大象传媒

About a fortnight later at reveille tea, someone said that he had heard that the Germans had attacked France and Holland and Belgium, two neutral countries, too. We were put on notice to move 鈥� so at last we were going to war. Nothing happened. We had hardly seen a plane, apart from an oci a little observation plane since we had been in France, but there was certainly more air activity now but still nothing special. We tidied up, packed our personal gear, got the vehicles and guns ready and were sent out to watch for Germans disguised as nuns 鈥渓ook at their footwear鈥�, guarded crossroads and what about fifth columnists 鈥� bridges, railways etc. I spent the day on top of one of the many water towers about in that area, looking for parachutists. Looking back on it I can鈥檛 believe that they were serious about this but they had to occupy us somehow.

We discussed it with Lieutenant Siley and we said we thought there wasn鈥檛 room to move three army corps, umpteen divisions, the roads would be clogged. No doubt there had been much preparation and planning since September 1939 on this situation 鈥� and there was the French Army too! But the next day we were off to war. We had long experience of convoy discipline 鈥� a gap of at least 50 feet between vehicles, for obvious reasons, to minimise damage from one shell or bomb 鈥� all very well in theory but a regiment of artillery, 24 guns and support transport takes up a lot of road. So we were off wondering what would happen to us. We left and went through St Venant just up the road. I remember nothing else of this road until we approached Bailleul.

There had been increased air activity, Junkers 88 and Heinkel in numbers but quite high, although identifiable. We noticed a number of Junkers 87, the Stuka, so easily identified by the single engine and fixed undercarriage, were circling ahead of us ready to dive. It didn鈥檛 look as if we were the target but we took the usual precautions and abandoned the vehicles and took cover. We could see that the town ahead was taking a considerable pasting. It didn鈥檛 take long and after pulling out of the dive the Stukas departed.

We proceeded slowly into the town and made our way through debris from the damaged houses. Those in the first vehicles had managed to clear a route. We arrived in the town centre where most of the bombs must have fallen. There were dead horses everywhere and large pools of blood. A French field artillery unit had been trapped. The road was littered with up-turned limbers (ammunition carts) and 75 mm guns. There were soldiers sitting propped up against walls of bombed buildings. Those most recently rescued from the damage looked as though they had been covered in flour 鈥� the plaster from ceilings we thought. There were others obviously dead lying flat, some covered in coats. It began to rain. It was not difficult to clear the debris plus civilian vehicles 鈥� corpses at the side of the road, enough for one way traffic, some French soldiers and a few civilians helping. The rain spread the blood - what a lot of blood and entrails there were in a horse! - and the road in places was completely red. We were stationary for some time, confident that the Stukas having done the job would not return. Very few of us had ever seen a dead body before. There were few obvious civilian casualties but lots of cars and carts. The houses on the left hand side of the road lay back some way from the road and there seemed little obvious damage there otherwise the hold up would have been more serious. An old lady in black of course, was kneeling by a body, weeping. We were addressed in very slow, clear French by a middle-aged man and when he realized we understood told us that it was his father and that they had seen this all before 鈥� but he said, the British Guards were in Aachen. I knew where Aachen was, it was always Aix-La Chapelle in history books 鈥� it was inside Germany. Another of the incredible rumours.

We eventually moved out of Bailleul but there were long delays, and lots of aircraft about, all German of course. Convoy discipline was impossible to maintain. French infantry were making much more progress. The Belgian frontier was crossed but we could see Stukas bombing ahead. Stationary we felt we were sitting targets but nobody seemed interested in us.

A woman came out of a house and invited us in, about six of us went. There were several women there but they didn鈥檛 understand French or ours anyway. Of course they spoke Flemish 鈥� France only a few miles away 鈥� rather like being in an isolated village in North Wales where no English was spoken 鈥� in those days anyway. A man arrived, in his fifties we thought. He spoke French and translated for the women. We all drank black coffee. There was no movement outside. He said the women were surprised that we were so young. We assured them that in spite of our youth we knew what we were doing, and were extremely competent. Actually we were all 19 or 20 and one, looked about 16. There was a shout: we were on the move again.

The refugees started to arrive from the opposite direction and that added to the chaos. We regarded this as a bad sign, certainly as a lack of confidence. We found it difficult to understand why they should abandon homes and nearly all their belongings and take to the road in such numbers, carts, prams, bicycles, boxes with wheels 鈥� I suppose we would call them trailers, occasionally quite posh cars among the battered Renaults, mostly the elderly, mothers and babies and very young. Mattresses, cases and bundles were very much in view 鈥� it was drizzling. What absolute misery but they had experienced the bombing but getting away on the roads and being inextricably mixed up in military traffic prolonged their agony but of course at first they thought they were going to be in the middle of the First World War western front and it was possible to get away from the fighting, many or most of them remembering the total devastation of their towns and villages. Little did they know that they would have survived by staying put in their comparatively new homes.

We moved off early the next day but the column must have moved about two or three miles an hour, stopping and starting again after air attacks, and manhandling wrecked vehicles and other debris, carts and horses off the road. Casualties were sometimes being dealt with by the roadside, often refugees 鈥� so many of them because they weren鈥檛 so quick or able to get off the road. It was a good job the French didn鈥檛 have hedges and we found that Messerschmidts shooting up the road were very accurate and 50 or 100 yards away there were no casualties. Bombs of course were a different matter but apart from the occasional bullet hole in vehicles we were lucky, others weren鈥檛 and all the time there was French infantry 鈥� covering more ground than we did. I said there were no casualties but the regiment covered a lot of road and we had no news of all the rest. We turned N.E skirting Armentieres which had obviously been badly bombed, passing World War 1 cemeteries which made us think. That day we saw a large number of bombers all flying in the same direction, the three usual Junkers 88s and Heinkel 101 and Dornier 17 鈥� the flying pencil and to our amazement a considerable number of large biplanes. I did not see so many bombers in formation until D Day in June 1944. Where were they all going? We found out two or three days later. Rotterdam had been badly bombed and the Dutch had surrended. What else could a small country do? Unable to resist the might of the German Army/Vermacht and unable to resist the might of the Luftwaffe. Nevertheless it was a shock 鈥� so quickly.

We carried on S.E. on the Lille road but eventually, having skirted Armentieres we turned left and proceeded N.E. We must have passed through the Messines area and in the early evening we arrived in Courtrai, as it was known in those days, but is now with its Flemish name, Kortrijk. There had been fewer refugees on this road and travelling was a little easier 鈥� hour after hour and the Luftwaffe seemed mostly to have gone elsewhere all except one of these tiny observation planes; I think they were called Storks. There always seemed to be one about. To our amazement there was no obvious bomb damage and people had chairs outside their houses which as usual opened on to the pavement and were watching the show as we went past.

We arrived at a large grey ecclesiastical building and some of us, perhaps 20 or 30, were invited inside. I don鈥檛 remember what happened next except we were in nunnery. I suppose we were fed and watered and slept somewhere but we were dog tired and up at dawn, a cup of tea and we were off again on the road to Gent, many with rosaries 鈥� blackbeads which the nuns had presented and which as a non Catholic I had spurned pleasantly when offered. We spent the next day in farm outbuildings servicing the vehicles and guns and eating and sleeping and hoping not to be noticed. A few bombers around but not as bad as our first day on the road. We took turns on look out duty on top of a local water tower scanning the agricultural scenery for parachutists or suspicious characters or nuns wearing German Army boots 鈥� fifth column madness again.

But now we knew that the Germans had occupied Holland and the Belgians were in serious trouble. In the early evening a few of us went armed to the nearby village and had a beer in a very smart newly fitted bar. The railway was close by but somehow the war seemed far away, a lovely summer evening, no nearby aircraft. We were told that the British cemetery was just down the road under the railway bridge. We found it 鈥� small by comparison with others we had passed. So this was where the war had ended as far as we could see, but we didn鈥檛 explore past the first few lines. They were nearly all Scots, Cameronians I remember and most of them 18-19-20. Dates, 9th and 10th of November 1918: the days before the Armistice when the Germans were retreating and we were continuing to advance into the machine guns left behind at strategic points. Food for thought. I think the village was Ingoyen or a similar name. The next day we moved in the Gent direction, towards Oudenaarde. It made me think, the battle of Oudenaarde, 1708, Marlborough鈥檚 men had probably marched this road to fight the French. How often had these towns on the French and Netherlands border been fought over?

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