大象传媒

Memories of 105574 Major R F 鈥楬enry鈥� Hall MC, The Dorset Regiment,
on His and Her Majesty鈥檚 Service

Part 4

When we were out one night we discovered a Tiger tank which had broken down but the gun was still firing and we discovered that the German engineers were trying to repair the tank. We waited two or three nights 鈥� we could hear them and see them doing their best to get the tank going again and then early one morning we suddenly heard the tank鈥檚 engines start up. That was the sign for me to fire the 4.5 inch gun which scored a direct hit on the tank and destroyed it. That was a way of wasting enemy manpower!
We also used our Haka by day, but more effectively by night, to keep the enemy on their toes, the same as we had done in the UK, to deprive them of sleep and wear them down. The Germans always feed at midday (we fed at night) so that was a good time to shell or mortar them when they were gathered together 鈥� depriving them of food.
We looked for targets by day and then went out at night, mostly singly, to kill lone men or throw grenades at our target. We never had a chance to have a go at dumps or HQs as we could only get at the front line and these targets were well back.
We looked out during the daylight to see if we could pinpoint any weak area in the enemy line or any place or thing that was worth attacking the following night and then we would go out and destroy or kill that objective when it was dark.
The Germans, stupidly, used a lot of tracer, various coloured tracer which made it very easy to avoid their fire. You could either go to the left or right of it or even, if it was high, duck underneath. They also used Verey lights, or flares, of various colours. If you could get hold of one of their bags full of flares you could set them off and add a little confusion to whatever they were setting them off for.
The whole object was to disorientate the enemy, confuse him, deprive him of sleep, deprive him of food and generally wear him down as well as the simple point of killing him.
One night while we were patrolling we came across a lone elderly German dressed in a greatcoat, unarmed and carrying a heavy leather briefcase. I put my hand into the briefcase and discovered it full of papers. So I though it was something of interest, maybe orders. We couldn鈥檛 show a light so I couldn鈥檛 see what the papers were so I sent him back to Battalion Headquarters. I learnt later that he was the German paymaster who had been going round paying the German troops in French francs. The regimental funds were increased by 250,000 French francs!
In modern war the civilian casualties are always far greater than the military ones. Fortunately we were spared that problem. In France the French had evacuated all their villages, we never came across any civilians in any village that we had to clear. Very often there were civilian bodies laid out in churches but we never saw any live civilians.
After the breakout, when we were going through Belgium, on the way up to Arnhem and afterwards, the Belgian and Dutch villages were always crammed full of civilians welcoming us, throwing us flowers, giving us drinks and generally getting in the way of our progress, but we never had any problem of distinguishing between civilians and the enemy. The only civilian problem that we had in France was that the French left their livestock behind and so we had plenty of milk, chicken and pigs to supplement our rations.
We never had our greatcoats or blankets until the winter and I missed that because I was wounded in November. We used to sleep where we could in our anti gas capes but most of our sleeping was done as cat naps.
You can鈥檛 kill a Tiger tank when it is moving unless you are extraordinarily lucky. First you have to stop it and the easiest way to do that is to interfere with the tracks being the least armoured part of the vehicle. The only weapon we had was a PIAT anti-tank weapon which was quite effective but which certainly would not pierce a Tiger tank鈥檚 armour but if you aimed it at the tracks, nine times out of ten it would break the track and thus stop the tank. Or you could stuff something into the track, something like and angle iron or a piece of metal or tree trunks, something pretty hefty which would break the track and stop the tank.
You have to get fairly close to the tank but tank guns are always designed to fire almost horizontally with very little depression so you are completely safe as any shots will simply go over your head.
The conditions inside the tank also have to be considered. There were probably four or five people inside, it was very hot, sweaty and stank of hot oil, cordite, urine and of course they could only see out through visors and that is why ninety nine times out of a hundred the lid of the tank would be open and very often the tank commander would be looking out.
So the crew are not in a very happy state of mind. Having stopped the tank you then leapt on to it, covered up any visors with mud, cloth or anything else which did the job. If you were lucky enough to find the top open you could throw a couple of grenades inside and then shut the top and that was the end of that or you could place a charge on the lid (we used to carry charges similar to Lewes bombs for use on tanks) or on the engine cover (where the armour was thin) or on the back of the tank and it would set the tank on fire. It was easier than it sounds, providing you had the guts and the courage and the training to do it.
After the capture of Hill 112 it was possible to take Caen which was done with some difficulty owing to the fact that it had been bombed, causing a significant number of civilian casualties. The whole British front then moved forward to a ridge on the South side of the River Orne. Meanwhile the Americans had taken the Cherbourg peninsula and were advancing with General Patton leading from there. The move forward was a matter of a few light skirmishes. And nothing very much happened.
4th Dorsets broke out on 1st August about midnight from the Caumont area. By that time I was a Company Commander and I was leading my Company with a Bren gun carrier section down the road in the dark. All went well until we came to a place called Cahagny. There on the crossroads we saw somebody with a red lamp. We stopped and myself and Mike Whittle, the commander of the Bren gun carrier section, wandered forward to see what was going on. We found a Military Policeman with a red hurricane lamp. We asked him what the devil he was doing there. He said, 鈥淚鈥檓 directing the traffic, you鈥檙e supposed to go down that way!鈥� It turned out he had been told to stand there and direct the traffic but had arrived far too early before even we had arrived.
We carried on down the road towards Mount Pincon and when we got to a village called Jurques we started to catch up with the Germans and came across mines on the road and a few pockets of resistance which we managed to clear up fairly successfully.
By the morning of 2nd August we had reached a place called La Bigne where there was a fork in the road. We had to take the right hand turning and my forward platoon moved up there. They immediately came under very heavy fire from the enemy and they were completely wiped out. My whole Company was pinned to the ground by mortar, very heavy machine gun fire and everybody was a little scared.
It was there that I was officially declared 鈥榤ad鈥� by my Company Sergeant Major because I got a little fed up with cowering in the ditches and lying down and I thought I had better do something about it otherwise we would never get on with the war.
I stood up, wandered back to find out what was going on and managed to lay on artillery and mortar fire against the enemy and got rid of the opposition and we were able to carry on our way.
By the time we arrived at the foot of Mount Pincon a tank battalion had fortunately been able to sneak round the back and capture the top of the hill and of course they required the infantry up there to hold the position and we were amongst some of the troops sent up to support the tanks.
We had a short break at the foot of the hill and my batman had put a chicken in the pot to boil. To my surprise when we arrived at the top and secured our objective, having settled my Company in I got back to Company Headquarters and there he was with the chicken boiling up and we enjoyed it on the top of the hill.
We went on again and by 22nd August we had arrived at the Falaise Pocket. That was a horrible sight. Hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies, charred corpses, dead horses and indescribable stink of rotting flesh and burning. There was smoke, dust, stench and filth everywhere. We had arrived after the German pocket at Falaise had been destroyed.
We passed through as quickly as we could to get out of the place and carried on with very little resistance until we came to the River Seine at Vernon on 27th August. By that time the Seine had been crossed and we crossed it from Vernon to Vernonette from 1530 to 1600 hours and that was the occasion on which Jimmy Grafton thought I had saved his life but in actual fact I only fed him with apples.
From the Seine to Brussels was relatively uneventful. The Guards Armoured led the advance and 43 Division followed behind them. We met very little resistance and travelled in transport, just the odd SP gun but nothing much else. It was full of civilians and everybody was all over us, jubilant, singing, shouting. The Germans had collected an enormous amount of liquor at Brussels and we stayed there a couple of days and we had a choice at meals of tea, white wine, red wine, whisky, brandy, you name it, we had it.
By 16th September the Irish Guards had spread out a little from Brussels and had captured a bridge, later known as 鈥楯oe鈥檚 Bridge鈥�, named after the Irish Guards Armoured Group Commander, Joe Vandeleur. This bridge was over the Meuse 鈥� Escaut canal and was later used as the start line for the infantry moving up towards Arnhem to join up with the Airborne.
We crossed the start line at 1425 hours on 17th September, the Irish Guards leading, followed by the 4th Dorsets with my Company leading and the journey up was quite frankly, horrendous. We were fired on from the flanks many many times, the bridges were destroyed.
The American Airborne failed to capture bridges and it was a complete shambles and we only arrived at Nijmegen on 22nd September. On that day the Grenadier Guards managed to force a crossing of the bridge at Nijmegen and 4th Dorsets followed the leading elements and moved off to the East towards a place called Homoet.
The Guards Armoured were held up on the road towards Arnhem but 4th Dorsets settled in at Homoet and some of the Household Cavalry managed to reach the river bank. It was a pitiful sight, knowing the Airborne had been on the other side of the river for so long and obviously had suffered many casualties and seen their supplies being dropped into the German held areas and our side of the river. I managed to loot a certain amount of medical supplies from some of the parachutes which came down on our side.
We also saw the Polish Airborne Brigade drop and suffer casualties on the way down by the enemy, who were on both sides of the River. On the night of 23rd September 250 Poles managed to cross the river. 4th Dorsets were ordered to cross on the night of 24th/25th September and capture the Westerbouwing heights in order to draw the enemy off the Airborne so that they could be evacuated.
I was 2nd in Command of C Company of 4th Dorsets at that time. We had marched up to the South bank of the river in the rain, wet and dark, and were waiting for the canvas assault boats to arrive. I wandered into a cottage and found some Dutch Resistance chaps. I asked them what was going on at Arnhem, they picked up the public telephone and asked their friends in Arnhem what the picture was. The public phones were still working! Unfortunately by the time I reported this the lines were cut. If only the planners had tried the public telephones earlier or had taken more notice of the Resistance, many lives and much confusion could have been saved amongst us and the Airborne. Typical staff lack of imagination.
My job was to supervise the loading of our Company boats. By the time when I should have crossed there were no boats at all left for our Battalion. They had all been sunk or swept away by the current. The enemy were firing mortars, 88mm guns and machine guns into the river as well as on the banks. We managed to get about 350 men across the river.
During all this rage of war and confusion I saw the commanders of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, both in their white macs, soft hats and with swagger canes, walking up and down, discussing what they could do to help. A wonderful British sight.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.