大象传媒

The last day of the war we were up the River Elbe, we鈥檇 already crossed the Rhine and we鈥檇 been on the tanks and that across Germany and we were in a forest when we got stonked by shrapnel from big gun fire. We thought it was Germans, but in fact was our artillery because the trees in Germany are up to 150 feet high and they were hitting the trees at the top and the shrapnel was falling down on us. Anyway we all took cover, and my friend Philip was about 10 yards away. Eventually someone got on the radio and managed to get the artillery to stop and we were told to move off. I said to Philip come on, but he didn鈥檛 move, he was dead. Some shrapnel had gone in through his back and into his heart and it killed him outright.

We moved on and came to a big factory. I was astonished to see all these V2鈥檚 ready for use but they hadn鈥檛 got any fuel. I thought if they had fuel England would have really copped it. We moved on a bit more and then we told to stop because the Germans were starting to give in, and we heard the announcement at two o鈥檆lock in the morning. We did believe it because we knew we had the Germans trapped, we鈥檇 been pushing them back and back and they had no option but to surrender.

When I came back my wife to be was in the ATS near Melton Mowbray. I鈥檇 been demobbed and she was due to be shortly and we went to the pictures and were sitting on the back row and it sort of came to me and I said 鈥淲ould you like to get married?鈥� Everybody heard me and they clapped because she said yes. I remember I got 拢350 demob money because I was a sergeant major by the time I left.

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