大象传媒

I remember well one day in the forest, there was a track going across the forest and the roadway and we all had to run acrossfrom one side of this to the other.

When you crossed a roadway like this, possibly coming under heavy fire from machine guns and tanks, you ran across in twos, first one set of two and then another and so on. The time came for Les and I to run and we shot across the road and lay down flat at the other side, behind a small area of cover. We were something like the fifth pair to cross the road. After us it was the last pair and the Germans, had, by then, pin pointed our crossing position. The two men were trying to run between bursts of fire. One of these was a chap called Harold, from Herne Bay in Kent. They appeared to make it successfully and we continued our advance. Harold complained that he had been hit in the bottom. Anyway, when we got to a more secure position and he dug in, he thought it was about time that he took his trousers down and had a look. Sure enough, on the right cheek of his bottom there was a large angry red mark but certainly nothing had visibly punctured the skin, It was just a red mark the size of a person's hand.

A little later on he went to get a drink out of his water bottle and he could hear rattling inside, so he unstopped the bottle and looked inside. Low and behold, the bullet had been stopped in its tracks by the water bottle and had stayed inside.

These bottles were made of metal and enameland coated with khaki felt. There is no wonder the poor bloke thought he had been shot-it showed how close you can come and how fast you can run when you need to!

As I said earlier, running and digging were the greatest life preservers in the infantry-be quick at these and you may live to see another day!

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ON ANOTHER OCCASION

Sometimes we would ride on the tanks. The tanks would line up and six infantrymen would climb on to them, then the tank would plough into position in the forest or wood as deep as it could until it came across the enemy and as soon as the rifle fire started you would immediately jump off thetank and get into action.

In one of these actionsI well remember one of our chaps, again an eighteen year old and very fit, running forward and coming face to face with a German. The German pointed his gun and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't fire. He in turn aimed at the German and his gun didn't go off either, so both of them stood looking at each other struggling to try and get their rifles to work (it didn't take much grit or dirt to snarl up the works of a rifle). The German was a fraction quicker and he fired hitting Dave in the foot. Dave swung around and hit the German over the head with his rifle and they went into a huddle and Dave held the German round the neck and strangled him with his bare hands. The last we saw of Dave, he was being piggy backed down the line with his foot bandaged.

That was how close it was possible to get with the enemy on occasions. Dave was later awarded the DCM medal for quick thinking in the face of the enemy. He won the day and he won the DCM. I don't know about his foot-the bullet went right through it.

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