大象传媒

Having been promoted from Gunnery Sergeant to lieutenant following the evacuation of Dunkirk, my great uncle Bernard (known in the film world by his middle name Henry) rose through the ranks to become a major by the end of the war. As an officer in the Royal Artillery he found himself being given the job of gaining intelligence on the location of possible targets. As time went on he ended up specialising as an artillery intelligence officer.

Some time after the Normandy invasions, he was sitting in a pub in France with two American artillery intelligence officers discussing the various problems they found in carrying out their assigned function. One of my great uncle's biggest problems was the fact that he always needed a car to get close to the Front in order to gather accurate intelligence. Not only was the car pool limited and subject to frequent breakdowns, but as an officer he was required to be driven in a staff car rather than drive it himself. He told the Americans that he often found that he could either get a car or he could get a driver but often he could not get both at the same time, which made his job difficult to achieve sometimes.

The American officers casually replied that what he really needed was his own vehicle. He agreed, noting that if he owned his own vehicle he could drive it himself as it would not be a staff car owned by the army and so therefore he would not need a driver. However, he said, with the pressure on resources and the scarcity of cars he did not see any way he would ever be able to get his own vehicle.
The Americans looked at each other and then suggested that he take their jeep, which was parked outside. Thinking they were joking he told them he would have difficulty returning it again as he would need to come back with a driver and an otherwise empty staff car in which to return to his own base again. The Americans laughed and told him that he would not have to return it. They would simply telephone their base from the pub and say that the jeep had been stolen. Someone would be sent to collect them and no-one would be likely to investigate the jeep's disappearance. With the resources available to the American army another jeep could easily be obtained and they were sure a new one would be ordered for them almost as soon as they returned to base. With no supply problems losses were rarely investigated.
Thus Bernard returned to base in the jeep which from then on was counted as his personal property but could also be locked in the compound for safekeeping with the other vehicles. For the rest of the war he was the envy of many of his fellow officers as he had the ability to travel in his own vehicle whenever he wished or needed to, why they still had to try to book cars and drivers.

After the war ended, like most other personnel he stayed on in Germany for some months. When the troops were being sent home however he recalls that he drove serenely past lorries and trains packed full of soldiers who all eyed his jeep enviously, driving right onto the dock by the ship. He says that the feeling of being able to drive himself right to the ship while virtually everyone else had to wait in long delays was one of utter luxury mixed with a bit of joyful decadence. On arriving he got out, took out his kit bag and then simply tossed the keys onto the driver's seat and walked aboard the ship, leaving the jeep for whoever wanted it.

A couple of years later he started receiving small packages from the army. During the war he had been moved frequently and inevitably some items has ended up being left behind. The army, ever efficient, had saved all of those items recovered and had set about returning things to their owners. Anything with a name or service number written on it was sent on to its former owner or his relatives. After a few months of receiving small packages containing things such as boot polish and wash kits, he realised that if he had thought to do it, he could have quickly written his number onto a scrap of paper and put it into the jeep's glove compartment before leaving it on the dock, and, losing nothing of the joyously boastful moment of simply abandoning it and walking on board, he would have found the jeep delivered to him back in England at the expence of the army a year or two later.

Hindsight of course, is a wonderful thing.

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