大象传媒

August 1944. Have been attached to the Welsh Guards Training battalion based at Sandown Park race track near to Esher 鈥� all 5 feet 7 inches of me 鈥� in order to learn how to drive a Daimler Dingo small armoured car, and an Austin Pick-up truck as well as 15 cwt trucks. I have already been on a course at Zetland Hall, near to Richmond in Yorkshire to learn how to ride and maintain a motorcycle (BSA 500 cc) but the Top brass have decided to form a motorised armoured brigade and reconnaissance unit and I am one of the lucky(?) ones chosen to be in the unit. So now it鈥檚 summer and on this day, I believe it was the 18th of August, the Welsh Guards were having their annual sports and f猫te down in Imber Court park. This was a large sports ground with a large single storey stand on one side. I was sitting in the front row of the stand. Opposite to the stand and to the left on the edge of the sports field the Regimental Band was playing a selection of music. Imber Court, Esher and Sandown Park were in what was then called 鈥淒oodlebug Alley鈥� 鈥� the German鈥檚 latest secret weapon 鈥� a winged and jet-motor propelled explosive missile, so called because of the noise its motor made. Launched from the Pas-de-Calais zone in Northern France, it flew until its fuel ran out then plunged to the ground causing quite significant damage. This day was no different from any other. We heard the familiar warbling sound of one coming over and looked up. Then it鈥檚 motor stopped and it headed straight for the stand in which I and many others were seated. A mad dash out of the stand and into the middle of the sports field. The band continued playing. Then the motor of the 鈥榙oodlebug鈥� restarted. Another look skywards. Now it was heading straight for the middle of the field. Abrupt about turn and a headlong dash back for the stand. I dived beneath the first rows, helped on my way by the blast from the explosion. When I collected my senses and crawled out from below the stand I saw an unimaginable and truly horrific scene. The doodlebug had landed smack on top of those of the band who had not managed to get out of the way of the bomb quick enough. Dead and badly wounded soldiers and WRAC (women soldiers of the time) lay all over the field. I believe 18 were killed and scores wounded that day. The scenes were too frightful to describe. Badly shocked and bewildered I wandered away and made my way back to the billet I was then in, a detached villa on the road leading down from Sandown Race track. Now this was the second time that the Welsh Guards had been hit. A few weeks before a doodlebug had fallen on the Guards Chapel in London, killing scores of Guardsmen and Officers and families.
And, talking of the villa in which I was billeted, a few days later I was having a leisurely bath in the early evening before going out to amuse myself. Now, as we were learning how to drive and maintain vehicles, along the driveways to the houses we were living in, we had dug slit-trenches over which we drove the vehicles in order to get underneath to do the maintenance. It had rained for a couple of days and these trenches contained quite a bit of water, oil and fuel. Singing to myself in the bath I suddenly heard the familiar sound of a doodlebug coming along. It鈥檚 motor stopped. A warning shout from someone 鈥渋t鈥檚 heading for the house鈥� and yours truly was out of the bath and dashing headlong down stairs, out of the front door and diving into one of the slit-trenches. Naturally, I had chosen one half full of oily greasy muddy water. There was an almighty explosion at the back of the house and that was that. I went back in to start my bath again. The back of the house was no longer there. The bath was hanging from the wall of the house but there was no floor beneath it and it was completely exposed to the world. I did manage to get a bath in another of the houses and fortunately for me, hardly any of my kit had been damaged in the explosion. But a large hole was left on the edge of the race-track at Sandown Park.

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