大象传媒

My Regiment (Second Northants Yeomanry) was the heavy armoured recce regiment for the 11th armoured division. 'The Black Bull Divisional Sign'. As a recce regiment it normally meant you were often working with the enemy behind you as well as in front, and your operation could be one of observation and supplying information as was the base of my story.

The day was a beautiful day of glorious sunshine a day you could almost forget the war. I was tank commander with my binoculars surveying the countryside when in a cornfield too far away for the naked eye, I spotted a German machine gunner in a slit trench who was quite happily enjoying the day obviously feeling he was in a safe area and enjoying a smoke.

People who were in Normandy will tell you there were two things you were aware of. Firstly noise!!! Secondly the nauseating smell of dead bodies, both human and animals(cows and horses etc.) from farms which were generally being destroyed because the Germans turned almost every farm and hamlet into a strong point.

Now when an animal was killed it would in the due course of time fill up with gases, it's legs would stiffen and stick out straight and at a moment in time it would quite suddenly roll over onto it's back with legs sticking up rigid. Eventually the whole carcase would explode and virtually disappear except for the unbelievable stench - THE UNBELIEVABLE STENCH!!!

Having explained that I futher observed that the smoke from the German's cigarette was going from right to left as I was facing. I further observed that this "RIPE-READY - TO - BURST - BULL" was to the right hand side of the German. I had the idea that if with a few bursts of machine gun from our own turrett machine gun we were to burst the bull, it would be interesting to see what reaction would come from our "Happy German Gunner".

Having studied him it was obviously noticable that he was an older person wearing an Africa Corp Cap with sleeves rolled up, obviously an old campaigner. Having explained the plan to Denny my Gunner, we proceded to fire short bursts of fire which included several tracer bullets so we could observe the line of fire and distance. Now machine gun fire going through corn makes a sizzling sound which became apparent to our German, but we were too far away for him to hear the machine gun itself. He knew by now he was not the target, so standing up he looked around to see were the firing was going, by which time we had found our target (the bull) and by giving the long burst of fire "WE BURST THE BULL".

The reaction from our German was comical, the look of disgust was very rewarding for our effort. The outcome was seeing him gather all his gear, machine gun, tripod and cover himself with long belts of ammunition (just like the films). He took a last look around and finally taking his cigarette from his mouth looked to the direction of where the fire had come from. With a big smile he shook his fists in our direction, I can imagine his comments(in german).

I hope he survived, I would liked to have met him.

For Huxlow Science College.
From Reg (your vet.)

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