大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Joan Smith on behalf of Charles Shelton-Higgs, a visitor to 'Dunstable at War' on August 13th 2005, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Shelton-Higgs fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was seventeen years old in 1939 when I joined the Grenadier Guards. My Commanding Officer was 'Boy'Browning, Daphne du Maurier's husband. One early very tragic incident happened when we were training in the West Country. Six of us, not realising how potent 'scrumpy' was, got very drunk, and on the way back we sat down in the middle of the road and began to sing hymns. A bus came along in the blackout and I had got out of the way but the other five were run over and killed.

We spent some time during the 'phoney war' in Belgium digging trenches. We had only one suit of clothes each and the only water supply came from an open sewer from Lille. Water from that was boiled, skimmed and used for all washing purposes. On May 10th 1940 I first met Germans who parachuted in dressed as nuns. Belgium capitulated after five days. The decision was made to withdraw in daylight - for the first time in military history. At one point I dug myself into shingle on a railway embankment and was nearly buried. Two of my companions were killed by snipers. We withdrew by running from place to place and hiding. The first time that the three battalions of Grenadier Guards had ever fought side by side was at Furns in Belgium. Morale in the Guards was good - but among other soldiers it was poor. The Germans dropped leaflets saying: 'Lay down your arms. In Germany you will be well treated.'
By then Dunkirk had fallen. I got to a place called Braydunes, a small place with a monastery. We stayed in the dunes until boats came, and when bombs dropped you were heavily showered with wet sand. Eventually small boats came, and because I couldn't swim I had to wait until one came to get me. I was taken back to Margate in a fishing smack.
In 1944 on the way to relieve Arnhem in a tank, part of the Guards armoured division, we were hit and one of my eyes, a hand and my back were injured. I finished up in a POW camp in Brussels - eventually looking after German casualties - until the end of the war.

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