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This story was submitted to the people鈥檚 war site by Henryka McDuff, volunteer for the 大象传媒 helping at The Folkestone School for Girls, and has been added to the website on behalf of Sir Charles Jessel with his permission and he fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Sir Charles Jessel鈥檚 war memories

During the battle of Britain, my home in Gouldhurst was on the site whereby many battles were fought overhead. It was the 15th of September 1940 which was the height of the battle of Britain. I remember seeing 15 parachutes in the air these were pilots that were either British or German who were shot down by the enemy, coming down onto the area of Gouldhurst where I lived. Then suddenly out of the blue a spitfire came very low, at least I think it was a spitfire. It could have been a hurricane and missed our house by a few inches and crashed about quarter of a mile beyond on the farm which belonged to the house 鈥� Let farm. Many years later, it was dug up and there was a dead pilot inside it. I think he was either Czech or Polish I cant remember which. I remember I was frightened that his plane was going to hit the chimney of our house but it just missed by a few inches. That was a very exciting day but I realised because there were more British planes in the air and more Germans were shot down it was going to be a triumphant day for the Royal Air Force.

Another memory comes back to me as a boy on Lamberhurst golf course. When I was with the school Officer Training corps, the OTC and we were dressed in our own uniforms but during the holidays I belonged to the Gouldhurst Home Guard and we ended up trying to do manoeuvres of sorts on the golf course and I was then a corporal. It was exactly like Dads army. There were people very much older than myself. I was rather like corporal Pike. We were inspected by a general, whose name I have forgotten, but afterwards he was held responsible for losing Singapore to the Japanese.

Another memory comes back to me when I鈥檓 talking about things that happened in England when I was in the army. By then I was on leave. I was sitting on a train just over the bridge from Charing Cross, the train stopped and I could hear a doodle bug which was what we called the V2s and the V1s. They were making a monotonous humming noise until suddenly this humming noise stopped. We realised there was quite a good chance that the V1 would land on top of the train, because if it stops you knew it was going to come down and there was nothing we could do because we were all sitting in the train. I think that was the only moment, even though I was subsequently fighting in the army, I felt really frightened. I could not do anything except sit passively and wait and see whether this thing dropped on the train. Fortunately it didn鈥檛 it missed us and the train then proceeded to Kent, where I had my leave.

When I joined up to the army I went to Sandhurst and became an officer and subsequently commanded a troop of tanks which was part of the 11th armoured division. This division went through from the D-day landings but I joined them later in the year they were already established. I joined them in Holland. It was pretty bleak. There was a horrible winter there and I spent a lot of time just shooting across the river. Later on the next year in 1945 we advanced on Germany and we were engaged in several tank battles. Some with troops who were no more than homeguards or school boys, who seemed very inexperienced. Some with very experienced Panzer divisions who fought extremely hard. On one of the occasions when we were fighting the rather less experienced, youthful soldiers, one of my tanks was hit. The leading tank was hit by a bazooka.
I could see the flames going up from the turret. I knew something was terribly wrong. Then we engaged in fire with the enemy. I was so concerned that the other member of the group might be burned as well as the people in the turret. I was foolish enough to get out of my tank and go and see if I could rescue them. This of course, as an officer is something that you shouldn鈥檛 do as you are in charge of a troop of four tanks as a minimum, and of course once you are out of your turret you cant control other tanks.
When I got to the tank I found that the two members had in fact been able to extricate themselves from the blazing vehicle. They were sitting taking cover, so I was able to get back into my tank where I received over the radio a terrific racket from my squadron leader for leaving my tank. Having acknowledged that I was quite in the wrong, I would still do the same again if I was faced with that position because I wanted to know that my own troops were not burning to death. So I don鈥檛 regret it at all.

Then later on, we were engaged with one or two night battles and I think it was before the previous battle. Night battles were very uncomfortable for tank troops to fight because you can鈥檛 see the enemy clearly. I remember then seeing poor horses, which were affected by the shell fire, just breathing their last. In the light of shells that we fired, I thought of the terrible death that they were having. My own tank was right in advance and somebody knocked on the turret I said 鈥淲ho鈥檚 that?鈥� He gave his name to me and of course I鈥檇 known him from public school so I said 鈥淥h I鈥檓 Jessel鈥� and he said 鈥淚鈥檓 Bramel鈥� He was a lieutenant in the 60th Green Jackets. He subsequently became chief of defence staff and a field marshall. When I met him after the war, he could not remember this incident but it was one of the little cameos I remember very well. Of course he had much more on his plate as a field marshall. He had done many more things.

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