大象传媒

鈥淟et Battle Commence!鈥�

Part 2
One afternoon we pulled into a field by a farm, we concealed the lorries in a small copse, got settled in and awaited orders, two of us were sitting under a small apple tree when a Jerry fighter plane flew over the farm, dipped down into the field and over the trees but ignored us, although he must have seen the rude gestures that we made to him. That night we all went to bed and were enjoying a good nights rest until about five in the morning when all hell broke loose, I don鈥檛 know whether he sent shells or mortars, what ever they were they were very unpleasant. I leapt out of bed and began to get dressed, ducking behind a tree every time I heard a missile coming, the trunk seemed to shrink at every bang. Most of the time I was standing in a bed of nettles but I didn鈥檛 feel them at all, by the time that Jerry decided that he鈥檇 sent enough, I was fully dressed, greatcoat on, equipment etc, all ready to go. We lost several lads, killed or wounded and several lorries were put out of action.

My DR took one of the officers on the back of his motorbike to the nearest Field dressing station to get help for the wounded. The officer was given the MC for his action, the DR who took him, got nothing!

Our next stop was in a girls school on the outskirts of Lille. The girls had left a long time ago. The Sappers were out on working parties and we drivers were working on our vehicles, when up drove a padre in a white open tourer Rolls Royce that he had 鈥榝ound鈥�, he asked if we would like some cigarettes and beer, when we said, yes please, he told us that there was a train load of NAAFI goods that had been abandoned in a railway goods yard, a 30 cwt truck with a loading party was dispatched toute suite. They managed to prevent quite a lot of material falling into enemy hands. Every man was issued with a thousand fags and several bottles of beer. We had to give the spirits to the officers as 鈥榦ther ranks鈥� below the rank of Sgt are not allowed to drink spirits according to K.R.鈥檚! The CQM鈥檚 did his nut when he saw what we had found and ranted and raved at us for overloading his lorries, mind you, he still took his share of the loot鈥�!

One night I went to pick up a working party, on the way back to the billets I was driving along a road that ran roughly parallel to the front, as I drove along I heard some bangs and looking in my mirror I could see the shells bursting along the road behind me, they seemed to be following me, the lads in the back were all shouting to tell me to put my foot down, not that I needed to be told. I just seemed to be keeping in front of them until at last I turned right off the road and was able to relax again. Jerry continued to drop leaflets on us telling that we had we had better pack up as they were too good for us, or words to that effect. The leaflets were quite useful as they were a very handy size for a certain function. He also dropped a few bombs, quite a number of which failed to go off. The noise of the stukas and the bombs was horrible, every plane and bomb seemed to be heading straight for you, in fact, the noise did more damage than a lot of the bombs!

The next time we straightened the line, we found ourselves at a crossroads on the outskirts of Armentieres, we, the lads, slept in a ditch by the side of a first world war cemetery, 鈥楳otor Car Corner Cemetery鈥� just across the road there was an estaminet and the officers used the cellars as a section headquarters. I spent most of most of the night acting as a D.R. It appeared that I was the only motorcyclist who knew where Div. Headquarters were, so I spent a lot of time nipping in and out of Armentieres. Several buildings seemed to be burning and there was nobody trying to put out the fires, things were very warm, in more ways than one!

The Sappers were preparing a bridge over a canal for demolition and I was detailed to take their breakfast to them. I loaded the meal on to a fifteen cwt truck, but when I wanted to leave the side turning and go on to the main road to get to the lads, a M.P. from another Div. wouldn鈥檛 let me out onto the road. I tried to explain that I was taking a meal to a working party but he said 鈥楴O鈥� his instructions were that he was only to allow vehicles of his Div. on the road, the lads would have to tighten their belts! Nobody was going to stop me getting food to the lads. I turned back, got the cooks to put the food into food containers and packed them in a large knapsack and I then got on my motorbike. I rode up to the M.P. who put his hand up to stop me, I did a bit of a wiggle, nipped under his arm and shot away up the road with the food. The lads were very pleased to see me. I thought that it might be a good idea if I stayed with the lads for a while before I went back, give the M.P. time to forget me! Incidentally, according to KRs, nobody has the authority to stop a Despatch Rider when he is delivering a message, not even the Military Police.

The bridge was all ready for demolition and we sat down and ate the food a short distance away from the bridge. There were a few refugees crossing, going both ways as usual, when we heard the sound of a Stuka coming over, everybody took cover and watched to see what he was after. I think that he was after the refugees because he dropped a stick of bombs on the road approaching the bridge, one of his bombs hit the bridge and the next thing he must have noticed was that bridge was flying past him. His plane seemed to rise vertically for several hundred feet. I don鈥檛 think that he intended to blow the bridge as the Jerries would have to build a new one. When we got back to the unit we were told off for blowing the bridge without orders!

We kept on moving back, whenever we stopped we thought this is it, we鈥檒l soon be moving forwards, but we did no such thing, we were continually straightening the line. The Belgians had packed in, the French had fallen back, the Dutch had packed in, on one occasion our infantry pushed the Jerries back but the French did not give any support so they had to fall back to 鈥榮traighten the line鈥�. One day we pulled into a deserted farmyard for a meal. Whilst waiting for the meal to be prepared some of the lads had a mooch around the farm kitchen and found some hair cutting shears. In those days I used Brylcream on my hair, which was getting fairly long and the dust from the French roads mixed with the Brylcream created a mixture which felt like concrete, so I asked the lad with the shears to give me a haircut. When he asked how I would like it, I said 鈥榗ut it short like a boxer鈥檚鈥�. I sat down on an upturned bucket and he started, as he wasn鈥檛 making a very good job several of the lads had a go, between them they got most of it off but there were several bits sticking up. It didn鈥檛 look very glamorous but it meant that I could wash my hair when I washed my face and so keep, it clean. Of course the lads took the Mickey out of me, one even said that I would look a right Charlie if I went on leave in the near future, prophetic words! We had a mug of char and a cheese sandwich, but before we had finished our meal (?) we were told to mount up, we had to straighten the line, again!

One night, after two or more days without any sleep and very little food, I asked the Sgt if someone else could take over my motorcycle whilst I had a bit of a rest. I felt really depressed when he told me to dump my beautiful Norton into the canal and climb onto the back of his lorry. It was lovely to lay down full length and feel my aching muscles relax. There were already two other lads wrapped in their blankets fast asleep, before I had time to join them the order came to get down we were going to walk the rest of the way. I asked if I should wake up the two sleeping soldiers but was told that they were not asleep but dead! The lorry was driven into a field and the engine smashed and there we were, no lorry, no motorbike, on foot and walking to nobody knew where. We were once again straightening the line and it appeared to be getting mighty short! Soon we were told to make for Dunkirk, every now and then we would see an officer, which was a rare sight, and he would say 鈥榳hat are you?鈥� and we would say 鈥楻.E.鈥檚鈥�, he would reply, 鈥榥othing for you to do, make for Dunkirk鈥� and off we would go. The first night I slept in a potato field beneath the leaves which kept some of the dew off, but wasn鈥檛 very warm. We found a store lorry which had been abandoned and managed to acquire some Flying Cloud cigarettes and a full box of twenty four Rountrees Aero chocolate bars, after the first half a dozen I felt a bit sick. Whilst walking with the general flow we came across a group of French Soldiers who had a barrel of red wine, they offered to fill our mugs, an offer we all accepted, I took a great swig of mine and when it hit my stomach and the Aero bars, I really was sick. The French soldiers were most upset, I think they thought that I was passing an opinion on their wine! However I explained that it was my chocolate that was causing the trouble and we parted the best of friends! Mind you, the wine was terrible.
By this time we were down to a group of about six, walking in the dark in a large body of men meant that it was difficult to stay together, if you stopped for any reason, the rest of your group carried on and you were lucky if you found them all again. We eventually arrived on the outskirts of Bray Dunes, the roads were blocked solid with abandoned Army vehicles, a very fat RASC bloke tried to give his lorry to us, realising that he was stuck with it, whilst we were telling him what he could do with his truck a swarm of Stuka鈥檚 flew over and had a go at us, the fat driver was out of his cab in a flash and underneath the vehicle, one of his mates said 鈥榯hat 鈥榮 the first time he鈥檚 been under a truck for years鈥�. Everybody was laughing and taking the Mickey out of the fat lad when I looked up and saw that we were sheltering underneath a sheet tin roof!

We decided that we would move away from the buildings and went into a field just behind the Dunes. An infantryman who had joined our group was in a bad way with his feet which were badly blistered, I went over the Dunes and came across a building which had been a seaside caf茅 before the war but was now being used as a dressing station by the RAMC, I returned to the group and a couple of us took the infantryman to the dressing station were we left him to the tender mercies of the RAMC. We went back to our ditch and had a very long, cold, hungry nights kip When we awoke, we had a meal of chocolate and decided that we would go along the Dunes towards Dunkirk. We found that it was much safer on the Dunes and the beach because all the Jerries bombs blew up was a lot of sand and unless he got a direct hit you were safer than in the town.

On the beach in front of Bray Dunes we actually found an officer and he was looking for R.E.鈥檚. Some of the lads were getting lorries from the other side of town, driving them onto the beach and making a pier with them. My little group joined a party who had found some bridging lorries with folding pontoons, our job was to unload the pontoons, take them to the sea, erect them and then ferry parties of soldiers out to larger craft off shore, unload and then return for another party. If we came too far into the beach we found that the pontoon filled up very rapidly and we were aground, nobody wanted to get off to enable us to refloat and things got a bit hairy at times. Eventually common-sense prevailed and several of the lads got of and we were refloated, they pushed us out into deeper water and then climbed on again. After that we always stopped out to sea and they had to wade out to us. On one trip we h ad a young officer with us, he was waving his revolver and behaving like Captain Bligh of the Bounty, I shouted at him and told him if he used his energy rowing instead of blowing we would get along a lot better. To my surprise he put his revolver away and started rowing! Later in the afternoon an RSM came on my pontoon, when we got to the ship he said, 鈥榬ight lads, you鈥檝e done your bit for today, go on board, somebody else can take her back鈥�. My lads and I made our way to the side of the pontoon, grabbed the net hanging down the ship鈥檚 side and were up and over in a flash. When I landed on the deck one of the ships officer saw my revolver and said, 鈥榡ust what I want, a revolver鈥�, just to keep him happy I passed it over to him, telling him to clean it before he used it as it was full of French soil!

We were then told to go below decks out of the way, I found myself sitting on a seat with my back to the side of the ship up forrad underneath the ack-ack gum. The sailors were grand, they gave us hot tea and sandwiches out of their own lockers and we settled down for a rest whilst the ship loaded up. Eventually we were full up and off we started for England. I fell asleep when suddenly there was a series of loud bangs and the door of the locker above me fell on my head. Eventually the banging stopped and a sailor came down and told us that we had been attacked by a Stuka but they had shot it down and we would soon be in England. Once the excitement was over I soon fell fast asleep, eventually a sailor came along shouting 鈥榳akey wakey, get yourselves ashore, unless you want to go back again鈥�. Everybody declined his offer and we all made our way ashore to find that we were in Margate. We marched to the railway station, at the station there were lots of Red Cross people handing out sandwiches, cigarettes, chocolate and filling our mugs with hot sweet tea. Strange how most of the lads managed to hang onto their mug! They also produced postcards and pencils which they gave us so we could inform our families that we were safe and sound, there were people from lots of other organisations doing all they could to help us. It was a wonderful reception as we had all been wondering what the people in England would think about the poor show that we had made. Always straightening the line until we landed back were we had started from. Instead everybody treated us like conquering hero鈥檚! Eventually we all piled onto the train, to the cheers of the people on the platform. The train steamed off to Somewhere in England and everybody went to sleep until we arrived there.

Incidentally, the name of the ship that brought us home was the H.M.S. Leda. I believe that she was a minesweeper in the Halcyon class and that she was torpedoed on one of the Russian convoys with the loss of fourteen lives.

Story written by Ex. 2067466 Cpl. Booth M.E.
Section 2. 248th Field Coy.
Royal Engineers. B.E.F.
D.O.B. 30th May 1915.
D.O.D. Not yet available!

M.E.Booth
2 Ash Grove,
Seaton Road,
Sigglesthorne,
East Yorkshire,
HU11 5QE.
Tel. (01964) 536443
9-2-04.

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