大象传媒

It is now Christmas day 1944 and I am in a line of riflemen passing shells to a line of Sherman tanks. This took all day and it was bitterly cold and my feet were numb. We were preparing for the final big push, and our objective was to destroy all German troops east of the ROER between Roermond, Geilenkirchen.and Sittard. The weather was atrocious, the ground was like iron and covered in snow, and when we were told to dig in we felt like sitting down and hoping that there would be no shelling but as soldiers we carried out orders.

On January 16th the thaw set in and everywhere was muddy, making it difficult for our tanks to move. On January 19th snow and frost returned, and the temperature dropped as low as -12掳 of frost but we pushed on and took village after village and finally took HEINSBERG. Then we moved on through NIJMEGEN up to the Reichwald forest, then onto Goch and Rees where we crossed the Rhine on a pontoon bridge. Our next objective was Hengeloo which is back in Holland. We met with little resistance, but at this point in my story I must point out that we were under heavy fire most of the time from German 88mm guns. Also other heavy artillery, mortars, light machine guns, rifle fire and panzer tanks. We also suffered heavy casualties in some battles though I was one of the lucky ones.

We now advanced onto Lingen which is back in Germany then onto Diepholz, Bassum, and Bremen. South of Bremen there was extensive flooding and after several days we captured all the ground south of the flooded area. We were soon to advance on Bremen but first the operation was preceded by very heavy bombing which we watched from the other side of the flooded area. Once we entered Bremen all resistance crumbled. We then pushed on to Bremervord but before we got there I was given 48hrs leave so I was sent back to Hengeloo for a rest.

My 48 hours turned into seven days as there was only one truck leaving every day for the front line and only so many could get on it, but eventually I got on and headed back to the front. I was back with my unit on May 4th. It was about 9 o鈥檆lock that night when we were told that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally at 1820hrs and all hostilities would cease at 0800hrs tomorrow. May 5th the war in Europe was over. There was some rejoicing but not a lot to shout about as it took a few days to sink in. We travelled around picking up stray German soldiers and on May 19th we took over Hannover from the United states army and settled down looking after German P.O.W.s.

It was July 1945 that men with a high age and service number were sent home to Crowborough in Kent to re form the 2nd Bn K.R.R.C.and then be sent to the far east to fight the Japs. To understand age and service numbers my number was 57 and I did not get demobbed until 20 Nov 1947. It is now August 1945 and I am on 14 days embarkation leave when the Atom bomb was dropped on Japan and World War 2 was over. I spent VJ in London with thousands and thousands of people celebrating with members of the armed forces and what a great time we all had until the early hours of the morning. Thanks to the atom bomb our trip to the Far East was cancelled. Instead we were sent to the Middle East where I served in Tripoli, Egypt, and Palestine. Then in August 1947 I was sent home to England and the end of my first part of my service career. In 1950 I signed up to serve in Korea but never got there but that鈥檚 another war story.

FOOTNOTE
This is a brief synopsis of what I went through in W.W.2 and to tell the whole story I would need to write a book

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