupation is not good news, for we all wanted to get home, and for me this was going to be a long way off as the order for demobilisation was based on length of service and age, so although I had served since the outbreak of war I was still only 23 years old. I was in group 29 but many of battery were soon on their way home. The unit was quickly decimated and the battery was disbanded with those of us who remained being sent to other units. After spending some time in the Kiel Canal area I was posted to an Anti-Tank unit who proudly wore the Sherwood Foresters cap badge in preference to the R.A. gun. Early in the war we had been ordered to change the York and Lancaster badge for the RA gun and now the wheel had turned full circle. I still have the badge and of course we live in or near Sherwood Forest!

Eventually I got home in May '46 and was paid up to August 19th and had 拢97 in gratuity. I use the words "got home" carefully because Joyce, whilst I was away, had found a flat and furnished it quite well and we now had a little money to make it even more comfortable.

When you think that on returning to the unit in May 1944 after getting married, we had pooled our resources and each had 拢1.10.0,or 拢1.50 in todays decimal currency, we felt quite rich but our few pounds had been earned the hard way by both of us.

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