大象传媒

Memoirs

This is the story of three weeks, that to the young man I was then, seemed like a lifetime.
I had better begin by telling you about myself. In 1937, I was twenty five and placed on reserve class 鈥楢鈥� for a year after serving seven years with the 鈥極xford and Buckingham Light Infantry鈥�. Looking through my pay-book, and I still have it after fifty years, I see that I was a marksman with a rifle, a machine gunner, a first class signaller, and at the end of my seven years, a driver mechanic on tracked vehicles. The last turned out to be my salvation, or at least it meant that I could, at times, be answerable only to myself.
To return to my history, 1938 came with its threat of war. In April of that year I got married, bought a house on a mortgage, which was not so daft as it seemed, as I had landed a good paying job, and a loving wife, that I thought should have the best I could give her. Ten months later we were blessed with the birth of a son, life was indeed good. Chamberlain鈥檚 鈥渘o war in our time鈥�, was now a fairy tale that nobody believed, but of course we believed in Hitler鈥檚 cardboard tanks, we had to, we had very few of our own, how few, we did not find out until much later.
In the month of May, I was called up for training on the new 鈥楤ren鈥� gun and the new gas mask. It went by very quickly. The firm paid me, and the army paid me, and there was a lot of pubs in Colchester. We had an official group photograph taken before we went back home, I still have it.
The last day of August I was on nightshift, at ten O鈥檆lock that night, the foreman came round. 鈥淧ut your coat on, stop the machine and report to the time office, all reservists are called up鈥�. So that was that. There was an air of gaiety in the office, as we got our pay and signed for it, got our bikes, and cycled home through the empty streets shouting 鈥淕oodbye鈥�, and 鈥淪ee you at the station, Mate鈥�, for we had been given rail warrants as well, they must have had everything ready for weeks.
I will not dwell on our talk that night, she cried a lot. I said all the right things, but they did not help. I remember I told her it would all be over by Christmas, what I forgot, was which Christmas!
By the end of September, I was in France, northern France digging trenches at first, then anti-tank traps. By the new year we had progressed to concrete pill-boxes. We were working in the cold and the rain continuously, the idea I think, was to toughen us up. The fortifications we had built, we left behind that Spring, God knows why? The powers that be used the same plan as in 1914. It wasn鈥檛 a success then, it was even worse this time.
The ninth of May saw me on guard, ten till twelve and four till six. I was on my second tour, four till six, dawn was just breaking, and I was wondering what was for breakfast, and looking at the sky to see what sort of day it was going to be, when I saw a sky full of planes, or so it seemed. I shouted to the guard to 鈥淪tand To鈥�, and ran to the Bren gun on its Anti-Aircraft stand, pulled off its cover, cocked it, safety catch off, and 鈥渇ire鈥�, I emptied that magazine in no time. I was just loading with another magazine, when someone yelled, 鈥淐ease firing!鈥�, as the planes were still going overhead I thought it was a bit daft, but true to the traditions of the British Army, I took off the magazine, unloaded, safety catch on, then looked around to find the batman of the Platoon Commander running towards me. He was saying that the officer had sent him to find out who was firing and to stop them. There was to be no firing unless he considered it necessary.
By this time the planes had left us, and veered left towards Lille, there was also quite a crowd around the gun, six guards, and the batman. There was no A.A. as the planes arrived over Lille until the first bombs exploded, then they opened up. Also by this time another flight of planes had arrived over us, we looked up and then scattered. A gunner in one of the planes thought we were a tempting target, and machine-gunned us as he passed over. He must have been as excited as us, because he never hit one of us, he managed to hit most of the windows in the farmhouse, fortunately the farmer and his wife and children were in the fields gathering the cows for milking. I often wonder if I started the real war, I certainly heard no firing before I let go.
Orders came down for an immediate move, so after breakfast 鈥� bangers 鈥� we had to load up the carriers and trucks, as I had fired the gun, it was my job to clean and oil it. The farmer and his wife came back, saw the windows and blamed me. It took quite a time to explain, in my halting French, who had broken the windows, even then I don鈥檛 think they believed me, they were still glaring daggers at me when I took the gun and left them.
We waited in a long line of vehicles until about twelve O鈥檆lock, before we moved off, we were to make for the town of Halle, just south of Brussels and as we moved slowly in convoy, the Belgians crowded the streets cheering and throwing us kisses and flowers. It was like a carnival, and of course we loved it, we lapped it up. About five O鈥檆lock that evening a tank that I was overtaking swung to his left and his offside track caught my nearside track and knocked it off the sprocket and stopped me dead. It took us over an hour to put it right and by then it was dark so I pulled off the road and started out again early in the morning. We had gone about five miles when we came to a cafe, closed of course, but in front of it was a car burnt out, the tyres were still smoking. I stopped the carrier and I walked over to the car, pulled open the door, there were two skeletons inside of it, a man and a woman, the woman had been holding a baby in her lap, that too, was a skeleton. What amazed me was that the baby's napkin had protected the baby's behind from the flames, so that I saw a skeletons legs, a nappy, and the skeleton sitting on a skeletons lap. The back of the car was a mass of bullet holes. Who ever had done the shooting must have been using tracer bullets so when they were hit the tank must have exploded, mercifully they would not know what hit them. I closed the door but it came open again so I banged it closed, the bones disappeared and when I looked in they lay mingled on the floor, the babies nappy still on the seat. My two mates were still asleep when we got to Halle, I never told them what I had seen, but I have thought about that baby a lot.
Halle was a quiet interlude for a couple of days, were patrolled a road looking for 鈥榝ifth columnists鈥� and paratroopers, some in disguise dressed as nuns. How do you recognise a paratrooper dressed as a nun? Easy, you lift up the skirts to see if they have boots on. It seems to us, for those two days, that every other refugee fleeing from "Jerry" was a nun, of course the nuns were disgusted when we stopped them, bent down and lifted up their skirts, and when you attempted to explain they generally slapped your face.
By this time the Germans had broken through the Belgian forts and we moved up to Brussels to face the foe and that is where I was really scared. We took up a position in the forest, we had no idea where it was and it is only by looking at maps I think it was 鈥楩orest de Siognes鈥�. It was the size of the trees that bothered me, they were enormous, Jerry could have got a tank behind any of them. On top of that refugees filled the roads through the forest, it could have been the whole German army for all we knew. We camouflaged the carriers and waited. As it got dark the refugees stopped walking along the road, this meant that either Jerry was close or they did not like walking through the forest in the dark. I hoped it was the latter. It must have been well after midnight when we all heard a terrible roar, then another one joined in, it seemed as if what ever it was, it was close. The Sergeant ran from one carrier to another asking if they had heard it and if they knew what it was, when he got to me and asked me what I thought it was I told him I thought it was lions, that was it, they couldn't stop laughing. I too fell about laughing, I mean I have never heard a lion roar before, but that is what I thought it was. The Sergeant evidently didn't think so, he called me a c--- and "let's hope the f---ing lions don鈥檛 eat us before the f---ing Jerries do". Morning came and with it came our platoon commander, we were to move out. Forty eight years later, I read a book about the retreat to Dunkirk by an officer and in it he says, "moving up to Brussels we passed a lot of circus wagons by the side of the forest, all were opened, but I saw no sign of any of the animal's, and I wondered where they had gone". We could have told him.
I think now is a good time to tell you just what our role was in the carriers. In between the times when we were digging holes in northern France, we would go out on exercises, all of these exercises had just one theme, "Attack", retreat was a word that was never mentioned. Added to that was the fact that the mechanised army had only had two years of life, before that it had been as it was in 1918, horses and Limbers and lots of trenches. We had already dug the trenches, so we, or rather those over us, had split ideas, static or mobile war, unfortunately the Germans were quite certain that they wanted a mobile war, and of course they made sure that they got it.
So there we were, the advance to the eastern border of Belgium was as per book, so all was well, then, as everyone knows, they played dirty and came through the Ardennes. Then, to add to their duplicity, they raced to the coast knowing full well that they would cut us off from our supplies. Of course the lads up top were in a right state, not us, low down, we didn't know a blind thing, all we were told is that we were dropping back to prepared positions.
Which brings me back to the role of the carriers, as I said there were no plans for retreats so it was virgin ground, so to speak. ten carriers to a battalion, what to do? Only one role for us, 鈥楻econ鈥� and 鈥楻earguard鈥�, so that is what we did. Four in front, two with, and four behind the battalion, my carrier was one of the four behind, I say mine, because as the oldest soldier, I was in command of it, and most times we were on our own. You don鈥檛 know how much that means, unless you have been one of seven hundred, so I was real 鈥榗huffed鈥� as we used to say. It worked like this, when the battalion moved off, one carrier would stay put for four or five hours, unless Jerry came, then our orders were to fire, and thus cause them to be careful. Then we would go racing down the road, hoping that their motor-bikes or armoured cars could not catch us up. When we came to the next carrier say, one or two miles down the road, we would tell him if all was well or not, and carry on until we came to the fourth carrier, go on a further mile or two and start again. All good honest fun, or so we thought.
We moved out of the forest that morning and moved up to Brussels, it had been declared an open city that morning so that technically, we should not have been in there. It was absolutely dead, not a soul about, no trams on the rails, no cars on the roads, and as quiet as the grave. It is an eerie sensation to be in a large city on your 鈥榯od鈥�, except for your two mates. The Sergeant had put me in the middle of the road with the Bren outside the tram depot, I looked around for my two mates, one, on my left was in the entrance to the tram depot, behind a wall, the other, on my right was in a ditch, and me stuck out in the road for the world to see. I waited for the Sergeant鈥檚 carrier to fade in the distance then I ran to the carrier, drove to the middle of the road, turned it round for a quick getaway, mounted the gun, and waited for the next two hours. If Jerry had come roaring down that road and we had opened up, an open city and troops firing in it, "oh dear".
We caught up with the regiment and left Brussels behind, but only just behind, and ended up in a large wood. The C.O. came back from brigade, called a conference of Officers, while we did a long deferred spot of maintenance, eventually the offices came back and called for his Sergeants, they broke up and it was our turn. "Right, I want six men, four for ammo, two for rations, you four follow me, you two go with Sergeant Jones, right, move", "what's going on Sarge?", "you'll know soon enough". We never knew what that was all about.
We were about to move out when a 鈥楲ysander鈥� spotter plane appeared over was, as did a Jerry fighter, the Lysander played with him for about five minutes just above the tree tops, until finally the fighter gave up, fired a long burst and then disappeared. Our platoon officer had left us in his carrier some time before, now he returned, another conference, and off we went. It was dusk when we reached our positions, a farmyard not far from a small village, and wonder of wonders the cooks had butchered a pig, the smell of roast pork made our mouths water. Inside two hours we were lining up our mess tins, a chunk of meat and a slice of stale bread steeped in the gravy, it was marvellous, and then a mug of sweet tea to round it off. We heard a lot of artillery during the night and some small arms fire, two of the carriers were called out to help somewhere and then two more, when they came back we were all ears to know what had happened, it was the first time any of us had been in action so we wanted to know the score. I think they played it down a bit but we were all very glad that they had all come back safely. Next morning we examined the bullet holes in the mud guards, they were only tin, and looked at the missing paint where bullets had hit, but, thank goodness, had not penetrated the steel, up until then we didn't really know.

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