大象传媒

On 3rd September, 1939, Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany. The 24-year-old John Hurman and his friends, Bernard Barrington and the Miller brothers, had returned hurriedly from a holiday in the South of France. Their first impulse was to join up as soon as they could. This is the story of John Hurman鈥檚 war.

4th September, 1939

There were six of us standing on the corner opposite the Duke of York Barracks on the Kings Road. We had been to all the recruiting centres between Putney and Chelsea and received the same reply; there would be no recruiting until they had re-organised to accommodate a massive intake. However, as we stood talking, an army lorry came along with a banner, which read: 鈥淛oin the RASC鈥�. We waved the driver down. He stopped, and we asked him if they were recruiting today.
鈥淥h yes,鈥� he said, 鈥淛ump in the back and I鈥檒l take you to Woolwich.鈥� However, we told him that we would follow him in our own cars. We had no idea what RASC stood for but soon learned that it was the Royal Army Service Corps (now named The Royal Logistics Corps).

We had all been in the south of France on holiday together and when we heard that war was imminent, we boarded a very crowded train back to the UK with only one thought: to join up as soon as possible. Several of our friends had been in the TA and had already been recalled. So, off we went to Woolwich and, before you could say 鈥渒nife鈥�, we had passed our medicals and found we were in the army. Still dressed in grey flannels and tweed jackets, we were assembled in the drill hall and told what was expected of us.

A guard was formed, of which I was a member. On my first guard duty I was armed with a pick halve and told to keep watch for two hours outside the camp gate. Nobody came to relieve me, so I stayed all night, too scared to leave my post, even to go into the guardroom (which was well inside the perimeter) to waken my relief.

Soon we were issued with uniforms and, as there were no cooking facilities at the drill hall, a caf茅 nearby had been contracted to feed us. A First World War lorry with no windscreen was provided and I was given the job of driving it - shifting the troops back and forth for meals.

I found my uniform incredibly itchy and couldn鈥檛 wear it; so either I would have to desert or get the uniform lined with silk. I found a tailor nearby who did the latter for me, from below the knee to the high collar (at that time we were still using First War tunics, buttoned to the neck).

After a couple of weeks we were posted to Wrotham, in Kent. I had a little Ford 8 car and the tax needed renewing, so I made an official-looking War Department disc to replace it. I never had any trouble and no questions were asked. At Wrotham we slept in terrible, Nissan-type, buildings and we all had to eat in an enormous mess hut. I was gradually adapting to this (to me) dreadful life, but I went down with a bad dose of 鈥榝lu and was put into hospital. The doctor, doing his rounds with his underlings, said: 鈥淗ere鈥檚 a typical example. Lived a soft life, brought into the army, found it too difficult and gone sick. High temperature, but he鈥檒l be all right in a few days.鈥�

I regretted my speedy action in joining up but there were some good times. Groups of us managed to enjoy a few beers of an evening. We were walking back from the pub one foggy night when a lorry came down the hill much too fast. The lorry ploughed into a couple of the chaps, coming to a stop but trapping them underneath. I quickly instructed several men to get their shoulders underneath the truck and others to be ready to pull the casualties out as I called 鈥淥ne, two, three: Lift!鈥� An officer arrived at that moment and, having observed what I had done, recommended me for my first stripe.

As a lance corporal, life improved slightly for me and some young 鈥淚mmatures鈥� (not yet eighteeen) were put in my charge. They had cadet training and were very keen and I used to tell them bedtime adventure stories, which they enjoyed.

A driving school HQ had been established in Dulwich in a large house called 鈥淏ellair鈥�. By coincidence, this was not far from the Croxted Road home of the Galitzine family, where I had stayed for several years. My job now was to teach the young recruits to drive. There was an old Austin Seven chassis for them to learn engine maintenance and dual-drive 30-hundredweight trucks for driving lessons. A hundred fully qualified RASC drivers passed out of the course every month.

At camp, the major, the captain and the lieutenant had separate offices and were not particularly friendly with each other. One night I was very tired and, falling asleep on guard duty, failed to ensure that a guard was on the gate when the lieutenant came in. He roused me and ordered me to report to his office at 9am (for punishment). Half an hour later the captain came in and found me asleep again. I did not tell him that the lieutenant had already caught me and he too ordered me to report at 9am. Believe it or not, the major came in at midnight and it all happened again. So - three calls at 9am and grim punishment to contemplate. At eight forty-five the next morning I called at the lieutenant鈥檚 office and told him how awful it was: the captain had caught me as well. 鈥淵ou are a fool鈥� he thundered. 鈥淚鈥檒l let you off, as no doubt you鈥檒l be for the high-jump when you see the captain, but don鈥檛 let it happen again鈥�. Off I slipped to the captain and confessed that I had been caught later by the major. Much the same conversation ensued; he would let me off , as the major would no doubt punish me severely. Finally, I faced the major at nine o鈥檆lock and confessed that the captain had also caught me asleep on duty. Believe it or not I escaped punishment from all three. It鈥檚 unbelievable, but absolutely true.

A week or two later, I was guard commander and the Colonel asked me to join him for a drink in the mess. He knew that I was shortly to go for training at the Officer Corps Training Unit (OCTU) and he had been very impressed when Prince Vladimir Galitzine had called on him and told him that he was extremely lucky to have me in his company, and that I was like an adopted son to him. After a few drinks I laughingly told him how I had played off the officers, one against the other, and had escaped all punishment. He laughed his head off, saying that I was just the sort that the British Army needed as an officer.

During this quiet period of the war I was waiting to be called to commence training for a commission but an unusual opportunity came along. I was always an inveterate volunteer and my old friends, the Galitzines (who knew Mannerheim very well), persuaded me to go to help Finland in her valiant fight against Russia. Photos of Emmanuel Galitzine and I appeared in Picture Post magazine - but Finland had capitulated before I was released from the army. Instead, I went off to the Grand Hotel in Ramsgate, where we were given bug-ridden mattresses on the floor to sleep on, and I became a 2nd Lieutenant.

At about this time there was an invasion scare and they called for volunteers to go out to guard the cliffs between Ramsgate and Dover. A small group of us were given a tarpaulin and left for two or three days, cold and wet and without hot food, until relieved with apologies. We only had a rifle with which to repel the German Army, but I suppose we could have mopped up a few parachutists if they had landed.

The intensive lecturing and examination for the OCTU took place at nearby St Lawrence College. I hadn鈥檛 actually applied for a commission as I found written work extremely hard and was convinced that I would fail, as I had never passed an exam in my life. Nick Galitzine came down to stay with a Grand Duchess who was living at Ramsgate and, as we strolled along the beach, we discussed my forthcoming studies. Nick offered to take the written exams for me and joined in some of the meals in the mess without anyone commenting, but we thought we would come unstuck when they took a photograph at the end of the course. In the event, I made up my shortcomings by excelling at drill, man management and vehicle maintenance and came out about third from the top.

So in May 1940, with one pip on my shoulder, I was posted to a unit in Faringdon, Oxfordshire. An amusing thing happened: a new workshop unit was being formed and the OC鈥檚 Humber arrived, needing to be 鈥榬un in鈥�, so one or two other officers and I took it for an evening in Oxford on a drinking session. On the way back I was rounding a bend when a car coming from the opposite direction was a bit far over and to avoid him I swerved into the nearside ditch, rolling the car over. Fortunately, we all emerged with only minor cuts and bruises, but the car was very knocked about. The radiator was leaking like mad as we limped back to the unit. The following morning I got the workshop organised, borrowed some tools from the local garage and had the dents knocked out. Luckily, flat camouflage paint is easily matched-in. The bumper I took to the local blacksmith to straighten out. I thought I was for the high jump again but the OC let me off as he thought that I had suffered enough and had done such a good job on the repairs. The wheels were slightly out of alignment, but nobody seemed to notice!

We then moved up to Eaton Hall in Cheshire and I was to be seen perched up on the top of one of the vehicles as I was directing the dispersal of all equipment amongst the trees of the park. I was nicknamed 鈥楽abu鈥� after the elephant boy in the current film of that name. The local residents were very hospitable; they threw parties for us and lent us horses to ride. There was plenty of grazing for them in the park and some Free French used to round them up on their motor bikes when we wanted to catch them to ride. I was never a very good rider, but the members of the Cheshire Hunt laughed and said what I lacked in skill I made up for with boldness. I would jump a five- barred gate from a few paces away and developed the knack of leaping off and rolling over as a party piece. I must have thought that I was a horseman after having had a few lessons in Richmond Park with the famous Colonel Rodzianko.

Soon after this pleasant interlude a notice went up on the board asking for volunteers for the Middle East and a friend of mine, Peter Cornish and I were moved to Woolwich, pending sailing.

At this time the bombing in London was at its height. Walking along Oxford Street, the shop windows could be seen being sucked in and out by the blast from the bombs without breaking. After a night at the 400 Club, which was nearly deserted, we would drive back to barracks dodging incendiaries.

In September, 1940, we embarked on the Duchess of York and, after a six-week voyage via the Cape with a 2 day stop in Cape Town, we eventually arrived at Port Said where there were mountains of vehicles and equipment to sort out.

Officers of 345 Coy RASC (The sign of the foaming tankard)
I was sent to Abassia, about ten miles from the centre of Cairo. We had six weeks to acclimatise, so I contacted the White Russian friends of the Galitzines. One was a Colonel who used to distill vodka in his bath and I was always sent away with a few bottles. Another was Vladimir Peniakoff (1897-1951) who had lived in Cairo for many years before the war and often used to take a couple of vehicles out into the desert for a few days at a time. He knew the desert well and his famous Popski鈥檚 Private Army became a successful British raiding force that carried out reconnaissance and assaults behind enemy lines.
So I had a taste of the high life at Shepherds Hotel, the Continental and Gezira Club before being sent out to the desert with a platoon of a dozen vehicles to 345 L of C Company - beyond Mersa Matruh.
Finally, after a long hot journey all day, I received my first experience of battle. Tobruk had just been captured for the first time and a load of 鈥楶.O.L.鈥� (petrol, oil and lubricants) had to be delivered to an inland dump south of Barce. An Italian aircraft must have spotted our wheel tracks and sprinkled thermos bombs along them. It was dusk as I lead the column on our return journey and I only just noticed a cluster of three in time to straddle them between my wheels. Unfortunately, the chap behind me caught one with a rear wheel. The explosion killed him and severely wounded two others. Having dispatched my sergeant to take the dead man for burial in Barce (Pronounced Barchy) and tending to the wounded as best we could, I set out to find the hospital at Benghazi across the desert, without a compass and only a hazy idea of the direction and mileage. After four or five hours motoring north-west (by the stars) we hit the coast road, turned right, and delivered our patients. On returning to Tobruk after snatching a couple of hours鈥� sleep, the OC amazed me by declaring that they would have to have a Court of Enquiry. I was not very popular when I retorted: 鈥淭hese losses were due to enemy action and the requisite forms simply need to be filled in and sent off to HQ.

At the beginning of April 1941 I had a narrow escape. I was told to deliver a large quantity of barbed wire to up near the front line as a retreat might be necessary and the wire would be used to hold up an enemy advance. I did not realise that the traffic coming in the opposite direction was a full retreat so, arriving at a fork in the road on the Barce side of Derna, I stopped and talked with a group, asking for directions to my destination. I found them to be General Neame, General O鈥機onnor, Brigadier Combe and Lieutenant (Lord) Ranfurly. They told me that my wire would not be needed now and that they were taking the mountainous but shorter route back inland across the desert, bypassing Derna. I had two vehicles on tow that I did not want to abandon, so I decided to take the coast road back. As I left Derna on top of the escarpment the Royal Engineers were about to blow the bridges over the wadis and shouted for me to hurry. Then, to my right I heard gunfire (luckily out of range) so I stood on the running board making rude signs, which I hoped they might see through their binoculars. This was the enemy patrol that captured the Generals - the story is recounted in To War with Whitaker by Lady Ranfurly. I went back through our new front line, the guns facing me. This was the start of the Siege of Tobruk, the longest in the history of the British Army. We were sealed into an area of about a hundred square miles, with the sea on one side and the Germans on the other.

At the commencement of the siege a fierce tank battle took place and we were left with very few. There was a bad sandstorm at this time and I sat in a truck for five days with the tarpaulin flapping. The wind blew the sand out to sea for a couple of days, then back inland the next few days. Fine sand in everything and crunching in every bite of food or drop of drink. Lord Haw Haw (the name the Brits gave to William Joyce), the traitor in Germany, broadcast that we were the first self-supporting POWs.

My next task was to take ammunition out at night to the twenty-five-pounder guns, which had been set up all around the perimeter. There was no hope of finding them easily as they were well camouflaged, so I would drive out into No-mans-land towards the Germans, turn back to watch the flashes as the guns fired, then I drove towards them to deliver the shells. After doing this for a few nights I was told to join the 9th Australian Division and take them out on patrol at night to try to collect POWs, who they would grab out of their trenches by the scruff of their necks.

One day an Arab came riding in on a horse from the direction of the German lines and was suspected of being a spy. He was arrested and sent back to Alexandria on a destroyer for interrogation, while I took possession of his horse. She was a typical, rather underfed, grey Arab mare and very sweet-tempered. I could scrounge plenty of barley and other horse feed left by the Italians, but water would be a problem. For a few days all the men in my platoon gave up an egg cupful, but our ration of water for all purposes was only half a gallon per man per day, with the cookhouse taking half of that. How could I water a horse that requires nearly two gallons a day?
I enlisted the help of a couple of men with plumbing experience and designed a still to de-salinate sea water. Using a 44-gallon drum as a boiler and a 100-gallon tank in which we immersed a captured lorry radiator, we soldered a pipe running from the main boiler to the radiator (the radiator being immersed in a tank of sea water for cooling). Steam was forced out and cooled as it trickled through the radiator, producing one and a half gallons a day. The boiler was heated by a combination of ignited waste oil and atomised by a drip of sea water, controlled by little taps.
I asked an 鈥淎ussie鈥� farrier to make some shoes for the mare (I had named her 鈥楶enney鈥�), although I discovered later that it was quite unnecessary to shoe her as Arab horses have very hard feet and are seldom shod unless ridden a lot on hard roads. I also had the Arab platform stirrups cut down to resemble English ones 鈥� another mistake - as I later found to my cost.

One day a chap I was talking to said that there was another Lieutenant Hurman in Tobruk in the RASC. I told him that I was sure it couldn鈥檛 be spelt the same way, but I made contact and found that he was a distant cousin, Roland Hurman, whom I had not met before. He had been a reporter for the Daily Mail before the War and we met up again at Shepherds in Cairo later on.

Stukas were stationed only fifteen miles away at El Adem and we were saturated with bombs daily. Fortunately many remained unexploded: one fell in a trench close to me and broke a chap鈥檚 leg, but failed to go off. All the raids killed relatively few people, as everyone was well-dispersed and dug in. Some Aussies with a pneumatic drill made me a wonderful dugout in the rock, over which we placed an upturned lorry body piled up
with sandbags. Some steps went down one end and an air duct at the other was made of several petrol tins soldered together and a cowl lined with metal gauze to turn into the wind. I also had a fly- proof door made of metal gauze. I found an Italian two-tier bunk bed which, with a mattress and mosquito net, made a comfortable bedroom. Well-surrounded with sandbags it could withstand all but a direct hit and my 2nd Lieutenant, Jock Yuill, was happy to share it with me.
The men used tea three times and then smoked it rolled in sheets of the Bible. Some units used to think that the RASC took all the food rations they wanted, but it certainly wasn鈥檛 the case with our company. When I was out on patrol with the Aussies we took our own (fairly sparse) rations and I experimented with making condensed coffee essence by boiling Italian coffee beans until reduced. Then I could heat a mug of water over a tiny petrol flash fire (you weren鈥檛 allowed to light a conventional fire in case it was seen) and mix in some tinned milk and a little of my home-made 鈥楥amp鈥� coffee. This would make a welcome addition to a meal of Bully beef (corned beef) and biscuits. We had half a tin of meat and vegetables per month and the cooks managed to make a sort of piecrust with biscuits sometimes. Alternatively, they might fry beef and biscuit fritters.

To pass the time, on the alternate weeks between going out on patrols with the Aussies, I used to sit up in the eagle鈥檚 nest on top of the HQ building with the captured Italian 鈥楤reda鈥� (a heavy machine gun) and take pot shots at the Stuka bombers as they came over.
They always went into a screeching dive to drop their bombs as this was the way they aimed. I must have damaged many, but on one occasion I could see my tracers well on target and smoke started pouring from the engine as it lost height rapidly and disappeared over the hill towards the German lines.

One morning in July, just after a new shipment of Aussies had been brought in by destroyer, I was out riding and was challenged by one of their guards who ordered me, at rifle-point, to dismount and throw down my pistol. I refused, quickly dodging behind a rock, telling him to come and get me - but warning him that I was the best shot in Tobruk. I said, however, that if he preferred I would wait while he sent for an officer from my camp nearby to identify me. My friend, Bill Horsefall, nicknamed 鈥淒onkey Drop鈥� (later a General) was called over and duly obliged.

On another occasion, Penney slipped on the tarmac road and came down (because she was unused to wearing shoes). She then got up and took off across the desert with me suspended by one foot in the stirrup, being dragged over the rocky ground and frightening her even more. Luckily after about half a mile she tripped over a guy rope of a tent, coming down again and enabling me to reach up and release my foot. The whole of my upper half was skinned, bruised and cut, so the medics cleaned me up and covered me with Acriflavine cream, which healed me up in about a week.

Near the end of the siege a shipment of beer came in, a ration of one bottle to two men, and the first that my platoon had seen for months. Unfortunately, word got around to a nearby 鈥淎ussie鈥� unit and an unruly crowd started advancing on us, clamouring for it. I nervously marched out ahead and explained that it was the first ration of beer that we had had. The Australians reluctantly accepted that they might get the next ration, so a fight was averted and I was glad to escape a roughing-up.

Eventually, towards the end of 1941, our turn came to be evacuated. We were told 鈥淚t鈥檚 tonight鈥� and, after one or two false alarms, we gave away our surplus possessions and I found someone to take care of Penney (which he must have done, as later an account appeared in The Egyptian Times with a photo of her with her foal). She had been the only horse in the Siege of Tobruk.

We marched down to the harbour on a moonless night, boarding a flat-bottomed barge to take us out to the destroyer Hero. One poor fellow died (probably of excitement) on the way. The OC - hoping to get rid of me once again - told me to go back; but my friend Bill Horsefall again came to my rescue and pointed out that the members of the rearguard were still ashore and could deal with the situation.

The deck was swarming with five hundred men as we slipped out of the harbour and eventually landed at Tel-el-Kebir on the 鈥渟weet water鈥� canal in Egypt. We were all very underweight (I was below 10 stone from 12 陆), and most were sent to Palestine for six months rest and recuperation, but I was posted back to the desert to join the 7th Armoured Division - the famous Desert Rats. Most were regulars, a brilliant force, and the RASC was commanded by Colonel Eassie who had the reputation of being a fire-eater and of sacking a number of those under him as he was intolerant of those failing to do their jobs efficiently. We became great friends (in 1946 he gave my wife away at our wedding in place of her late father).

He and I were together one day when several Heinkel bombers came over. He stood up shaking his fist at them and swearing, so I more or less pushed him into a trench. He looked a bit surprised but I pointed out that it was dangerous and that I couldn鈥檛 get into a trench unless he did.

One day I received a letter from England. It was a summons for parking in Ramsgate, fining me ten shillings (50p). I wrote and told them that I didn鈥檛 have ten shillings, they could come and get me: 鈥淚鈥檓 in the middle of the battle in the desert.鈥� No reply!

On one occasion, when the battle was fluctuating, I had an urgent order to get petrol to the 11th Hussars, as they and their light armoured cars were stranded out in the desert and the Germans were advancing. I was told: 鈥淕et petrol to them at all costs鈥�. I drove back towards Cairo (about forty or fifty miles) and found a large dump, but was told by a corporal that I couldn鈥檛 have any petrol as it was for their own use, should they have to retreat. When I explained about the Hussars鈥� predicament, he said I had better speak to the Colonel on the landline. My request was repeated but he said: 鈥淣o. You can鈥檛 have any, it鈥檚 our reserve鈥�. He was still adamant about it, even when I pointed out that he wouldn鈥檛 have to retreat if the Hussars got petrol and that if necessary he could bundle all his men into fewer vehicles and abandon the rest. I told him I was taking it anyway. He said I was to consider myself under arrest. I promised that I would report myself under arrest when I got back and helped my men to load up. Late in the afternoon I found the Hussars at the map reference that I had been given and received a very warm welcome. You could hear the gunfire of a tank battle in the distance, so the crews quickly transferred our petrol into their vehicles, enabling them to enter the battle again instead of just being sitting ducks.

Despite having overridden the Colonel and potentially risked a court martial, I had a great feeling of satisfaction, as there was no doubt that they would have been 鈥榩ut in the bag鈥� if they had not received my petrol. When I got back to 30 Corps HQ they were delighted that I had accomplished the task, but not so happy about the manner in which I had achieved it. However, I never heard another word about it, although I nearly met up with this Colonel in Khartoum again at a later date.

In December 1941 I was promoted to Captain and after two hundred and forty-two days siege it was fun to be with the force relieving Tobruk, having been locked in there for so long. I found my former 鈥榟ouse鈥� had been quickly occupied, but we were advancing so fast I had no time for a fixed home. I had to keep supplying 30 Corps. I was driving twenty-two hours a day and Colonel Eassie couldn鈥檛 believe it when I kept on appearing each morning with the supplies. I was snatching a few hours sleep while the vehicles were loaded, changing drivers and then leading the convoy on to a new location.

An urgent warning was circulated to all units in January 1942 that supplies of tools for vehicles were running short (jacks, spanners, wheel wrenches, etc). They were normally kept in a metal toolbox on the running board, but due to the jolting about in the desert, these would snap open and the contents would bounce out and get lost, so I devised a solution. I had the whole platoon on parade and instructed them to remove from their vehicles a certain nut and bolt (which I knew was superfluous), create partitions in the toolbox with waste packing to separate the different tools and, finally, to bolt up the lid and place the requisite spanner in the top left-hand pocket of their battledress blouse. An hour later they were on parade again and ordered: 鈥淚n the right hand鈥�..Spanners out!鈥� to show that they had complied. It solved the potentially serious problem and all the other company commanders came from miles around to see how we stopped losing any more tools.

One day, I was leading a small column in extended formation when one of my chaps inadvertently motored into a minefield, got stuck and panicked. I drove up to the wire on his right, forty or fifty feet away, and called to him to get out and walk. He wouldn鈥檛 move. So I walked in, opened the door of his vehicle, turned around, telling him to get down and walk exactly in my tracks. We both emerged unscathed, abandoning his vehicle. I wouldn鈥檛 like to do it again, but at the time it seemed the only thing to do.

I was supplying units in the desert (south of Derna) which were holding the airfield at Sidi Rezegh. One night I was luxuriously lying out on a stretcher in the back of my 鈥�30cwt鈥� listening to Bing Crosby singing 鈥楽tardust鈥� on my HMV wind-up gramophone and, as I looked out, I could see white German Verey lights going up nearly all around me. Rommel counter attacked in strength after this and we were falling back (making a strategic withdrawal) when a couple of my vehicles got stuck in the sand. Tanks in the distance were beginning to fire in our direction and I tried to pull out those stuck with my 4-wheel-drive Willys Knight pick-up. I hooked on, revved like mad and, with the driver doing likewise, they came out one by one. While this was going on my batman fled, leaping onto a passing vehicle to escape. He could have been court martialed for deserting in the face of the enemy but, with memories of the First War (when so many poor chaps were shot), I simply sent him to serve in the cookhouse and I reckon he suffered severely for his momentary panic.

Tobruk was surrounded by the enemy again in June 1942, but this time the garrison surrendered and the Brits were pushed back to the Egyptian border - only seventy-five miles from Alexandria.

I received a message from Colonel Eassie (who was now in Geneifa on the 鈥淏itter Lakes鈥�), asking me to be his assistant adjutant. Earlier, I had taken over a captured Italian staff car - quite a nice Fiat 鈥� and, not wishing to leave it behind, I had it loaded on a lorry and took it with me. I put it into workshops to keep the lads busy when they had nothing to do. I rang around various car dumps to find the right body to replace the existing Army one and when it was fitted it looked like a civilian car.

One afternoon , I was having a 鈥渒ip鈥� when I was called and told that General Golding was carrying out an inspection and that everyone was out on parade. I leapt out and going straight up to the general, told him that I had been misinformed about the time of the parade. The general was very pleasant and accepted my explanation. However, after the inspection was over the brigadier cornered me and gave me a damn good telling off. I told him that my excuse had been accepted by the general and that ought to be good enough for him, but shortly after that I got a posting to the Sudan. I didn鈥檛 mind the change as I didn鈥檛 think I was very suited to the job of adjutant 鈥� when you arrived at your desk in the morning there were files eighteen inches high waiting for your signature and which you had to read through. It was an enormous camp with five thousand troops and two or three hundred officers coming in and going out on postings. It was not the most popular job as people often didn鈥檛 like their postings. Sometimes I even had the job of telling them that they had to take down a pip, reducing their rank.

One night I was walking home from Garden City, alongside the Nile, towards Tufik Bridge, when two unusually tall Arabs came walking towards me on the other side of the road. They looked at me and did a quick half turn to their right towards me. I quickly unbuttoned my pistol and took it out, at which they turned away and walked on. Not a word was spoken, but I鈥檓 pretty sure that if I hadn鈥檛 pulled my pistol out quickly I would have been found floating in the Nile as one or two other officers had been.

So, off I went by train from Cairo to Aswan, then by steamer up the Nile to Wadi Halfa, which is now under water due to the construction of the Aswan Dam. I then had to get the train to Khartoum to join the Sudan Defence Force and it was here that I discovered that my least favourite Colonel (the one from whom I had pinched the petrol) was in command. However, after a day or two in Khartoum, where I attended cocktail parties with civil servants wearing dinner jackets and cummerbunds I went back to Wadi Halfa without having actually come face to face with the Colonel.

I was promoted to the rank of 鈥楤imbashi鈥�. This was the equivalent of Lieutenant Colonel (as British officers had to be one up on the highest native rank of Major) to become second in command to an 鈥楨nglesi鈥� officer (Englesi is the Arabic name for English and was applied to one who had not seen any action). He was also a Bimbashi, fat and pale from the protected lifestyle that he had led. He resented my experiences in the Western Desert (and no doubt my tan as well!). It isn鈥檛 always realised that only about ten percent of an army sees action, the rest are either in reserve or guarding the rear or the homeland, so this sort of antipathy often existed. The 鈥楨nglesi鈥� ordered me to accompany a junior officer to Kufra where we were building up a big supply dump. I considered that he was being deliberately provocative, as I had been doing this sort of task for months, so when I got there I hitched a lift in a plane and returned immediately. He was rather surprised and annoyed, but I told him that he had only told me to go to Kufra with the convoy, not to come back with them.

He later went sick and was away for over three weeks so, in accordance with the manual of military law I had him 鈥淴 listed鈥�, which meant that he had left the company and was available for posting. When he came back I told him that I had taken over command but that he was welcome to stay as my guest until he received his orders. He was pretty angry but he knew that I was legally correct. In fact, he was reconfirmed as CO soon after. It came to my ears later that the Colonel had warned him: 鈥淲atch out for that John Hurman, he鈥檚 a tricky customer.鈥�

Wadi Halfa was a typical village beside the River Nile, with mostly whitewashed single storey houses, made of mud brick, but a railhead had been built from where you could take a two-day journey in great comfort to Khartoum. There was a comfortable hotel overlooking the Nile - Sunderland flying boats used to land there from Cairo. The Officers鈥� Club was built in the nineteenth century; it was single storey - the rooms furnished with comfortable chairs and the walls lined with bookshelves. Wadi Halfa was alleged to be the hottest place on earth, 140 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade and it hadn鈥檛 rained for a thousand years. The water in the roof tanks was scalding hot by the evening, much too hot for a shower. Feluccas were constantly at hand to ferry you across to the desert side of the river where the army vehicle park was situated and from where we left for desert trips. There was a very good hospital with marble floors, and I remember being nursed through malaria there.

In Wadi Halfa an elderly barman grew quite excited when I told him that I had met Slatin Pasha鈥檚 daughter, Anna Marie, in London. Baron Sir Rudolf Slatin was born in Vienna and became Inspector General of the Sudan under General Gordon. The Mahdi took him prisoner, then after nearly twelve years in captivity he made a dramatic escape in 1895, which caused quite a stir in Victorian England. He was quite a colourful character and Between Two Flags by Gordon Brook-Shepherd tells the story of his life. Anna Marie and I had ridden together in Richmond Park and she later married Prince George Galitzine.

I didn鈥檛 think that life was going to be much fun here, so one day I saw a notice on the board asking for volunteers for a desert mission. This turned out to be with the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) who had been operating in small groups deep in the Sahara behind enemy lines for several years. So I joined them, the SAS and a battalion of Sudanese infantry 鈥� 70 whites, consisting of David Stirling, Paddy Mayne, 鈥楶opski鈥�, Fitzroy Maclean and others. They were all great fun and I got on extremely well with them.

In September 1942 we were to make a raid on Jalo, an oasis two hundred and fifty miles south of Barce, crossing the desert for eight hundred to a thousand miles. We all gathered at Kufra - another oasis which had been captured from the Italians by General Leclerc in February 1941. The LRDG had been making attacks from here since then. We had built up considerable supplies in Kufra and from there I had the job of setting up a further dump en-route for Jalo.
Our attack on the fort was rather like a scene from PC Wren鈥檚 Beau Geste, with us all lined up on a slight rise, then tearing down in extended formation firing like mad. During the previous night, part of our force had got around the back of the fort, but the Italian garrison put up quite a lot of resistance . Unfortunately, we lost several men and never actually captured the fort but we kept it immobilised until the other raids were over. David Lloyd-Owen and John Hasleden had peeled off before we reached Jalo and were to try to enter Tobruk in a two-pronged attack on the radar installation and Rommel鈥檚 communications. At the same time, a Naval force was to try to land from the sea while David Stirling made a raid on Benghazi and Jake Easonsmith was to attack planes on the airfield near Barce. Unfortunately, none had the best of luck in achieving their objectives; but it gave the enemy something to think about. GHQ Cairo ordered this attack and the enemy got wind of it, so the vital element of surprise - which is essential to the success of these lightly-armed raids - was lost. (See 鈥淭he Raid on Tobruk鈥� in David Lloyd Owen鈥檚 book, The Desert My Dwelling Place).

We were ordered to withdraw and made as many miles as we could through the night until we came to a wadi where we could hide up. As I reckoned that the German aircraft would be out looking for us at first light, I ordered that a couple of broken-down vehicles should be towed out as a decoy beyond the wadi ahead. They were put facing towards the way we were heading. Then, cutting some brushwood, we covered our tyre tracks. All the other vehicles were carefully concealed in the sides of the wadi, with camouflage netting and scrub (even rubbing oil and then sand on any windscreens or shiny parts that might catch the sun and give away our position). So we all rested and waited and at first light the planes came over, thundering down at zero feet, up and down the length of the wadi, searching for us and then on, bombing the broken-down trucks to bits. They then flew on southwards looking for us, as they wouldn鈥檛 have known how far we might have travelled. It was very satisfying to see my plan work so well and I had a tremendous feeling of euphoria and was convinced that the tide had begun to turn in our favour. As it turned out, the great Battle of Alamein was about to start and it was, as Churchill said: 鈥淭he end of the beginning鈥�.

The next day my sergeant came to me saying: 鈥淎ll the water tanks are leaking. What shall we do?鈥� (The effect of all the jolting on the journey had caused the riveted joints to spring). The tanks were all less than half full, a serious situation, as we had nearly a thousand miles of the hottest desert to cross. I commanded all the men as follows: 鈥淭ake your emergency biscuit and crumble it into a powder, then drop it into your water tanks and all the leaks will stop鈥�. (The biscuits were of oatmeal, 4鈥� x 4鈥� x 陆鈥�). They did as I said and, lo and behold, the leaks stopped in about ten minutes. Surprised and amazed, the men thought it was a miracle. They might have thought I was Jesus Christ except for the Sudanese, who were Mahommedans!.

We completed our journey back to Kufra, driving sixty or eighty miles by night, and hiding by day. In the evening, impatiently waiting for the sun to set, we would say: 鈥淟et鈥檚 move鈥�, hoping we wouldn鈥檛 be spotted by aircraft. One day we were listening to the 大象传媒 Overseas Programme. We heard them talking about our raid, saying that it showed the spirit that would win the war.

Finally, in Kufra, a Heinkel came over low, guns blazing and bombs dropping. David Lloyd Owen was badly injured. Several of us carried him to the hospital and he was then transferred to Heliopolis, eventually making a remarkable recovery. He was a brave and charming soldier. He stayed in the army after the war, becoming the General commanding Sandhurst and wrote an evocative account of desert warfare. I returned to Wadi Halfa and heard that I had received a 鈥楳ention in Despatches鈥�.

Shortly afterwards it was decided that, as Monty鈥檚 advance from El Alamein was continuing on towards Tunisia, we would be useful filling in the 鈥淟 of C鈥� so we set off - back across the desert to Tobruk. We took a different route this time, skirting the great sand sea. The expedition consisted of the whole company, a hundred and fifty vehicles and five hundred men of the SDF (Sudan Defence Force). I believe that it was the first time that such a large number had crossed together. It would take nearly three weeks and I was chief navigator. The navigation was either by using the Bagnold Compass or the Prismatic and we had a plentiful supply of maps.

The LRDG had been formed by Bagnold to operate on intelligence missions in the Libyan Desert as early as 1940 and it was the Bagnold sun compass (like a sundial and only for use by day) that was used all the time in the deep desert. It consisted of a number of paper discs, like gramophone records, which you selected according to the month and placed on a four-inch spike. It was generally fixed to your windscreen frame and you stood up and checked the bearing every hour or more often if you had to make detours around wadis.

The Prismatic could be used day or night. It was like a little compass, about the size of an old pocket watch, with a small glass prism that you looked through and folded down when not in use. You had to walk away a few yards from the vehicle to get clear of any magnetism, then take the bearing that had been selected from the map with a protractor and take note of a marker in the distance. Then adjust the bearing (a few degrees) accordingly when you got back in the vehicle. It was usually worn suspended by a lanyard around your neck or between your knees when you were driving to keep on your correct bearing. You simply had to choose a new marker as and when necessary and to make allowances whenever you had to deviate around wadis or jebels.

One night, about half way across, we formed all the vehicles into a big square, facing inward, with the headlights on and issued the Sudanese with battledress. It was necessary for the colder temperatures (previously they had only worn their native tropical kit) and it was very amusing to see them trying to put legs into armholes and finding wrong sizes.

One day I noticed that one of the trucks was veering off at an angle and would probably get lost, so I signalled to the OC that I would chase him and bring him back. The truck had already got well ahead and was out of sight when I discovered that I was short of petrol and it was getting dark. Then, as we climbed a hill, the wheels dug in and when I got out I found that we were on top of a 鈥榬azor-back鈥� with a sheer drop just ahead. We fired some Verey lights to attract the attention of the main company but got no response, so we settled down for the night. We only had a water bottle, some peanuts and some dried dates and my Sudanese driver began to wail that we would all die. My batman, Salama, who was a marvellous, loyal, servant, told him: 鈥淚f Janabuk (his honour) is prepared to die, you should be too鈥�. At first light we dug the truck out, reversed down from the razor back and, very slowly, (in top gear, so as to conserve petrol) we motored on, hoping to find the main party. We came upon a faintly marked track with a post, on top of which was an upturned petrol tin. Looking into the distance about a mile ahead, I saw another post. We proceeded until we spotted an oasis and, just as the petrol needle dropped back to 鈥楨mpty鈥�, we saw the truck that I had been chasing (which, luckily, was carrying petrol). By late the following day we rejoined the rest of the company and the OC - who seemed blissfully unaware that we had nearly been missing for good.
Eventually we all reached Tobruk, where it was cold and raining 鈥� the Sudanese thought they must be in England because there were so many English! I had a forty-eight hour leave pass so, taking Salama with me, I motored back to Cairo. By this time I was able to converse tolerably well in Arabic and instructed Salama to take my bags up to my hotel room, lay out my clean uniform, and to come back for me in two days. I told him that on no account was he to be parted from his rifle and that the camp that I had shown him would provide him with necessary bed and board.

Later I telephoned down to the hotel receptionist, who was Greek. I spoke in English and she said: 鈥淵ou do speak English well for an Egyptian gentleman.鈥� Being with the SDF I had Egyptian badges of rank and, having spent so long in the desert, I had a dark tan - so it was no wonder that she mistook me for an Egyptian.

Not long after I went sick with jaundice and was taken to Marsa Matruh on the border of Egypt and Libya, where I was put on a hospital train and thence to an isolation hospital in the Sinai. I was put on a strict diet, with no fat and no alcohol. After three weeks hospitalisation and convalescence, I was free for posting, so I rang my friend Pat Eassie to see if he had a job for me. He was delighted and said he would like me to join an infantry brigade as its BRASCO (Brigade RASC Officer).

This was the 231 (Malta) Brigade, which had as its sign a white Maltese cross on the background of a red shield to commemorate the association with the island of Malta. It would be part of the 8th Army, consisting of the Hampshires, Devons and Dorsets under General Smith (later to be replaced by General Urquhart). I thought it sounded interesting, they had never had a BRASCO before (they had been static in Malta) and they were delighted to think that they would get all the supplies that they wanted through me. We went for training at Kabrit at the end of the peninsular dividing the Great and Little 鈥淏itter Lakes鈥�.

The briefing for the forthcoming invasion of Sicily had begun when I received another posting back down to the SDF in Tobruk, but I much preferred the prospect of Sicily, so I told the General that I wanted to stay and that it might be inadvisable to release me, as I might get drunk and inadvertently divulge secret information! He seemed pleased to keep me and was able to dispose of the Tobruk posting.

The invasion force was assembled and I embarked on Keren. We were on board ship for a number of weeks prior to sailing and carrying out practice exercises at Aqaba. I can remember much singing of Won鈥檛 You Come Home Bill Bailey after watching a film on deck as we sailed through the Suez Canal for Operation Husky. The night before we left Egypt we could see Mount Etna in the distance which we found quite disconcerting, as we imagined (quite wrongly) that the enemy would be able to see us. I became adjutant for the brigadier on board as he went sick with jaundice. As it was the HQ ship I was on the tannoy, giving out orders and, in between, I kept the men amused by singing all the current Bing Crosby songs.

Sicilian Landing - July 1943

It was still quite dark when we landed at Marzamemi, near Pachino on the southeastern tip of Sicily. It all went very smoothly on our Amber Beach. While the landing craft were swanning about, fully loaded, a submarine suddenly surfaced just alongside. I was relieved to see a naval lieutenant emerge from the conning tower. He saluted and asked: 鈥淎ny further orders, Sir?鈥� I couldn鈥檛 think of anything, so I just thanked him for being there and then boarded my landing craft and went ashore. (It was my experience on this landing that my 大象传媒 broadcast on D-Day was to be based).

We hadn鈥檛 any transport, so I scouted around till I found a really ancient turn-of-the-century open car and some wood alcohol. It had only one cylinder and no shock absorbers, but I got it going and drove up and down from the beach to what you might call the '鈥榩rom'鈥� loaded with kit.

The book Malta Strikes Back tells the story of the landing, the battles and the eventual capture of Sicily, by 231 Brigade and mentions the problems that I had in keeping supplies coming over the distances. I鈥檓 glad to know that they never went short. It was for this work that I was mentioned in despatches again.

General Urquhart bravely drove about amongst his men and was wounded in the arm one day, so I persuaded him to take my Jeep (which wouldn鈥檛 be as noticeable as his Ford Mercury). I was driving enormous distances from the supply port up to wherever the brigade had got to (and having to dump forward of our front line sometimes), so I enjoyed the extra comfort of the Mercury. One day I passed Monty in his open Humber and received a warm wave from him, thinking I was Urquhart. I returned his greeting with a salute.

At one point in the battle for Regalbuto Ridge, there was a German counter-attack, involving Paratroops and some Hermann Goering Assault Engineers, which threatened the Devons. General Roy Urquhart ordered all members of the HQ to grab a rifle; cooks, clerks, and every man. We all charged down the hill shouting like mad and fortunately the Germans withdrew. We were known as 鈥淩oy鈥檚 Boys鈥� by the Highland Division which we came under.

Eventually we arrived at Messina, where I saw, for the first time, DUKWs operating. They were crossing the straits to Italy and I thought how marvellous they were - little knowing that I would get to know all about them at a later date.

Pizzo 鈥� 7th September 1943

We embarked on landing craft to make an assault (a left-hand hook) up the toe of Italy, about sixty miles. We arrived at first light and made landings under heavy fire. The Commandos landed on either side of us to endeavour to capture the Germans on the high ground which overlooked our beach. Other units had landed further south and we were to try to hold our position for two or three days until they could join up with us. A landing ship tank (LST) came in and hit the beach at three or four knots, preventing the doors being opened, and I remember seeing men leaping over the sides twenty feet into the sea. A very brave bulldozer driver persistently worked away to get the bow doors open. Then a torpedo boat roared in close to the shore, turning away at the last moment so that the rear gunner could fire over our heads at the enemy up on the cliffs. Also twin fuselage 鈥楲ightnings鈥� giving us more support. One of the battalions was fighting in a graveyard, using the gravestones as cover.

I made my way to the tunnel being used for the wounded and the doctors told me how the use of drips was almost miraculous in helping in their recovery I was most interested as I hadn鈥檛 seen them used before.

I ordered some Italian POWs to help me to carry some 鈥榬ations鈥� up the beach (in fact it was a ton of gelignite). It was stacked up away from the beach but still within range of a mortar shell which landed alongside and I watched as one or two boxes slid slowly into the hole that the mortar had made. Goodness knows why it didn鈥檛 explode.

The Germans retreated as our forces advanced up from the south and I was leading a column of vehicles up into the hills when I noticed in my mirror that some were missing. I turned into the entrance of a house, driving up to where several artillery company trucks were parked 鈥� rather too close together. I walked down to the road to look for the lost ones, anxiously looking up and down, when suddenly there was an unbelievable explosion, an eruption like a giant earthquake or volcano, behind me. An enemy shell had fallen on the ammunition trucks. I was knocked over by the blast and concussed and when I looked around there was just a cloud of black dust, then two terribly burnt men emerged, pleading for help. It was the most terrible scene from hell and I alone was unscathed. As I was telling them that help was at hand a jeep came roaring up, driven by a padre, who took control and told me to get in his jeep, that his driver would take me back to HQ and that he would take care of everything. I cannot remember much more, there seems to be a gap in my memory.

We cruised up the coast and did another landing, which wasn鈥檛 so heavily opposed, and at about 10am it was announced on the radio that Italy had capitulated. I motored up the road into the hills and met an Italian Alpine Division marching down towards me. I stopped and they stopped, so I said: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e all under arrest 鈥� keep marching down and I鈥檒l organise a reception for you鈥�. They weren鈥檛 too happy, but decided to comply anyway.
After the capitulation the brigade was withdrawn and we transhipped back to Catania where we found an unoccupied house for the HQ and staff whilst we waited for our next orders. One morning, about coffee-time, I said: 鈥淚 have a feeling that we will get our orders this morning. A Humber Snipe will arrive, a chap will get out carrying a briefcase, the wind will catch the corner of his greatcoat and he will have orders for our return to the UK鈥�. Half an hour later it happened, just as I had forecast it. I was to return to the United Kingdom after an absence of three years. I was given the job of sorting out ships for the troops which was quite fun - climbing up the sides of ships, meeting the captains in their (to me) luxurious cabins to discuss loading, numbers, assigning to various vessels, etc.

So we set sail. This time we could go through the Med., but we still had to zigzag all the way back, looking out for U-boats, until we landed eventually at Greenock. It was late in November 鈥�43 and we found it very cold after so long in the Middle East. We were moved straight down to Essex and from there I was posted to 5 AGRA as BRASCO and had to map out a journey to Scotland for a shooting exercise. Then I was told to go off to a school in Southend before being promoted to major and I had to finally shake the sand from my shoes.

When I was first posted to the desert I thought it was awful: heat, flies, dust and discomfort but, surprisingly, I grew to enjoy it, particularly away from the coast road where most of the fighting took place. I liked learning the skills of navigation and of balancing a vehicle whilst driving across soft sand by lightly keeping the pressure on the throttle so that the wheels don鈥檛 spin too much. I remember the pleasure of a cold bottle of beer or water in the evening sitting in a folding chair while a meal is cooked over a small fire. A canvas bucket of water would be hung from the front of your vehicle in the morning with a bottle of beer in it. The water evaporating through the canvas plunges the temperature down to 40O Fahrenheit.

The night sky was an incredible blue/black and without trees or buildings you can see such an enormous expanse. The stars and the silence are marvellous. The different shapes of the mountains and jebels on the way to Kufra from Wadi Halfa were often weird, exciting the imagination and creating the urge to explore. Occasionally you would see an abandoned vehicle but the next time you passed it would have disappeared under a covering of sand. The heat was enormous in the 鈥榮and sea鈥� and it was really hard work if you had to dig out. Each vehicle would carry a sand channel (a metal plank, six feet long, shallow, dish-shaped, with two-inch holes all over to grip and reduce weight). The Sudanese would stand in a line, throwing their channels in front of your wheels to keep you going until you were out of the soft sand. Motoring north after a long time in the Sahara had an emotional effect like suddenly coming upon green plants after so long seeing only sand. The flowers at certain seasons after rain were like a miraculous coloured carpet which suddenly appeared overnight.

1944 - DUKWs D-Day to the Rhine

D signifies the fourth year of the American wartime military standardisation programme.
U means the vehicles is amphibious
K that it has six-wheel-drive
W that it has an inversely sprung rear axle

The first training on DUKWs took place on Annick Water, near Stewarton, in Ayrshire in the winter of 1943/44. Five Three Six Company took over its first DUKWs at Towyn, the amphibious school in North Wales, on 26th January (my birthday). I took command on 24th April at Hursley, near Winchester, in Hampshire, and made Captain Keith Forbes my second-in-command. He was to become a very dear friend, as did Nan - whom he had recently married. He was always so supportive and steadfast and I believe we made a good team.

The company had been learning to handle a DUKW both at sea and on the road. They practised the methods needed to control the loading of the materials 鈥� motoring out to numbered ships, lowering the three tons of stores in nets, and then returning to shore. They passed through a control point where they were told which inland dump to deliver to. DUKWs are as large as a double decker bus on the road, but when loaded they appear quite low in the water. Almost as soon as I arrived I had to take eight DUKWs to a rehearsal for D-Day (Exercise Fabius) at Hayling Island for Monty to watch. The weather blew up towards the end of the day and some of the troops were getting into difficulties trying to re-embark with their heavy kit. I ordered my drivers to follow me and pick up those on the beach and take them out to the ships in the DUKWs so that they could climb aboard. For this I was congratulated - but also criticised for not having trained my men to drive as well as I did.

A day or two before we were sealed for D-Day I was invited to spend the day with the Duchess of Kent, at Coppins, in Berkshire. I had met her with the Galitzines and then one day at Claridges she introduced me to the Duke of Kent (who died later in an air crash). Their young daughter, Princess Alexandra, saw me and ran to her mother exclaiming 鈥淭here鈥檚 a soldier in the drawing room!鈥�. Prince Michael was still a toddler, just learning to walk.
On 26th May we were sealed and briefed for D-Day. We were given key plans and maps which showed us exactly where everything was to be: transhipment area, initial dumps, DUKW exits, et cetera, and also how everything was phased in.
There was a scale model of King Beach, where we were to land, and the surrounding countryside. The minutest details were planned to an incredible extent. We were under the command of 50th Division, the British Northumbrian Division with the TT Tyne Tees shoulder flash (a corps consisted of three divisions and each division had three brigades).

On 30th May the company (which had been split up into various serials) went to different ports and commenced marshalling and embarking. I was to travel on a flat-bottomed landing craft and had to supervise the loading of vehicles of all kinds, including my own jeep and driver. For four or five days we circled the Isle of Wight, waiting for the weather to quieten until, finally, we received the signal to move on the evening of the 5th June. It had been very uncomfortable in the rough weather and we were glad to be, finally, on our way.

We started moving in a column of vessels slowly towards the French coast. As dawn broke we began to see the beach through thick smoke and tremendous noise. This was H-Hour, but we had to wait our turn to land, under artillery fire, until there was a space on the beach. Ships stretched on every side into the distance. Having suffered seasickness and lack of sleep we felt almost glad to be about to make our momentous landing. The skipper of my craft had saved a quarter of a bottle of whisky to share with me. He was such a nice chap and it cheered me up a lot. A rocket ship was firing over our heads and you couldn鈥檛 imagine anyone surviving where the rockets were landing. We drew into a sort of parking space on the beach and several vessels like ours were hit. It was like ten thousand firework displays all in one as my driver and I went ashore with my jeep. We found a small space high up on the beach where we dug a trench; and from there we could watch what was happening while we identified the landmarks that we had been shown on the maps. I had landed on the Normandy beach at approximately 7.30am.
We prepared to set up a HQ at a pre-arranged spot near La Riviere. Then, at 0900 Hours, Lieutenant. Day, with twenty three DUKWs of A Platoon, came in on the same beach. These were loaded with ammunition and went straight to HQ 69 Brigade near Crepon. After unloading, they returned and parked up. Everyone else arrived as planned, except three DUKWs which were damaged by mines or underwater obstacles. The place earmarked for our vehicle park was still occupied by the enemy and there were quite a few 鈥楯erry鈥� snipers running about. Some were rounded up and made prisoners of war. I relieved a Gestapo officer of his swastika armband and pocketed his pistol.

Towards evening, a 大象传媒 correspondent (Frank Gillard) who had landed earlier, came up to me carrying a couple of blue bags. He wanted me to give him a DUKW to take his dispatches out to a destroyer. However, I told him that they were all too busy, as by now DUKWs were evacuating casualties from the beaches to the various craft at sea and then bringing in necessary supplies. Some amphibious tanks were landing small units of every regiment so that no complete unit was lost; it was brilliant organisation.

A hole had been blown in the wall, enabling the DUKWs to get up off the beach onto a road, but I was warned that there were foot mines about and that you had to be very careful. To avoid them you looked to see if the tarmac had been dug up.

I was finding that many DUKWs were suffering from punctures; the balloon tyres which had been fitted were not really good enough for the job. There were too many sharp hazards about, so I commandeered several truckloads of lorry tyres and formed a pit-stop for the workshop people to change tyres. While they were waiting the drivers would get tea, food and rest, and collect their next orders.

King Beach was practically unusable because of the amount of clay in the sand and DUKWs were getting bogged down, so we moved over a little just into Love Beach. That night we were bombed fairly thoroughly but we were fortunate to have only one casualty and I did get some sleep.

D-Day +1

Everything was working well, despite the rough sea and, as an eyewitness remembered: 鈥淭he wonderful little DUKWs wallowed like hippopotamuses between the coasters and the shore 鈥� some smaller craft were crushed by the surf as a dog crushes a bone. I reckon this will be the most famous gale since the Armada鈥�.

Keith Forbes arrived. The Royal Engineers were working like mad, removing anti-tank mines. As I looked down at a depression in the road they said: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 okay, we鈥檝e taken that one out鈥�. I signalled the leading DUKW to come on but, as it drove around the corner, the back wheel went into the hollow where the mine had been. Unfortunately, the Germans had laid a second one beneath the first and there was an almighty explosion. My sergeant, who was standing ten or fifteen yards away, was killed by the blast. The DUKW driver was okay, although the DUKW was badly damaged and I was peppered with shrapnel.

When I tried to get up I found my left leg and left arm were useless. My jeep driver arrived and began taking me to the dressing station, but there was a solid line of tanks preventing us moving forward. I told my driver to go ahead to see what the holdup was, but then the tanks began to move so I crossed to the driver鈥檚 side, put the toe of my right foot on the clutch, slipped it into gear and pressed the accelerator with my right heel and drove up the hill steering with my right hand. In the hospital tent I was given some morphine and told I would have to wait to be evacuated. Here Pat Eassie found me and commiserated with me on my misfortune.

After a day or two I was put on an LST going back to England with five hundred others. By this time I had malaria (a recurring problem from my time in the desert), a very high temperature and hallucinations. The next day, a corporal offered to carry me, piggy-back, to the bathroom. I was standing holding a handrail, bearded, bloody and bandaged, when an immaculate young American naval lieutenant caught sight of me. An expression of horror crossed his face, which was an amusing and yet depressing reaction as to what I must have looked like.

I was in a Canadian hospital for a week or more and then moved to the Cambridge Hospital at Aldershot where they carried out a series of operations to remove shrapnel. I was there for three or four weeks, recovering and receiving physiotherapy to get my leg and foot back into use, as every time I put my foot down it collapsed. While I was there I received a letter from a friend. Pat Macleod had landed in France soon after I had and he heard what had happened. He wrote: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e near my home in Surrey and I鈥檝e written to my mother telling her all about you. Have a week or so resting there and, when you get out of hospital, she鈥檒l be expecting you鈥�. So I came to the Macleod鈥檚 family home in Horseshoe Lane, Merrow. There I met Kate, Pat鈥檚 youngest sister, and I fell in love.

Through Pat MacLeod鈥檚 Uncle Charles, who was Director-General of the RASC, I was able to voice my desire to re-join my regiment in France (not normally allowed) and duly received orders to return. On 18th August, soon after I had arrived back in Normandy, I got a message from Pat Eassie (now Brigadier Eassie) and so I drove up through the Falaise Gap with my workshops officer. There had been a terrible tank battle and a track had been bulldozed through mountains of rubble to 30 Corp鈥檚 HQ. I had handed the posting order to the major who had been running my company and he was dismayed to find that he was to join the Airborne. I volunteered to take his place, but Pat Eassie was very pleased to see me back and said he wanted me for a special job 鈥� doing all the river crossings up into Germany.

There had been eleven DUKW companies working on the British sector of the beachhead, but 536 was the only one to be kept intact. On 12th June (while I was still in England), Churchill had been brought ashore with General Montgomery and General Eisenhower in one of our DUKWs. The day before, with improved weather, our DUKWs had unloaded over a thousand tons of ammunition, petrol, and other stores in the one day 鈥� a remarkable quantity. The famous Mulberry harbour never unloaded more than half of the total tonnage carried by DUKWs 鈥� I don鈥檛 think the general public realised the importance of the work that they did.

On 26th August, 1944, we moved up to Rouen, taking two thousand tons of supplies across the Seine. Sometimes we worked where bridges were blown and sometimes in addition to a bridge. We were now under the command of 30 Corps and advanced into Belgium (to great acclaim from the population) and liberated Brussels.

The first night that we were there, Keith Forbes and I went to a nightclub and some gunmen burst in looking for suspected collaborators. I asked the band to play Lilli Marlene, but I was nearly mobbed by angry Belgians - who only associated that song with the Germans.

A large warehouse full of wines and spirits was 鈥榣iberated鈥� and we could take our quota in three 3-tonners, so we loaded up crates of champagne, gin, contreau, et cetera, all stamped with swastikas.
Pat MacLeod鈥檚 sister Jeannie came out to work in Brussels later and I was able to give her a dozen bottles of Gin a party she was giving.

In Bourg Leopold, near the border with Holland, General Horrocks gave us a talk on the imminent Operation Market Garden, the rather-too-ambitious attack on Arnhem, which was hoped to shorten the war.
Our job was to advance up a narrow road with banks on either side to Nijmegen. I was tail-end-Charlie for a while and then overtook the rest of the company about a mile and a half to the front of my column. After we arrived in Nijmegen, we discovered that, minutes after I had left them, one of my breakdown lorries (a big 10-ton Scammel) and some of my chaps had been cut off and taken prisoner of war by the Germans. My despatch rider, Ferguson, escaped capture by hiding in a farmhouse loft (which at one stage had been used by the SS as a headquarters).

Several DUKWs attempted to get across the river to Arnhem to take ammunition to the 鈥淧aras鈥� but they got bogged down and the drivers had to swim back. Driver Chilton and another NCO were awarded Military Medals for this, having helped some Airborne people to get back
After this the Germans blew some dykes, inundating large areas between Arnhem and Germany, and cutting off some of our forward troops. The DUKWs came to their rescue, carrying all the supplies that they needed and bringing back the wounded.
Our bow-waves would flap the shutters of the upstair windows of the houses as we passed. My friend Pat Macleod asked me if he could go up to the front to see what went on as he was due to return to the UK shortly. It was his first time in a DUKW and I think he found it quite surprising, travelling so slowly (only about four miles per hour) up through the floods with shells falling around us.

Colonel Fenton wrote a very appreciative letter to the company for our work. We had kept the forward troops supplied and evacuated wounded through the floods from Nijmegen to Cleves at a critical time (February 1945). The book Club Route in Europe, the story of 30 Corps with the sign of the rampant boar, traces the progress from D-Day to the end of the war and mentions my DUKWs several times.
Operation "Turnscrew鈥� 鈥� Crossing the Rhine 24th March, 1944

This was the final great river to cross before striking into Germany and I thought of the Romans and the Celts nearly two thousand years earlier, facing each other across this great natural boundary. It snowed the night before we were due to cross and I slept in a trench with an uncomfortable rock bottom with a tarpaulin over me. It was really cold and I wore my leather jacket, which was lined with sheepskin and had a big sheepskin collar, a pair of rubber boots and thick socks. Extra DUKWs and drivers had been brought up for the crossing, so I had two hundred DUKWs and a thousand men under command. All our big guns were firing all around us and, of course, German shells landed in response. It was a noisy night.
I did the first crossing; it was painfully slow as you only had four knots in a DUKW and you were a very easy target. Luckily the current wasn鈥檛 as fast as the Rhine at Nijmegen - where you had to land further down from where you started and risked getting stuck in the mud if there wasn鈥檛 a suitable ramp. Here at Till it had been a regular ferry crossing so we were able to go almost straight across. A sniper (who we eventually pinpointed high up in the bucket of a crane) killed the poor chap who followed me. He was shot to bits by a round from a twenty-five-pounder 鈥� a brilliant shot.

While I was across the river I met a doctor in an armoured jeep. The bottom of the jeep was lined with sandbags. He was driving up and down and around and around a field to make sure it was clear of mines before he set up a field dressing station. The sandbags should have protected him if he had hit a mine, but it was still quite a hazardous thing to do. Fortunately the field was clear so all was well.
We continued getting loads of supplies across until bridges were secured, then we moved back to the island between Nijmegen and Arnhem to be under 1 Canadian Corps, while 30 Corps proceeded on towards Hamburg.

Eventually Arnhem was captured and I lined up all the DUKWs in a wide road in an industrial area as they all had to be overhauled. Meanwhile I set out to discover the whereabouts of a friend whom I had known before the war. I had stayed with Ben Barenbruk鈥檚 kind family in the mid-1930s. He was Jewish and his parents had been taken but Ben had gone into hiding. I finally located him and a go-between told him that a British officer was looking for him. He had been hiding in barns and such places for a long time and was very hesitant about coming out, so I called: 鈥淚t鈥檚 me, John Hurman. It鈥檚 all right鈥�. I took him back to the mess for two or three weeks and he was able to fatten up a bit. He had obviously had a bad time and was rather quiet, but I left him a good supply of rations when I had to leave and he had fully recovered when we went back to see him after the war.

I did some illegal trips home on the odd occasion that I could get a forty-eight hour pass to see Kate. I would depart the day before it was due to start and hitch a lift on a plane. On one occasion I waved down a plane that was about to take off from Nienburg, between Bremen and Hanover. They let down the steps and I hopped aboard, finding a seat in the forward part of the plane. A young aide de camp who was with an air commodore came up and asked me what I was doing and to show my pass. I told him that I was only hitching a ride to Ostend. The air commodore obviously wasn鈥檛 satisfied and told me to report to him when we arrived at the airport. I wasn鈥檛 too happy about this and so, after we landed I mingled with the small crowd, walked through the central passageway, opened a door and walked out onto the road where I was fortunate enough to hitch a lift in a car almost immediately. Luckily my name had not been noted so I never heard another word about it.

Another time, Yehudi Menuhin (who was very nervous about flying) was travelling to Brussels to give a concert in the same plane when a V2 landed just below us as we were coming in to land. It sent us spiralling upwards but we circled and eventually landed safely.

In May, 1945, after the end of the war, I was asked to survey the north coast of Germany from Emden to Cuxhaven and on to the Baltic for a suitable location to set up an amphibious school - principally for DUKWs. I motored off in my Humber with a driver for ten days but there was no surf anywhere and I didn鈥檛 feel that I could recommend anywhere, to the disappointment of the powers that be. By this time I was getting very anxious to get back to England and was not particularly keen on the prospect of setting up a DUKW school, even though I would have had promotion to Colonel. I just wanted to get back to civilian life, find a job and get married. I have thought since that the school could have been established near Cuxhaven and they could have gone down to Ostend for practice in the surf, but peacetime soldiering did not appeal to me.

I was sent to a little town in Germany called Seelze, about ten miles from Hanover. Sadly, the DUKWs were taken away; the company broken up and everyone posted away. I was Town Major; life was leisurely but boring 鈥� everyone longing for leave. A general election was held in England and word got around that if you voted Labour you would get home quicker. As you can imagine, practically the whole British Army voted Labour, plus families and girlfriends, thus creating a landslide victory. I was eventually posted back to UK but, of all places, to Leith Fort (near Edinburgh) which had been condemned for years and I was told to supervise the testing of learner drivers while awaiting my 鈥渄emob鈥�.

Eventually my number came up and I motored down in the little Morris Minor to Stoughton Barracks near Guildford. I was given a tweed hacking jacket, a pair of grey slacks, shirt and tie and a gratuity of nearly 拢2,000 and signed off. To save any delay I declared myself physically 鈥淎1鈥� (not quite true). It was almost as quickly completed as when I had joined up five and a half years previously.

Winston Churchill鈥檚 Address to the 7th Army Division in Berlin ,1945:

Dear Desert Rats!

It is not without emotion that I can express what I feel about the Desert Rats. May our glory ever shine! May your laurels never fade! May the memory of this glorious pilgrimage of war which you have made from Alamein, via the Baltic to Berlin, never die! It is a march unsurpassed through all the story of war, so far as my reading of history leads me to believe. May the fathers long tell the children about this tale May you all feel that in following your great ancestors you have done something which has done good to the whole world, which raised the honour of your country and which every man has a right to be proud of鈥�.

Bibliography

Lest we forget Kenneth Rankin
To War with Whitaker Countess of Ranfurly
The Desert my Dwelling Place David Lloyd Owen
Club Route in Europe Ronald Gill and John Groves
Malta Strikes Back R T Gilchrist
The Desert Rats Robin Neilland
D Day Richard Collier
6 Armies in Normandy John Keegan
Between Two Flags Gordon Brook-Shepherd
Diary of 536 Company A S Parker
DUKW photographs Courtesey of the Imperial War Museum

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