大象传媒

continued from 14b

The German machine guns were almost completely eliminated during the course of the day, and by six o'clock that evening the Royal Engineers had completed the construction of a 680 feet long folding bridge in spite of having to contend with close-range fire from the machine guns earlier on.
The first vehicles - Bren gun carriers and infantry supply transport, and two more battalions - crossed immediately. The bridgehead was firmly established within twenty-four hours of our crossing the bridge. We had unlocked the door, the Worcesters had pushed it open a bit and the follow-up troops had forced it wide open.
Early next morning four of us were standing beside Roger Dog, which our driver had brought across the previous evening, waiting for the kettle we had liberated somewhere on our travels to come to the boil on the Benghazi fire. The air was autumn-chilly, and we were looking forward to a nice hot 'cuppa' to keep us going until we could manage to get some breakfast. Desultory firing was coming from somewhere on the ridge behind us when, without warning, a sniper's bullet hit the ground near us with a 'phut' and kicked a small plume of earth towards the fire. Instantly, all four of us dived - to save the kettle! Well, they say there's one born every minute!

Later that morning, as we pushed forward to enlarge the bridgehead, one of the Worcesters stood beside our Bren carrier moaning about being hungry because they had been sent into action without any breakfast. We had had no breakfast ourselves and were trying to grab a hasty snack as best we could at the time, so I rummaged in our ration pack and pulled out a tin of corned beef and handed
it to him. Tucking it inside his battledress tunic with a grateful "Thanks, mate," he went on his way. We did not see him again.
German prisoners were being escorted down the road a few at a time, and as one group passed us with their hands clasped above their heads an officer was heard to shout, "Sergeant, take these men to H.Q. and see they get some breakfast. They haven't eaten this morning. "
"Bloody good, isn't it?" shouted one angry, and hungry, footslogger. "We get no breakfast. These b*s get it instead."
"Better not give 'em mine," bawled another, threateningly.
Two young prisoners, looking scared stiff, were being hurried along the road. "Me, Rumania. Me, Rumania," cried one, as if pleading for his life.
"You're a bloody Squarehead," yelled their escort. "Go on, keep moving." And he prodded the man's rear end with his bayonet by way of encouragement.
"See these men have some breakfast, won't you, sir?" came a sarcastic voice from somewhere up the road.
Fortunately for discipline the angry comments were tactfully ignored.
War or no war, nature will always make its demands upon the human body, and this action was no exception. One man found the call of nature too urgent to resist and went in search of a place in which to relieve himself. A sniper shot him in the head.
As we lay there on that fine Sunday morning the thought suddenly occurred to me that it was only a few years ago that I would have been in Sunday School!
During the course of the morning of Sunday 27th August, Major Sir John Backhouse, Second-in-Command of 179 Field Regiment, crossed the bridge to look for a suitable site for his guns. His scout car came under heavy fire from some German guns and he was severely wounded in the head. He died later that day.
The Germans counter-attacked that morning. The Worcesters were heavily attacked by tanks and 88mm. guns as they fought their way up the main road leading through the thick woods on the east bank, but they stood firm, thanks largely to their 6-pounder anti- tank guns.
The British had developed a 'sabot' projectile designed specifically for use against tanks. Its light steel sheath encased a small solid tungsten core and the shell was then built up to the normal 6-pounder calibre by means of a light alloy sabot jacket in four parts. This produced a normal-sized 6-pounder shell which was much lighter in weight but with a very dense core capable of penetrating thick armour. As the shell left the gun the sabot jacket fell away, leaving the tungsten core to continue to the target, thus enabling the shell to attain a far greater velocity than the conventional 6-pounder.
As luck would have it the Worcesters' 6-pounders were loaded with the sabot shell, and as the leading Tiger tank appeared slowly round a bend in the road the nearest gun opened fire when only one side of the hull and the turret were visible. The Shell hit and penetrated the mantlet of the 88mm gun. The six-pounder was reloaded and fired again, then reloaded and fired a third time, from point-blank range, hitting the tank in the hull both times. The surviving members of the crew baled out of the stricken tank in panic, only to be mown down by machine guns. The 6-pounder continued to fire, but with H.E. now. The Tiger exploded and burst into flames. The remaining Germans then broke and fled.
For his coolness in the action, Jack Guest, the sergeant in charge of the gun, was awarded the Military Medal.
Our own tanks were by now coming across the bridge built by the Royal Engineers, and by that evening all infantry units in the Division, machine gun companies, anti-tank and anti-aircraft Batteries, had crossed, all within forty-eight hours of the initial assault. The Germans were being decisively pushed back. The bridgehead was firmly established.
The next day, Monday, 28th August, and our third in the bridgehead, we were sitting in our usual places in Roger Dog, parked on a narrow road between a high ridge on our right and a thick wood, part of the Vernon Forest, on our left. The face of the ridge was pimpled with many trees and small shrubs. Small arms fire was still very much in evidence, with snipers particularly active. Indeed, sniping had been a prominent part of German activity since the beginning of the bridgehead.
Our position was totally unsuitable for radio work; the high ridge on the one side and the wood on the other caused complete radio 'screening' and made both sending and receiving impossible.
I was now operating the No.19 set again and trying to get in touch with the Command Post at "D" Troop's gun position, but to no avail. All I heard were creaks and groans like rusty hinges on a slowly moving gate, and long whistles that started as a low growl somewhere near the floor and rose gradually to a high-pitched shriek that seemed to disappear through the top of the set. Then the whole cacophony would repeat itself. And somewhere in the far background a spitting sound as of something frying would get diffidently louder and then gradually subside as though ashamed of being heard.
I tried to contact everyone one the Battery net in turn; Control at B.H.Q., "C" Troop O.P. and "C" and "D" Troop Command Posts, but in vain. I did not know if any of them heard me or not. If they did, and had replied, I heard nothing from them. I decided to wait five more minutes, and if the situation had not improved by then I would close down. There was no sense in using up my precious batteries unnecessarily.
And then it happened. Very faint against the background of interference, so faint that I was not sure I had actually heard anything, came the sound of a voice. In spite of the very bad reception I felt that it was the voice of my pal, Ted Maher, at "D" Troop position, calling me for report of signals.
What chance circumstance caused Ted's voice to break through all the distortion at that precise moment I will never know, but as I leaned instinctively forward to adjust the controls to try to improve reception while I still had that almost inaudible voice as a guide, a sniper's bullet zipped past my ear and smacked into the armour plating behind me. Had I not reached forward when I did I would have got it in the head . . .

At the end of that day the bridgehead was four-and-a-half-miles deep. Through it poured the whole of the British armoured units for the great drive to Brussels and Antwerp, thus achieving the liberation of north-east France and most of Belgium. The speed with which the 43rd Wessex Division secured the Vernon bridgehead was a factor of the greatest importance in the continued disruption of the German armies.
With our job finished for the time being, 179 Field Regiment were billeted in some farm buildings near the village of Fourges, a few miles from the river, on the east bank, and the next fourteen days were something of an anticlimax for us. Parades and inspections were the order of the day, with plenty of cleaning and overhauling of weapons and equipment. A lucky few were given passes to Paris, which had just been liberated by the Americans; and we learned on the radio that our leading tanks had reached the Dutch border.
I made friends with Jessie, who presented me with a fresh egg every morning and seemed to like settling down close to me in the straw, making nice soothing sounds in my ears as she did so. She really was attached to me, ignoring my companions in the barn but coming straight to me each time she entered. She really was the friendliest little White Leghorn imaginable.
I also developed a mass of big bumps, like outsize heat bumps, all over my body, which itched so much that I had to go to the M.O. for treatment. The M.O. soon diagnosed the cause of the trouble. I had been eating too much stolen fruit.

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