大象传媒

Christmas had arrived when we got the news that General Rundsteit had launched a final assault against the Americans and was driving through the Ardennes in an attempt to reach the Channel so as to cut the armies in two. It failed, but not before he had caused chaos; as part of the tactics were the infiltration of American-speaking German soldiers, who, in the guise of Military Police amongst other things, re-routed supply columns, delayed the blowing of bridges by sending the Sappers away, by the ploy that they (the MPs) were controlling all crossing points and would see to the eventual destruction of the bridges, which of course they kept open for their own troops.
They killed and captured hundreds of Americans, and took all their primary objective except for a town called Bastogne, which American paratroopers held and refused to give up (something like the situation we had in Tobruk) and this proved to be a big thorn in the enemy鈥檚 side.
The situation was so bad over all, that General Montgomery was given command of all allied troops in the sector and told to clear the Germans out; this he did, with the British 2nd Army, and that finished the Germans so far as heavy attacking went.
My mate and self were sent to this area and a right miserable time was had by all. The Germans were using V1 bombs (doodle bugs) against us, and were firing them so as to hit the mountain sides, causing landslides and avalanches all the time and it is an extremely mountainous part, all narrow roads and passes, and it was very dangerous to be caught by one of these man-made horrors. Many a gun team were swept into the valley below, and as it was mid-winter and the ice and snow thick everywhere, the natural hazards were bad enough without these damned things making it worse. We were later told that, at their peak, the V1s were being sent over at roughly 300 per day; that is one every 5 minutes on average -no wonder we were unhappy.
We were in that area for about ten days and never even saw a German, other than prisoners, and the weather was so atrocious that we scarcely exposed any film but for all the climatic conditions, the boys of the 2nd Army did, as usual, a magnificent job, threw Jerry back, and restored the status quo. The only light relief we had was the acquisition of 28lbs of frozen pork chops, which truly fell off the back of an American supply truck in front of us. We picked them up and all our efforts to attract their attention, even to knocking on our wind- screen with our handkerchiefs, failed, so we, and a few other troops, had pork chops -breakfast, dinner and tea until they were finished. I鈥檒l say this for the Yanks, they don鈥檛 believe in stinting their troops.
Back eventually to our Base and the commencement of the assault that was to take us into Germany, via the Siegfried Line (where we duly pictured some of the troops hanging out their washing, as per the words of the song) and on to the banks of the Rhine, where we could look over the river to our final goal - Germany proper!
We set up shop at a town called Xanten, and on the other side approximately, lay the town of Wesel, which was to be the focal point when the Rhine was assaulted and crossed. Much preparation was made for this, the last massive confrontation with Jerry.
An airborne drop was laid on, a commando assault, too, plus an orchestra of death, namely every calibre gun imaginable lined up in rows by size, the really big ones several miles back; then the 3.7鈥檚 and, in front of them, the 25 pounders and almost on the bank, the Bofors and Vickers machine guns, plus, of course, the rest of the 2nd Army who weren鈥檛 engaged elsewhere.
My mate and I weren鈥檛 to be on the airborne assault, another of the Para cameramen, Sergeant Bill Lawrie, was assigned to this and we were assigned to the Commandoes, most of whom were old mates in whose company we had been in the odd fracas or two at various parts of the advance. When all the preparations were complete, we were briefed the Commandoes would cross the Rhine during the night, and assault and capture Wesel followed by the infantry. Early the following morning there would take place the airborne landing, and immediately it was possible, a pontoon bridge would be slung across the Rhine in order to transport the arm our and vehicles to the other side, all this to be preceded by a massive barrage the previous evening, so as to soften things up a bit for the Commando operation, and so give them a sporting chance.
On the stroke the guns opened up, and pounded the shit out of the other side of the Rhine, and later the first Commandos crossed with Dennis Smith. I crossed later with the last batch and by the time I got there it was like Guy Fawkes Day, but, in the main, the fighting for the town was over, the Germans had mostly pulled back, and, honestly, for all that weight of metal, I saw only two dead Germans. There had been some fighting, but the first ashore took the brunt and soon cleaned it up. Great blokes, these Commandoes.
Came dawn, and I returned across the Rhine to do my secondary job (and return the exposed film we had shot), which was picturing the building of the pontoon bridge and its eventual use by the armour, etc. Before I went down to the water鈥檚 edge, where the REs were starting to build the bridge the airborne lift passed over under very heavy flak by Jerry and in fact, one Dakota, carrying American paratroops, was hit and set on fire on our side of the river; the blokes in it had to make their jump at a very low altitude on our bank in order to escape the inevitable crash. I don鈥檛 think the crew escaped. Shades of Sicily!
Over the other side it was sheer murder; aircraft were on fire, gliders with parts of their wings shot off were just falling out of the sky, and descending Paras were being shot up in the air. It was horrible to watch, especially the gliders, which were so vulnerable, and on hitting the deck, just smashed into matchwood, and any guns or vehicles they were trans- porting tore loose and smashed into the luckless troops, who may or may not, have been alive on impact. I thanked my lucky stars that this was one I had missed. It seemed to last ages but was probably all over in fifteen minutes or so.
The Army discontinued the use of glider-borne troops and equipment after that shambles, and a good thing too, because a surprise landing is one thing and you take your chance - an opposed landing is another -and you have no chance.
That disgusting episode over, I went down to the pontoon, which was well under way, and busied myself doing my job and then Jerry started to stonk the damned thing. He didn鈥檛 half give it stick, as they must have realised that, once the bridge was secure, the weight of the 2nd Army would soon be rolling over the Fatherland, so the might of their guns was directed on that area.
The bridge was hit, repaired, hit again and again; repaired again and again, with the REs in small boats, buzzing in and out, towing the new sections to be added on. Very brave men. I had just sat down in one of these boats, to put a new roll of film in my camera, when I got hit in the eye socket; I saw ten million stars and thought my head had been blown off. Putting my hands instinctively up to my face, it was a relief to find that my head was still on my shoulders, and on inspecting my hands, found they were covered in blood and I felt sure that my eye and cheek-bone were gone.
However, one of the blokes washed the gore away with the river water and there was revealed a tiny, triangular slit, just below my right eye, which was probably caused by a tiny bit of metal ricocheting and just close enough to thump and cut a little bit. But what a headache! And subsequent black eye it produced; it was a couple of days before I could see out of that eye and the stitches the medics put in didn鈥檛 improve my appearance at all.
Inevitably, wherever I went, I was usually greeted with the song, 鈥淭wo lovely black eyes鈥� and when I said that it was an honourable wound, gained in battle, they just laughed and said they had it on good authority, that it was a virgin fraulein, who wouldn鈥檛 bend to my evil will, who had done it. So much for sympathy to a near mortally wounded warrior.

Over the Rhine poured the army, and forward through Germany, the tanks and infantry battling like Trojans each time they met a pocket of resistance and, as we penetrated deeper and deeper into Germany, the French, Belgian and Dutch people, who had been forced into slave labour, suddenly found themselves free and started the long trek on foot back to their homelands.
We tried to make them stay where they were, because it was 1940 all over again as they seriously blocked our advance by jamming up the roads, but they were having none of it. Home was where they wanted to go and home was where they went; we felt terribly sorry for them, trudging the roads with their meagre belongings on their backs. A very sad sight, indeed, but it was our raison d'etre to free the enslaved people of Europe and here was the proof that all the hardships we had suffered getting this far, was worth it, their weeping with joy whenever we appeared on the scene and the end to the hated Boche.
One or two skirmishes on the way are worthy of a word; at a place called Ibbenbueren there was an S.S. officer cadet-training establishment, and we expected to have a rough time winkling them out of their town and camp, and we were not disappointed. They fought like men possessed, as would be expected from the S.S., but the lads wrested about three-quarters of the town from them and then it was a bit of stalemate. In the meantime the driver, Dennis and self had been doing a bit of house-to-house winkling, and, wonder of wonders, we came across a black marketer's secret cache.
It was stuffed with soap, perfume, knickers and bras and, of course, booze! Leaving the driver on guard, we contacted a command post to see what the score was and were informed of the hold-up and thereupon came one of these flashes of brilliance, which transform situations. Why not ask if we could give the boys a drink and the promise of all this booty if the place was taken? After a bit of shenanigan, this was agreed, and we nipped round, distributing drinks and French knickers with the promise of more to come when it was over and believe it or not, that area was cleared within one hour and we kept our word and gave everything to these lads (plus a little for ourselves, of course) and everybody was happy. To this day; I have in my possession the two dress swords and ceremonial dagger belonging to the Commandant of that S.S. school. Another incident was in the town of Rheine where, by sheer accident, one of our blokes found a huge network of caves and passages under the town, absolutely stuffed with every conceivable drink in literally millions of bottles, all looted from France. We were never short of a drink after that so well did the lads do their job before reporting the find to the Military Police, who immediately put a guard on it. I believe the NAAFI had the job of carting it away for re-distribution.
We got word from our HQ that the POW Camp at Fallingbostel Number 14B, was believed to contain some of the lads taken prisoner at Arnhem, would we like to be there when it was relieved? As it was very personal and would make a good story, we were eager to go. Truly, I never expected what greeted us; in fact we were all astounded. The Para POW's had already taken over the Camp and the RSM in charge had a Guard of Honour drawn up, all smartly dressed, waiting to greet us. Talk about morale! From what I could gather they just ignored the Germans and ran the Camp themselves and put the fear of God into them for good measure. I felt very proud to be associated with such out-standing soldiers, and whilst Britain continues to produce such men, we have nothing to fear from anybody or any nation.
Comparisons are odious, or so they say, but when being shown over the Camp we were introduced to the American airman and troops who were also POW's. They were lying on their beds, dirty, unshaven and with the air of men who had given up, no morale at all and, according to my guide, a bloody blot on the landscape.
From now on it was a race for the Elbe, the river on which Hamburg was the port, but before getting there, there was the matter of the Concentration Camps!

The first camp I visited was Belsen. Set in a really beautiful, wooded area, completely hidden, was this filthy blot on the countryside. As we approached the smell and taste in your mouth was rank. At the entrance to the place was a huge, banked-up pit, which was full of human excreta and urine, the place where the inmates emptied their buckets and floating on this disgusting cesspool were many dead inmates. What a dreadful way to end your days.
There was no rush of cheering inmates when we quickly took the camp, it took them all their efforts to breathe and just drag themselves about in an aimless, senseless fashion; for all they knew we were just another lot of 鈥榥asties鈥� to bait and torture them. They were unnerving to watch.
The troops captured some of the Guards, including the Commandant, and a young 18-year old female guard, whose parents surely were the Devil and the Harpies. She was evil!
Strikingly beautiful and blonde, in looks, epitomised Hitler鈥檚 blonde Master Race but in temperament she was the complete 100% Nazi. Totally un-repentant, she was eventually tried and hanged as a war criminal. Her name? Irma Gresser.
But long before she was tried, she was put to work clearing up the Camp, carrying the corpses to a huge pit that the REs had dug with bulldozers. They (the occupying force) treated the guards, and her, except for the torture, just as they had treated these poor things in their charge. As each day鈥檚 work finished, they weren鈥檛 allowed to wash or change their clothes and, when I left, were getting one potato a day to eat. It doesn鈥檛 take much imagination to understand what sort of a state they were in after a few days of this treatment, carrying rotting bodies with their bare hands, they smelt like the death they had brought to so many. The inmate鈥檚 huts were in a dreadful state; filthy, with human excreta inches deep in some places and women were having children born to them in this degradation.
The troops did a noble job of sorting order out of the chaos de-lousing the people, erecting showers for them to wash, feeding them baby-like food for a while, as ordinary food would have killed them, and housing them in sanitary conditions, and providing clothes to wear. When it was all over and the people evacuated and the dead buried (thousands and thousands of them) the whole stinking place was burned down to prevent the spread of disease and to erase a sore on Europe鈥檚 body.

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