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VIII. After the Battle of Verrieres
Hottot-les-Baques

The tragic loss of the two tank crews left a gaping void both physical and psychological. We had shared three years of companionship. There was never an argument or ganging up against each other and never a sign of irritability. Only Fred escaped from the Troop Sergeant’s tank and he did not return to the Regiment although he was not wounded. I hoped he was out of the war for good after such a dreadful experience.
The replacement Troop Leader - a Second Lieutenant - had joined the Regiment a few days previously from England and it was his first day of action. I had met him the night before and there was to be no chance of knowing him.
The death of John, my friend, was particularly distressing. He told me in camp at Fawley Wood before the landings that he would not be returning to England. I assured him that once we had landed and established a bridgehead our job would be over. and he would OK. Little did I realise that we would be re-equipped and carry on into the campaign.
The days ahead were a matter of survival. It was similar to a death sentence but it continued from day to day. In the evenings the tanks withdrew, leaving the infantry to defend the line; tanks could not operate at night. The exhaust fumes and dust when the tanks withdrew brought down German fire and the operation was never popular with the infantry.
When we parked for the night there was the additional hazard of shelling or aircraft attack so a large pit was dug and the tank driven over it making a sleeping area. During one aircraft attack the bullets and shrapnel ricocheted off the bottom of a tank injuring the crew beneath, so for the future we banked up the earth all round and left a small entrance at the rear for access.
The logistics of fuelling and feeding the troops must have been a nightmare. The food came in cardboard crates, which were reinforced with wood slats around the edge with an intermediate slat around the centre. There were two types of pack, the ‘A’ pack and the ‘B’ pack holding different tinned rations. The food in the ‘A’ pack was the better choice. The crates, with a hole cut in the top made a very suitable lavatory when it had been discarded although the slats were a bit splintery.
Shells whistled over when I was sitting on my makeshift loo. I ducked and then prepared to launch myself to safety. The slats on the packing case parted at the joints and as I reared up they reinstated themselves, gripping firmly around the bottom. Oh the agony of it! Sitting nearby was a crewmember having a meal on a white enamel plate. He horizontally projected himself into an adjacent ditch placing the plate over his head for protection. What a mess!.
We supplemented our diet with raw carrots from allotments and tomatoes from greenhouses, but this did not occur very often. Our driver caught a chicken and put it in a pail with a cloth over it on the engine. The Squadron Leader overtook us in his tank and when he was abreast of us the chicken put his head out and gave a squawk. Looting was frowned on but he didn’t notice. The chicken was killed and cooked, boiled for hours and tasted like leather.
The Corporal shot a pig with his .38 revolver and he set to, with help to prepare and cook it. A ditch was dug and he put a ‘Jerrican’ of petrol in it, with a hole punched in the side. He lit it and there was a very good stove.
The countryside in France was littered with dead cows, bloated and lying with legs sticking straight out sideways - like large grotesque pincushions.
The villages and small towns we passed through were piles of rubble. The only building left in Aunay sur Odon was the church tower; the town had been razed to the ground as it was thought the beach was visible from the top of the tower and was being used by the Germans as an artillery spotting post. The rubble was bulldozed aside and the tracks sprayed with oil to stop the dust from rising.
Villers Bocage had received a thousand bomber raid which we witnessed from our position North of the town; Tilly sur Seulles was a mountain of rubble. In the high street there was a blackened German tank askew in the remains of buildings. The town had a pungent smell of death; 67 French inhabitants were tragically killed during the fighting.
After a day of action it was a matter of refuelling and restocking the ammo. The fitter’s truck was on hand in case of repairs and the cook prepared a meal. On one occasion they had erected the serving table in long grass. When I came to get my food I noticed the rotting chest of a dead German under the table. I pointed this out to them but they didn’t do anything about it.
Passing a tank I noticed red marks down the side of the turret. I mentioned it to the Corporal over the intercom and he replied that it was most likely rust. An armour piercing shell however had just decapitated the Commander in that tank, slumping over the gunner in front of him. The same evening the gunner was sitting on a log eating his meal, the shoulders of his overalls heavily stained like epaulettes.
The Corporal was convinced that a friend from another Troop, reported killed and buried in a temporary grave by a copse had in fact been captured. Soon after this action we returned to the copse for a rest and the Corporal exhumed the body. He was correct; it was not his friend.
The Normandy landscape was very unsuitable for tank warfare. The deeply sunken roads, high hedges and small orchards created an effective anti-tank barrier. A ‘Sherman’ would plunge into a lane and rear up the other bank exposing its belly to present an ideal target for an anti-tank gun. The terrain - the ‘bocage’ - came as a complete surprise. The Regiment had no battle experience and all tactics had to be learned. The Squadron had spent the majority of its time whilst training in England for the D-Day landing. What few land exercises we had were around the flat land of Newmarket. We had not been trained for the situation in which we found ourselves. We knew nothing of action in built up areas or keeping away from the side of buildings where the enemy could be in 1st floor rooms. We had not learnt how to cross open spaces under fire, or how to co-operate with the infantry.
The tanks when they landed had different pennants on the aerials for Troop Leader, Troop Sergeant and Troop Corporal. Possibly this was harking back to the cavalry days. A pennant appearing over the brow of a hill gave the Germans a good warning and a sighting for their ant-tank guns; they were soon removed.
The morale remained high despite the realisation that the German armour was far superior; there was a will to win and the forward thrust was relentless.
The Squadron Leader and those under him pursued their tasks with exceptional determination.
After the action at Verrières we spent the day on our own guarding the left flank. We took up our position looking through a tall hedge and camouflaged the tank with branches. Now and again we heard the odd ping from a bullet hitting the tank. It became so persistent that the commander closed down the turret hatch. We saw some movement in the wood ahead but held our fire when we realised they were refugees; a woman squatted down to relieve herself unaware that she was being watched. The co-driver had an upset stomach so he asked the driver to accompany him with a ‘Sten’ gun and they left the tank. However they came under fire and the proceedings had to be postponed, the co-driver lying flat on his face with his bare bottom exposed. They both scrambled back into the tank with great speed. Towards the end of the afternoon a very tall Sergeant and a diminutive private knocked us up in the tank and told us that we had been under fire from a sniper. They had found him, camouflaged in green netting, got him down and shot him dead.
At about this time we rested up in a farm complex. The buildings were on three sides of a yard and our billet was in the open hay barn on one side. As I was getting myself organised I saw my brother talking to a Major in the Regiment who he had known when he was acting Squadron Leader. We had a chat and he told me he was in a billet down the road and we arranged to meet. That evening we went for a walk beside a wide river and whilst we were talking together he drew his 38 revolver, loaded it and started firing at a tree stump on the opposite bank. A loud yell came from behind the tree and a figure ran out in his shirttails and disappeared into the wood. We hoped he didn’t think it was deliberate.
A battle experience exercise for the infantry when we fired over their heads was hastily terminated when the Company Commander failed to keep his bottom down.

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