大象传媒

The 1st Bn Black Watch was not noted for wearing tin hats, no one was forced to leave them off, but when you think about it they were more of a morale booster than anything else. Soon after we joined them the Bn moved to the Falaise Gap, which had been created by encircling thousands of Jerries. All we had to do there was 鈥榯idy up鈥�, there was little to do in the way of fighting, most of the enemy troops having decided it wasn鈥檛 worth the bother. Although, we did have some trouble from SS and Hitler Youth fanatics, who still thought that Adolf was going to lead them to victory. They were soon put right with a lot of casualties on their side and very few on ours. After that was sorted we got our Bren Gun Carriers and Buffalos (tanks with the turrets removed) and went through France like a dose of salts. We were treated like royalty, going through all the towns and villages you couldn鈥檛 see the vehicles for fruit, flowers and bottles of wine. The troops didn鈥檛 do too badly either, they were covered in kisses from the women and some of the village men too 鈥� I always though that the continental men were a funny lot 鈥� but the women doing it was a different thing. There wasn鈥檛 much fighting going on, thank goodness, until we reached St Valery. The Highland Division was given the honour of tackling that because that is where they captured in 1940.
We got there on the 2nd September 1944; it wasn鈥檛 much trouble for the attacking troops, apart from the usual few fanatics. After this we pulled back for a few days rest.

I was still the Pln runner but Charlie had lost his job as batman and become L/Cpl as IC Pln HQ Bren gun section. Pln HQ now consisted of Lt Dick Viney, the Pln Sergeant, the Bren section, a 2鈥� mortar team, the batman and myself as runner.

About a week later the Battalion moved back in action for the attack on Le Harve. The Bn was not used in this attack, thank goodness, that fell to the 7th Bn Argylls and 7th Bn Black Watch, who with ourselves formed 154 Brigade, we were at this time the reserve Bn. Both Battalions took a hammering before Le Harve was taken.
We now moved into an old fort in the town and the REME unit started to rig up lights using a mobile generator that they had found in the fort. They were just about to start it, to check it could provide enough power, when a German POW working in the fort shouted for them to stop. He showed the REME lads that there was a wire coming from it which was attached to explosives in the cellar, it was a massive booby trap. If the German had been a fanatic we would have all been airborne. The problem was soon sorted out and that generator supplied us with electric light when we were out of the line, right up until the end of the war.
One day one of the lads went into the cellars and came back with what was thought to be tins of jerry hard tack biscuits as they were the same size tins as our biscuits were in. Of course he was told what to do with them so you can imagine our surprise when the tins were opened and found that each one contained two wooden cigars boxes each holding 50 good quality cigars. Needless to say every man in the Bn smoked himself nearly to death for some time. There was literally tons of food stored there by the Germans for their own consumption. Once the unit had taken a good share, including sugar, the rest was handed over to the authorities be used by the people of Le Harve.

After a few days we travelled to Dunkirk, the scene of the 1940 retreat, which was still held by jerry. It was decided not to attack the town but instead to surround it and keep the Germans trapped inside. The Bn was at a farm in a little village called Loon Plage, on a straight road 3 miles from Dunkirk. This was cushy billet for us as there was nothing to do but make sure that Jerry didn鈥檛 try any funny stuff. From the loft of the farmhouse we kept a watch on the road down to the town. At night a German plane would fly over to drop supplies, including mail, to the beleaguered troops. Nothing was done to try and stop it, no guns fired at the plane. One day the Germans asked for a truce, which was granted. Down the road to our location came a couple of Officers carrying a white flag who had been sent to ask for their mail to be handed over to them. It appears that the previous night鈥檚 plane had kept to the appointed time but had dropped the supplies in our Bn area. The request was for us to keep anything military but to hand over supplies and the mail, which was of course granted. They also requested that we stop shelling in the area of the military hospital. The shelling was because the Tank Corps were in the habit of bringing up new and repaired tanks to calibrate the guns and the shots were bursting near the hospital. The request was again, unsurprisingly, granted. The only other time a truce was granted was when, by mutual consent of the powers that be, some elderly French people were allowed to leave the town for the safety of allied lines. It seems that our farmhouse area was to become the rest area as after a couple of weeks we were relieved by a Polish unit and we were moved back up to the sharp end again.

There was a mad dash through Belgium, including going through Ypres where the Menin Gate is at the entrance to the town. It was erected by the Belgians as a war memorial to the British dead of the First World War (the War to end ALL Wars). Also around this area we saw lots of the small war cemeteries form WWI, both Allied and enemy. None had been neglected; in fact the British cemeteries were still being cared for by the ex-British army pensioners employed by the War Grave Commission, all of whom had had to give an undertaking to the Jerries that they would behave themselves.
We entered Holland having met no opposition in Belgium moving to the Wilhelmina Canal where we guarded the Eindhoven airfield. There wasn鈥檛 much fighting going on for anyone, anywhere; Jerry wasn鈥檛 hanging around too long. One night Jerry did try to attack across the canal to capture the airfield, but after a short bloody fight, they were soon sent packing. After a few days we moved to S.Heryogenbosch, a nice little town which still had parts undamaged by war. We captured it on 2nd November 1944 having been told it was going to be a hell of a big scrap for the place as it was garrisoned by the Herman Goering Division (a pretty tough bunch). But when we arrived there they had been moved to another sector so the troops defending it were lines of communication troops, i.e. transport men, clerks etc. They decided that they were not going to fight to the last man for Adolf so as soon as the first troops, which were tanks, came on the scene out came the white flags. No one except the SS and the Hitler Youth liked the Fuehrer. On our way to a little village called Baarlo we dug in for the night at a place called Leveroy. The next day Dick Viney and I were walking along the road to get orders, from Company HQ, for the next stage of the journey when suddenly two 鈥�88鈥� shells burst on the road, one in front and one behind us. How we were not killed I will never know, we were knocked silly by the blast. I couldn鈥檛 move or hear anything for a while then I heard Sir say are we dead and in Heaven Bill?鈥� I replied 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think so鈥�. We had to go through 14 Pln area to get to Company HQ and their Pln officer, a Canadian from the Black watch of Canada, offered us a glass of rum to calm our nerves, he stated he was very surprised to see us get away with it, he thought we had both bought it 鈥� but I expect the Devil looks after his own.
We boarded Kangaroos which like Buffaloes were tanks adapted for troop carrying except, that unlike buffaloes, were not waterproofed for river crossings, and move into Baarlo. The only thing that happened there was that a jerry soldier came up the road at night was challenged by one of the section 鈥� the section L/Cpl forgot not to trust anyone of the enemy, got out of his slit trench to take the enemy prisoner and the German killed him outright. The German was quickly dispatched by the rest of the section.
We left Baarlo and moved to Nijmegen where the Battalion was diverted to do a river crossing and an attack on the village of Valburg. The attack went in led by C Company just after dawn and as soon as the first platoon went in they cam under very heavy small arms and mortar fire and were pinned down. The rest of the Bn was sent in to get them out but the whole lot of us were trapped. We stayed in this predicament until the evening when a sudden attack by the French Canadian Bn got us out of trouble.
We got to Nijmegen where, evidently, the plan was for 30 Corps to travel to Arnhem to assist the airborne who were going to drop there. When the attack was ready to be started by the airborne we moved to a Dutch town called Grave. The Bn was in support and as it turned out the attack was a failure because 30 corps could not get through.
From Grave the Division moved to Eindhoven where most of the Bn encamped but my Coy was billeted in a sweet factory 鈥� no sweets there though. Suddenly we were moved to a little hamlet called Moll, consisting of 5 or 6 houses. My Pln was billeted in a quite fair size farmhouse, above the cow shed. It was a lovely warm billet because it is surprising how much heat came up from the animals below.
By this time the war had come to a full stop, winter had arrived, so the plan was for the Division to be out of the line until February. The snow had arrived and all you could see were frozen roads which the villager would skate along. Our rest did not last long; suddenly Jerry broke through the American lines in the Ardennes 鈥� a huge forest in Belgium. It seems that the Yanks were being sorted out good and proper so the British were asked to get them out of trouble. Our Division and the 43rd were both sent back into Belgium. We moved firstly to Louvain for a night and then on to Maastricht. The journey to Louvain was an unpleasant one, our truck was an open one, and the only person with any degree of warmth was Sir, as he was in the cab with the driver. We spent a night in Maastricht, Christmas Eve. We were billeted in the town area with all the Coy billeted with families in their houses. Our section was billeted in a small house with a Belgian miner, his wife and 14 year old daughter. Thinking we would be there for Christmas Day night as well, and seeing we had a lot of food and supplies left from Le Harve, having kept them in case we were out of the line for Christmas, we gave them to the family. The wife told us she would cook a Christmas dinner with this food and we could share it with them. We told her we would but, we knew that between ourselves we would eat very little because our cooks were going to cook a big meal with the supplies they had kept; by doing that at least the family would have a good time. It was not to be it was fated we had to move so we didn鈥檛 get a cooked meal of any sort. At least the Belgian family had a good time; all we had was hard tack and bully. We travelled to Liege where we were able to stay until New Years Day 鈥� why we couldn鈥檛 have stayed in Maastricht I don鈥檛 know.
On New Years Eve the Quartermaster and cooks between them concocted a drink 鈥� very potent 鈥� called rum punch, what a tonic that was. Just before midnight the troops were all supplied with a mug of this rum punch. The REME guys had fixed up two spotlights and suddenly in defiance of the blackout they were switched on and the Pipes and Drums came marching down the street to play in the New Year. On the stroke of midnight there was a roar of aircraft engines and two jerry planes, the first we had seen for some time, came in at full speed, flying low along the street. They must have been firing blanks because no one was hit 鈥� they should have been considering the number of troops that were there. Last seen that night was the RSM chasing the planes down the street firing at them with his pistol. He couldn鈥檛 have hit the side of a house, even if the end of his pistol was touching it, the state he was in. He was found the next morning (New Years Day) in the back of a lorry, an open one, sleeping like a baby. So started the year of 1945.

Before we moved from Liege into the Ardennes an amusing thing happened. A few of us were scouting around the area when a GI came up and asked us if we could supply him with a pair of our battledress trousers. He offered us, as he put it, a dandy weapon in exchange. On enquiring what this weapon was he showed us one of our own useless Sten guns 鈥� we were not amused but rather suspicious as the Yanks鈥� lines had been broken through by Jerries disguised as GIs. Suddenly a surprised GI found himself with a couple of these 鈥榙andy鈥� weapons pointed very menacingly at him. We marched him very smartly to Coy HQ, where he was interrogated by the Coy Cmdr who sent him, under escort, to the CO from where he was sent off to the Yanks. I found out later that he was a real, but very stupid GI who, according to Dick Viney got the biggest bollicking of his life.
We moved into the front line taking over from 43 Division. I have never known it to be so cold, but it was bearable if you were well wrapped up because it was a very dry cold. It was so cold that 43 Division had had more casualties from frostbite than they did from fighting. When we relieved the outgoing units they had big fires going night and day with no heed of what the enemy were going to do about it. This was no problem as we could see across the valley that they were doing exactly the same. We went from there further into the forest to a small hamlet called La-Roche. It had just been captured by the Yanks and they had to be relieved so that they go and get their medals. It appears that they were not very happy with Monty because he `had issued orders to his Commanders that anything in front of them was to be disposed off as it must be the enemy. Perfectly reasonable the British troops thought but the American Commanders stated that they could be GIs. Seeing as Jerry was using captured uniforms and equipment Monty wasn鈥檛 going to give them the chance to upset us.
The wisdom of this was borne out the next day when our platoon, which was dug in garden of a house on the side of a hill, could see across the valley covering the road that led trough the valley and out of the village. The Pln sergeant moved from his slit trench and started to walk down the hill to visit another section when a shot rang out from the other side of the valley he received a nice Blighty one in the leg.
A little later that day the 7th Argylls 鈥� who always seemed to get all the trouble 鈥� started to advance up this road when they were fired on. Immediately they went to cover, but not before 3 or 4 were hit by the small arms fire. After a little while two stretcher bearers started to go up a dry ditch, that ran alongside the road, to try to reach the casualties, neither of them was armed. Then coming towards them we saw 3 or 4 Germans; not first aid men as they were too heavily armed. We were not able to do much about it, only open fire at the Jerries, though the range was too far for the fire to be effective. One of us had a bit of luck as we saw one drop and not move again, the other kept moving down the road. From where the Argylls were it wasn鈥檛 possible for them to see the enemy, who got level with them and shot them at point blank range.

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