大象传媒

This detail of events was written by my Grandfather before his death in 1988, as a way of explaining to his grand children about how he received his wounded arm. My grandfather was born on 19/3/1918 and died on 13/9/1988.

This is what he wrote;

My story of the second world war begins on September 1939. At that time I was serving as a regular soldier stationed with the 30th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery at Nelson Barracks near Norwich. It was Sunday and I was on police duty on the main gate. My spell on duty was from 10:00am till 12:00 noon. Halfway through, the Sargeant of the Regimental Police informed us that the Prime Minister had been on the radio and announced that we had declared war on Germany. This was at 11:00 am on Sunday 11th September 1939.

The following 3-4 weeks were hectic. All the guns and tractors were shipped from Cardiff while the main body of the Regiment travelled by train to Southampton, then by boat to Cherbourg. We joined up with the equipment and travelled by road all the way through Northern France to near the Belgigian border. The nearest French town was Lille.

From late September 1939 untill May 1940 things were very quiet. We spent all that time digging and preparing positions for our guns, throughout a very bad winter.

At the beginning of May the Germans invaded Belguim. We left the positions we had spent months preparing and went to Belguim to meet them. We got as far as Brussels when met them and from that day on it was firing all day. As soon as it was dark we took up the guns and moved them to another position. This went on for nearly 18 days untill we reached the small Belgian town of Du Panne on the coast, about six miles from Dunkirk. The guns were finished and we had no spares, all the rifling was worn in the barrels due the the amount of firing. The orders came for everybody to make their way to Dunirk.

One man from each gun had to stay behind to attend to the destuction of the guns. I was chosen to destroy our gun. After destruction of the gun I joined up with one of the other men who had been doing the same to their guns. His name was Harry Evans, I didnt really know him, only by sight. We decided to strike out for Dunkirk together, which by this time, was a mass of flames and black smoke, whcich at the time I thought came from blazing oil tanks. We carried on over the sand dunes along the beach to Dunkirk. There were thousands of troops formed up on the waters edge waiting for boats and they were getting shelled, straffed and bombed by German Stuka's so we decided to get under the overhang of the promenade untill it bacame dark.

We then moved down to the water. Harry couldnt swim, but that didnt stop him and with the help of another soldier and myself, we managed to get into a small ship's lifeboat, together with 40 or more untill the boat was in fear of sinking. The sailors got it away and alongside an old collier filled with Polish troops. From there we steamed past ships sunk in the bay during the evacuation. We eventually landed at the South East port of Ramsgate. We were all a sorry sight in our bare feet and wet shirts and trousers. We had ditched our boots, tunics and other gear in order to swim out to the lifeboat. We were then put on a train and ended up in a camp in Bury, Lancs, where we were issued with new uniforms and sent home on leave with orders to report to the Rail transport Officer (RTO) at our local railway station when our leave was finished, and he would tell us where we could find our regiment. We did this and Harry and I travelled to Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset, where the remains of our regiment had been assembled. We had no guns or transport so we spent our time working with local farmers while waiting to be re-equipped and re-inforced. At that time a Captain Hutchinson of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry Regiment was interviewing volunteers for a new force they were forming to raid the enemy coastline from Norway to Spain. Harry and I joined this new force and journeyed to Folkstone where the new force was being assembled. There were men from every regiment in the British Army and we were to be known as "No 4 Commando"

We then moved to Weymouth in Dorset to commence serious training. After a time we were moved to Ayr in Scotland then to Troon a few miles away. We were doing landings all along the coast and across on the Isle of Arran as part of our training. On completion of our training we were then off to Scapa Flow in the North of Scotland to board the HMS Glen Gyle for the first major commando raid of the war.

March 1941, Lofoten off the coast of Norway.
The object was to destroy a large oil facility and radio station and hope to entice two german battle cruisers taking refuge near there to come out after our troopship and escort of five tribal class destroyers, while the British home fleet lurked somewhere nearby to spring the trap. Our part of the operation was a complete sucess, with only one minor casuality - our Captain who slipped on the ice and shot himself. He was treated as a hero by all the staff and patients of Ballochmyle Hospital in Ayr.

We also brought back from Lofoten about 300 Norwegians to join the Norwegian forces in Britain, plus some prisoners. So more commandos were formed. We built a depot to train new recruits at Achnacarry, seven miles from Fort William, the toughest camp in the country with seven assault courses and where the Instructors used live ammunition. After this we went on raids to places like Boulogne, Dieppe, St nazaire, Channel islands, North Africa, Sciily and Italy, and then back home to get ready for D Day.

D Day 6th June 1944
This was it, the biggest armada of ships ever assembled. We were lying in Southampton water on the ship Ulster Monarch. We had been there 5 days, 600 men of No 4 Commando on board. It soon got dark and we began to move. There was the roar above of aeroplane engines as hundreds of planes passed, some towing gliders. The airbourne troops were on their way. We set sail for Normandy beaches. We were part of the first wave of British troops to hit the beaches, with two American landings and one Canadian landing makng four seperate landings on four different places.

When we landed our job was to storm straight through the opposition and link up with the Paratroops who had landed during the night and take vital road bridges. After landing, our troop continued inland suffering casualties along the way. Enemy mortar fire was very heavy and it was from one of these rounds that hit our section, killing six and wounding four, me being one of the wounded. I recieved shrapnel wounds from the blast, to my arm shoulder and chest. I thought I would lose my arm.

That was the end of the war as far as I was concerned. I was shipped back to England and into the Naval Hospital in Gosport and from ther onto Guilford Hospital. Due to the seriousness of my injuries to my arm and chest I was moved to Harefield Hospital and then to RNOH Stanmore whwe I was finally discharged from the Army in December 1944 after five years.

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