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Then hauling him to his feet, rushed him along and came to a section of Pioneers repairing the cratered road, of whom a couple were only too willing to escape the tedium of work and shellfire, and march the confused prisoner to the POW cages at the rear.
20 minutes later I sauntered back into the field where Buster and Craggs still gossiped. They fell silent and watched as I made a show of ejecting the two spent casings and reloading.
鈥淕o on - ask him.鈥� I heard Craggs hoarsely whisper.
鈥淚鈥檓 asking him bugger-all.鈥� Rumbled that worthy. 鈥淚鈥檓 staying well clear of that fool.鈥�

Out of the blue came a berth in a tank, due to a crewman jumping off a tank with a sten gun slung over his shoulder. The heavy bolt having no safety catch had slid back under the jolt of his landing, cocked the gun, and a stream of bullets had blown off the back of his head. The unfortunate man wasn鈥檛 wholly to blame for his own demise, as the Sten gun was notorious for inflicting more casualties on our own troops than it had the enemy. And in no way could it be compared with its superbly engineered enemy counterpart the Schmeisser Machine pistol. Another glaring deficiency in the British arsenal were the lack of automatic pistols, I mean, is there such a thing as a British automatic pistol? If there is then it鈥檚 a well-kept secret. But in stark contrast the Germans had a wide range of Lugers, Mausers and a staggering 27 different models of Walther automatics to choose from, the P38 and PPK being classics. And as a leading engineering nation one would have thought we could produce at least one notable automatic like the Italian Beretta or the American Colt, but instead, turned out inefficient cobbled together weapons of self destruction like the Sten, PIAT, and recycled leftovers from distant Colonial wars like the unwieldy Webley to fight a modern war with.

I was ordered to report to the commander of a reconnaissance tank with the peculiar name of Monymusk, which sounded like the aroma arising from a Scotsman鈥檚 seldom opened sporran. I packed my kit, said farewell to Piper Laurie and went in search of my new home. And having been diverted to officer鈥檚 mess duty by Buster on my arrival at the battalion, I wasn鈥檛 even aware of the existence of a Reconnaissance Troop.
I soon located it and found it comprised of eleven American Stuart light tanks, known to the British as Honeys that looked like smaller versions of the Sherman. These patrolled singly or in pairs and occasionally sallied forth en masse on fighting patrols. Instinctively I knew this was the role that fate had saved me for and not to fight in the air nor on the sea, but the free ranging role of reconnaissance. And in the company of men like myself who were not there for anything as banal as King and Country, but because they wanted to be.

I reported to my tank Commander, and found couldn鈥檛 have hand picked a better boss or crew. Sergeant Porter the commander was a dairyman from Troon, big, young, quick-witted and intelligent. Bob McLintock the turret gunner was a cheery unflappable butcher from Glasgow. Archie Laird the driver a cynical but capable Liverpudlian with an eye for the main chance. And I was designated the Hull Gunner and sat next to Archie manning a .30 Browning MG, but capable of filling the other positions if required as well as scouting ahead on foot for concealed dangers, such as mines or a panzerfaust ambush and suchlike.
But the big problem was I鈥檇 been trained to drive and man Churchill 6 pounders and Besa MG鈥檚 that were completely different to the Honey鈥檚 weaponry, plus I hadn鈥檛 a clue how to drive a Honey. And tank men do draw comfort from the knowledge that all members of the crew know what they are doing when bullets begin to fly so in short, I was a completely useless addition to this crew who were going into action for the first time next day.
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Overcoming their collective shock at my non-knowledge of all things Honey they gave me emergency instruction. Bob showed me how to strip, assemble and operate the Honey鈥檚 .30 Brownings, as for example a Browning has to be cocked twice to load and unload. Just cock it once and the trigger could be squeezed all day and nothing would happen, except for being overrun and killed. The breech on the small 37mm cannon slid open horizontally and not vertically, and nearly amputated my fingers when it snapped shut from a different angle. I found the graduated sights on the aiming telescope confusing and the gun stabilizer holding the guns level over rough terrain a futuristic wonder. For what use I was my crew at that moment in time I might as well have stayed at home, as the only piece of equipment I was familiar with was the fickle 19 wireless set, and I鈥檇 never really got the hang of operating that.

After Bob鈥檚 gunnery lesson, Archie gave me a crash-driving course and realised why the British had christened it the Honey, for after the austere unforgiving Churchill it was a dream machine to drive. The driver and hull gunner sat in comfortable padded bucket seats whose backs reclined to facilitate a snooze, and could be adjusted up to drive with head up through the hatch or down using the periscope when closed for action. The controls were two steering sticks when pulled simultaneously acted as brakes and wonder of wonders, it was fully automatic. A small lever set in the forward position and pressure on the accelerator had the fluid flywheel flipping rapidly through six forward gears to a speed better than 40mph, and down again when gradients were met, plus two reverse speeds.
Twin Cadillac V-8 engines powered the 15 ton tank that were completely independent of each other and if one was knocked out, the other would cruise the crippled tank back out of action at 20 mph, faster than a Churchill鈥檚 top speed. It was an amazing machine.
But everything has a down side and in the case of the Honey, pandering to crew comfort had, like its big brother the Sherman, made its superstructure tall and hard to conceal and a prominent target for 88s. The armour was thin and speed alone was the only way to escape the slow traversing turret 88s of the Tigers and Panthers. Also its little 37mm popgun was of no earthly use in a tank battle, the rounds bounced off Panzers like ping pong balls off an elephant, as did our 75鈥檚 at medium range for that matter. But good machines for overrunning enemy infantry who were unsupported by anti-tank weapons of any kind.

For the next ten months this small tank was my home that I slept in, under or at its side and the crew my family. But regardless of being a claustrophobic stinking oven in summer and a fridge freezer in winter, I loved it. The only fly in the ointment was the Troop being part of HQ Squadron it came under the tender ministrations of Sir Charles and Wacky Jones and each time I returned to harbour after battle or a harrowing patrol, I would do something to annoy one or the other and collect extra guard duties like a dog collects fleas. And being a growing lad who needed his beauty sleep, I volunteered for patrols just to get some rest.
Captain Pember, our tough no nonsense Troop Leader noted this and asked why I鈥檇 rather go on patrol than stay in the relative safety of a harbour. 鈥淐uriosity about what lies around next bend.鈥� I replied. 鈥淎nd one tends to meet a better class of person behind enemy lines.鈥� He thought I was joking - but I wasn鈥檛 - I was deadly serious.

Whether I had absorbed enough knowledge in such a short space to be competent in battle was about to be tested, as early next morning the battalion would begin the attack that hopefully would lead to a breakout, or be driven back into the sea. And although I had been in Normandy for just over a week, it felt as if I鈥檇 spent a best part of my life here. And now it was my turn to hit back at the enemy via my Browning and more to the point, prove to myself that I had the stomach for war.

July 29th, and the battalion was assembled on high ground in battle formation awaiting the order to advance. We stood on our tanks to watch a vast armada of bombers pound enemy positions in the middle distance and when they left, the massed artillery behind us opened up to batter us with an ear-splitting overture. We had been advised to keep our mouths open to lessen the concussive affect on our eardrums and whether this was true, or our collective legs were being pulled I have no way of knowing, but we stood with mouths agape like gormless goldfish trying to cope with the lancing pain stabbing our eardrums. There were going to be a lot of deaf people amongst this lot after the war, thought I.
At the bottom of the slope stood a row of poplar trees and the ditch below full of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, our supporting infantry. A shortfall salvo of 25-pound shells exploded in the branches above them and the Jocks erupted and ran around like ants whose nest has been disturbed. Soon stretcher-bearers began bringing casualties up the slope and we watched them go by with indifference, as sudden death was now a way of life.

This was to be the third attempt to break out of the beachhead, the difference being this one named 鈥淏luecoat鈥� was to be a joint tank and infantry venture, whereas its predecessor 鈥淕oodwood鈥漺as mounted by three Armoured divisions, the Guards Armoured being one of them and had been massacred by the superior fire power and thicker armour of the Panzers. So it was hoped that infantry supported by the ponderous Churchills would accomplish what the lighter Shermans couldn鈥檛. For this we were attached to the 15th Scottish Infantry Division, an outfit that like its sister Division the 43rd Wessex was to be repeatedly decimated in many bloody battles as the campaign progressed, right up to the point of near extinction. And after each battle with fewer replacements available to fill the gaps in the ranks, had led to under strength battalions being disbanded to replenish others.

Flares shot up and into our tanks we jumped, which were more cramped than normal, as we鈥檇 took on extra ammunition to shoot up the hedgerows as we advanced. Over the wireless came the order to advance and off we went at a walking pace, the reccy tanks leading and the infantry bringing up the rear of this phalanx of steel. Soon mortar bombs began to explode around us and we closed down, and the comforting hiss of the headphones broken by curt exchanges and track and engine noise isolated me from whatever was going on outside. But noted that the infantry seemed to have gone to ground.

We got stymied at the first high-banked hedge but the Churchills charged over it like steeple chasers going over Becher鈥檚 Brook, and learned it was more prudent for the Honeys to follow in the tracks of the big boys as they crashed through from field to field. When we caught up with them they were busy destroying a fortified farmhouse out of whose flaming ruins vague shapes of the enemy tried, but failed to escape. We carried on in this manner as if having drilled for it, spraying the hedgerows with massed machine gun fire then charging over them, and overcoming fortified positions with concentrated cannon fire through the embrasures.
Sergeant Porter ordered me out to check the other side of the next hedge for a concealed sunken road, as one of our tanks had fallen into one and was wedged in a near perpendicular position and under heavy MG fire and mortar fire, making escape or surrender impossible. And worse, a panzerfaust operator was creeping up on it and one of the crew seeing death approaching, was screaming over the air for his mother to come and save him. Under those circumstances I wouldn鈥檛 have sought intermediate intervention, but would have appealed to the top man Himself. As I had recently found that this had proved most efficacious.
Taking off my headphones and cracking open the hatch, I popped out into a world of raging fury. Showers of mortar bombs exploded on or around the ponderous Churchills whose thick hide could stand up to a direct hit from the light and medium calibres that a Honey鈥檚 couldn鈥檛, and the continuous Brrrrp Brrrrp of MG 42 Spandaus came from all points of the compass and the chattering of the heavy Besas answering added to the din. I scanned the countryside and found it incredible that in the dense foliage around us, thousands of men were stalking each other with intent to kill; yet there wasn鈥檛 a single soul in sight.
There was no sunken road on the other side of the hedge, and I found a way over for the Honey and as I scrambled back aboard, Willy Whitelaw with head and shoulders out of the turret hatch came plunging over the hedge leading his 鈥淪鈥� Squadron. He angrily shouted something at me that was incomprehensible in the din and not lip readable either. But I think he was annoyed that we had got in the way of his cavalry charge. I found on leaving the Honey I had been reduced to a cowering mouse, but back inside with headphones on and the Browning chattering in my hands, I was as brave as the next man but then, I wasn鈥檛 trapped in a ditch watching death creeping up and no way of escaping it but to howl for the mercy of God. The crew of the ditched tank had ceased shouting; I think they must have had it.
We swept over the first ridge and down into the valley beyond into more open country, then halted to wait for the lagging infantry to catch up, who when they did, had fanciful tales to tell of hundreds of prisoners they鈥檇 mopped up in our wake and hedgerows literally stuffed with German dead. I didn鈥檛 believe them, but apparently it was true. Which leads me to hold the view that the least qualified people to write about war are those who are at the sharp end of it. Because of their limited vision, they don鈥檛 see much of what鈥檚 going on to comment about.
Things began to happen, we came under heavy shellfire and the infantry retired back over the reverse slope for cover whilst we resumed the attack, until two huge machines that dwarfed the Churchills and armed with guns as long as telegraph poles lumbered out of the woods a short distance away, and ignoring us, began to annihilate 鈥淪鈥� Squadron. Some said later there were three, but I only saw two, which was more than enough to be going on with.
In a brisk few minutes of tank versus tank fighting, armoured piercing shells from the Churchills flirted off the heavily armoured frontal plates of the giant panzers, that I learned later were Jagpanthers or tank killers. And it was the Churchills that in turn leapt like shot rabbits and burst into flames as 88mm solid shot struck them at short range, and the airwaves filled with a babble of frantic voices all clamouring to be heard. The Jagdpanthers withdrew at a leisurely pace back into the woods, leaving a dozen Churchills to burn fiercely whilst surviving crew members scorched and wounded, crawled back through the corn stubble with fiery streams of red tracer from the many Spandaus seeking them out. We charged up and down between the woods and the stricken Churchills laying down a smoke screen, which was a futile gesture as they were creating their own funeral pyres of oily black smoke.

With 鈥淪鈥� Squadron destroyed, we attached ourselves to Right Flank Squadron and carried on advancing, and AP rounds fired from God knows where flew past us and knocked out two of their tanks. Later, reconnoitring a sunken road I saw the enemy for the first time. Five Germans burst from a hedge, one carrying an MG 42, and sprinted across the lane. I opened fire and saw the tracer passing between the running figures yet they continued to the opposite hedge without breaking stride and disappeared. My preconceived notions of warfare were unravelling fast as by rights, there should have been five crumpled bodies lying in that dusty lane as proof of my marksmanship. People just weren鈥檛 sticking to the script.
The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion and after an advance of a few miles, dusk fell. We harboured with the Honeys forming a piquet line to protect the battle tanks and act as heavy weapons support for the infantry dug in out front, and there was no rest. A1 Echelon commanded by Sir Charles came up with replenishment fuel and ammo that we were in dire need of, as I myself had fired six belts, which was 1500 rounds into hedges and buildings and had been parsimonious in my usage. Sweaty, hungry and exhausted with heads throbbing from hours of inhaling cordite fumes, we worked hard to get the tanks back to full battle readiness.

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