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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Doreen Oaks for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Percy Charles Chesson, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was eighteen and a half when I joined the Guard Armoured Brigade, with the Scots Guards, as a despatch rider.

After basic training we were shipped across to Arromanches on D-Day + 20. Our destination was Celle, Germany, and one of my orders was to follow the given map reference and escort a water wagon to Belsen Concentration Camp. On arrival, we weren’t allowed to leave the water wagon; we should have been requested to bring a separate water trailer so that we could leave it behind. The water wagon we were to take could not be left, as it would become contaminated and was our unit’s wagon.

Clean water was urgently needed so it must have been a great disappointment to the prisoners when we were turned away. The prisoners were some distance away and faces couldn’t be seen too clearly. As we had heard of the horrors that had gone on in the camp it was an unnerving experience, and even though I wasn’t actively involved the pictures in my mind have never left me.

On one of my despatch carrying missions I picked up a shrapnel splinter in my leg and was in hospital for some time. When I eventually rejoined my unit I earned the nickname ‘Destry’, after the film ‘Destry Rides Again’, which was showing at the time. I was called that until I left the army.

Another time I had to take a message to our marine camp and, having arrived, was confronted by a German guard at the gate. Of course my first reaction was to turn and flee, thinking that I had gone into German held territory. I was quickly reassured and was told that one of the prisoners was being put to good use.

As the war came to a close, I was ordered to deliver a message to Luneberg Heath, where peace talks were under way. Along the way I saw quite a number of Germans coming towards me. Unsure of what was happening and realising it was too late to turn round, I approached carefully. To my relief they were making signs of surrendering.

A very heartening way to end my war.

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