大象传媒

A schoolboy aged 15 on the outbreak of war, I was in the London Blitz, joined the Winchester Home Guard(and patrolled the local hills at night), learnt Battle Drill formation, worked in summer harvest camps to bring in the wheatcrop (under canvas, stooking, building haystacks, cider and Land Girls). Also autumn forestry camps, sizing, cutting down and sawing pitprops for the coal mines. Joined the Army on my 18th birthday. Infantry training in Liverpool, a WOSB (War Office Selection Board), six months RA and RE training school attached to Queens University, Belfast. Fired live rounds with the famous 25-pounder artillery gun in the Mountains of Mourne. Passed out as senior cadet to Pre-OCTU in Wrotham, Kent (cricket at weekends against the Kent villages), six months purgatory at 123 OCTU at Catterick. Firing camp with WW1 18-pdr guns in North Wales, battle camp with fierce sergeants firing live rounds close by. Promoted from officer cadet to 2nd Lt, joined the Suffolk Yeomanry at Alnwick, then Maidstone. Sailed from Seaford, Sussex on D+8 (watched the first V1 buzz bombs) and crossed the Channel to Arromanches artificial harbour. Joined 13th (Honourable Artillery Company) Royal Horse Artillery after Operation Goodwood as part of the soon-to-be-famous 11th Armoured Division (the Black Bull)under Maj-Gen `Pip' Roberts. No horses of course, but Sherman tanks for Forward Observation Officers (FOOs), Sexton 30-ton self-propelled 25-pdrs on a Sherman Ram tank chassis. I was a Troop Leader in Operation Bluecoat, in a large American halftrack with a ring-mounted powerful .50 machine gun. My tasks were to lead the column down the dusty lanes, quickly choose a large field for the four Sextons and three halftracks, site and deploy in a matter of minutes. If the radio set gave me orders `ACTION, ACTION' even travelling at 30 mph I had to make lightning decisions about enemy mines, snipers, boobytraps and scatter the guns so that an enemy counter battery salvo could not knock them all out! Bluecoat was probably Monty's most successful operation in Normandy. At the end of August 1944 11th Armoured Division rushed north almost nonstop and captured in an astonishing surprise attack the vital, huge port of Antwerp. The delirious welcome by the Belgian population was enhanced by many cases of Cointreau liqueur captured from the Wehrmacht.
We were right flank protection in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden. Our centre-line road was cut frequently by enemy columns and our guns often had to fire on a 360 degree basis - i.e. in all directions. That was in mid-September and I was by then a full lieutenant (2 pips) and became a FOO. This meant working with tank or infantry regiments with their leading troops and bringing down our artillery fire on all kinds of targets. Often in a Sherman tank, occasionally a Bren gun carrier depending on who I was `protecting'I had many nasty little battles in Holland. I was wounded near Oploo in Operation Ascot and my poor driver was blown to pieces. My 21st birthday was spent overlooking the geat river Maas/Meuse in a tanning factory under nebelwerfer mortar fire and sniping by Schmeisser machine guns. Later I was awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross of Orange-Nassau (same as our Military Cross). I convalesced at Waterloo outside Brussels. My father served with Supreme HQ Allied Forces (SHAEF) and sent staff cars for me to have meals in the Brigadier's and Colonel's Mess. Hot from the front, my right arm and leg broken, ribs broken, concussion, I had a lovely time. Just after the Battle of the Bulge in December I rejoined 13 RHA. For the last five months of the war I was FOO in five nasty canal and river battles - the Rhine, Dortmund-Ems, Aller, Wesser and the Elbe, for which I was awarded Mentions in Despatches. My division was the first to enter Belsen concentration camp. I was FOO supporting 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. We spent several hours in the middle of Belsen camp and I was a few yards away from all the camp guards. A few months later I nearly died from a typhus bug picked up in Belsen and my `cure' was no food for 6 weeks, a drip of powerful penicillin in my arm and 12 pints of water each day. The hospital was at Flensberg on the Danish border. I was dying and my Brigadier and Colonel came to say `goodbye' to me - miraculously, I survived.
A few days before VE Day I led the British Army literally up to the banks of the vast river Elbe supporting 4th Bn KSLI in a day-long battle during which I was wounded again. Six fragments from a German stick grenade struck me. Four were later removed, two remain.
The Belsen story has two more chapters. A few months after the end of the war, 11th Armoured Div. was disbanded and I joined 3rd Horse Artillery, initially as Intelligence Officer, later as Troop Commander of the famous Java Troop. I took part in several war crimes trials in Hamburg as junior officer of the jury of four. Before us came most of the Belsen guards, who were duly convicted. I had to give my decision first (so as not to be influenced by three more senior officers). A few months later I was a formal witness in Hameln (Pied Piper town) where M.P.Pierpoint, the UK's official hangman, hanged 13 of the Belsen guards in a large cinema - before lunch.
The postwar year in Germany was peaceful and interesting and the sport and entertainment, for instance grand opera in Hamburg, was terrific. I was demobbed in January 1947 and shortly afterwards joined my family firm of Port wine shippers in Oporto, Portugal.
It had been an eventful war - Blitz, Home Guard and 11 months of hard fighting. 11th Armoured Division lost 2,000 ment killed in action and 8,000 wounded. I was lucky.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.