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Andrew Horne — 15th June, 2005

Q. What did you train as?

A. A driver/operator. You got trained as a driver/operator. I was there for about two years nearly.

Q. What age were you when the war started?

A. When the war started I was twenty-one. But I was exempted as I was a gardener and I also worked down a pit. They had me down as a pit worker, you see and I had a harder fight getting into the Army than getting out of it. I had to go before a board. Anyway, we trained there and then just about a fortnight before D Day we got transferred to first royal tank regiment. The Desert Rats had just come back from there and we were spare crew you see so they went over maybe two or three hours before us. They left so many boats in the water, you thought you could have walked over the boats there were that many boats in the water that day just before D Day — it was D Day, the 6th of June, 1944 and we managed to find our regiment. We went on a tank landing craft and we got on alright. We got into the right depth of water because if you went into the wrong depth of water you would drown. Before we went on we had to waterproof the tanks. You had a snorkel and you had to waterproof all the tanks. Anyway, I wondered how we were going to find them, but we did find them. And within about two or three days, I was in a tank. And it was near Conn, we went up the River Conn, others went to Cadge and all these places. The first tank I got knocked out of, we got hit, I forgot to take my earphones off and you had to bale out of the tank you see, and after we had witnessed this, we got out all right. Sometimes you were hit in the right place, if you got hit in the wrong place, you just blew up because the ammunition was in below the tank. All your shells were in below the tank and you were very lucky if you got out. Anyway, we stopped — you weren’t in action all the time — you got out for a wee while, then you went back in again. We got through to the Fally Gap and we got knocked out there again. So after that, we didn’t do very much after that until we came to Remeagan Bridge — I don’t know if you will have heard of that — the Germans were running away. We were sitting beside this building which they were shooting and they were running away with horses, carts and everything so it came over the wireless they wanted to get on the road, they stocked them altogether, so there were three troops — five, six and seven troop — so six troop were told to go forward, now we hear this over the tannoy you see, so that’s good, and then they told six troop to stop and five troop to go forward now, and we just got passed the first tank and I got hit. I got hit in the stomach and knocked out. But I went down in the tank and when I woke up the tank was empty so I put my head through and looked for bullets and there was a ditch so I jumped into the ditch and I was pretty deaf. And, as I went down, we fired our gun and this is what caused the trouble with my ears, anyway, the tank commander, this boy had been in tanks, well, if the tank got knocked down, he was outside, if he was inside he would have been killed, so he was outside. Leitentant Smart they cried him, he was a brave man, anyway, he went back into the tank and said that he would have to get his maps in case the Germans had seen them but the tank was still running and he shouted ‘get on the back of the tank’ so the other three boys were in the ditch with me so two of us got on the back, on the engine bit, and they hit us again, and this time they hit us on the track, and, when the tyres were trying to turn to go away, of course we ran off the track, back in the ditch again. And then I got taken up to the Field Dressing Station, and from there, I was there a good two or three hours, then I went to Brussells, a hospital in Brussells for a week, then from there I went to … I was flown across from Brussells to Hereford and, as I was going across in the aeroplane, Arnum was starting and I saw the gliders coming in as we were going out. I was happy because I was going out and the gliders were coming in. I was in Hereford Hospital for about a fortnight. I got tested and sent back to Caroline, they regraded me from A1 to C1 so I was left in the war camp for the rest of the war. I was lucky — I was one of the lucky ones.

Q. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

A. Three brothers, three brother-in-laws and a sister.

Q. And all of you were in the war?

A. We were all in the war, yes. And my sister, in the WRAFS, married this Norweigen. Yes, he had come across and he was a flight engineer in the pathfinders and he got brought down and he landed in a tree. And, later on, he was a prisoner and he got back. And the other brother-in-law, he was in Africa, he was in the RAF and another brother-in-law was in the fire service. Now I’ve got my great grandson, a Royal Scot, also in Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq.

Q. So, tell me more about when you were wounded.

A. It wasn’t so much my hip, it was the shell. The tank that I came under was on this side, and I was on that side. The shell came in there and whether when we fired the gun, the shell came in and rebounded off of the turret and hit me. It hit me in the stomach and that’s when I went down. This is when we got put on the back. This is where we were sitting. And they hit the tracks when he went back on. There were angels looking after me I think because when I went down they were still firing. I was really lucky. As I say, I think the angels were looking after me.

Q. Did it affect your hearing?

A. Oh, yes. My eardrum got burst you see. This eardrum got burst. But, as I say, I was very lucky.

Q. Were you married when you were in the war?

A. No. I knew her a long time too. We fell out a few times and when I came back with the uniform on she grabbed me. Whether it was the uniform or not, she grabbed me! It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me — she was a lovely person.

Q. How long were you married?

A. Forty-eight and a half years.

Q. Was she a local girl?

A. Yes, she was from Alloa.

Q. Did you encounter any Germans during the war when you were fighting?

A. Well, there was two came up. You see, in the tank corps it was the infantry that got the prisoners. I really didn’t like to be beside the tanks because they were firing at the tanks, you kept well back but if there were any prisoners coming in, they were there and got the loot. And there was two came up once, and with not getting loot myself I said ‘empty your pockets’ and one of them had a gold watch and he said it was his mother’s watch — it maybe wasn’t his mother’s watch at all, he maybe had taken it from a British soldier, so I got the watch but it got lost somewhere. You went for loot too when you were in the army — you were a different person when you were in the army.

Q. Did you get enough to eat when you were in the army? What were the rations like?

A. Oh yes, great rations. We were on American rations.

Q. How did you get American rations?

A. Oh, this was because I was on a Sherman tank. When you were in the tanks they were moving and you got large boxes of cigarettes, rice, etc. for the whole tank. And if you did stop, the cooks came up and, if you weren’t in action, they cooked for you.

Q. Yesterday, someone said that the Americans got all the good food and the British only got ‘McConnachies’. Can you explain that please?

A. Yes, the tanks were the elite. We got the same food as the Americans. No, the food was no bother. We used to stop and brew up and we would dig a hole you see, and pour a wee drop petrol in the hole, and get our billy can and brew some tea, you see. But one of the times we were stopped for a week and we must have been doing a wee bit of cooking, and we went through hundreds of tons of petrol, so we hadn’t moved you see, and we had gone through all this petrol. So they stopped that carry on! But one of the nearest ones was when the tank next door to us was hit with a mortar. The mortar went right into the turret. So, that night, I climbed into the tank, there wasn’t much room in those tanks, and put a rope round the gunner and we pulled him out and we buried him in about a foot of soil and put R.I.P. on it. Then they used to come along at the back of us, dig them up, then put them in graves, you see. That was another of our escapades!

Q. So, you met lots of Yankees in the war then?

A. Yankees? I never saw a Yankee.

Q. You never saw a Yankee?

A. No, I never saw a Yankee. Canadians but I never saw a Yankee but I was only in it for about three months. It was from about June 6th until just after September. I remember the Canadians were in front, we were watching them, then the Germans came running in and they were fighting, and then the Canadians were running in chasing them out and we watched that for about an hour or two. The Canadians were in front, it wasn’t often for anyone to be in front of the tanks but this time there were Canadians there — the Yanks never saw them.

Q. Was it hot inside of the tank?

A. Yes, there was a lot of metal inside of the tank. You had a wireless, you had the big turret and what else? You had this big recoil thing, you hadn’t much room inside the tank. I have slept in it though, and I’ve slept standing up during a wireless watch shift. I got sent up to the HQ, we were out of the hatch at this time, to do a wireless watch, and you did half an hour to an hour, in fact I think it was an hour then you went to the next tank and told them it was their turn. So, I fell asleep standing up and it was only minutes before the time, so I don’t know how long I fell asleep but I thought ‘right, I better not go to the next tank, I’ll go to another tank further on’. So, the boy that was in the next tank got off because I had fallen asleep! And I didn’t get caught either! That was the idea — that I wasn’t going to get caught. You were frightened but you kept thinking ‘it’s not going to happen to me’.

Q. Did you feel safe in the tank?

A. There were different places in the tank that you felt safe. And in different situations you felt safe. I can’t say I didn’t get the chance to feel scared — I was frightened sometimes but I think that it always went through your head it’s not going to be you. I think that’s what saved you and we learnt French — ‘Jimmy, didnae ken pa’ that was Scottish for French! You did joke a bit, though. You had to have a jokey side — if you were too serious, you would have got frightened. I think you have to have a sense of humour too.

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