´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Stan Rowley and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

We got off the trucks and the Sergeant Major shouted at us ‘You are all improperly dressed, get those forage caps off! You’re in a man’s regiment now’ and he gave us all tam o’shanters, that’s before he welcomed us!! Our first job was to repair the trucks that were damaged in the raids the previous night. My mate and I wrote down what we needed, took our tools and went to this big field where other damaged trucks were, to search for what we required. We walked on about half a mile and easily got what we wanted and headed back and fixed the trucks. We were standing having a laugh when the Sergeant Major came along, ‘What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be fixing the trucks.’ I gave him a grin and said ‘We’ve done it, Sergeant Major’. He said, ’But you’ve only been here an hour, let’s see what you’ve done’. He had a look and then said ‘Hmm, you’re not without you’re lemon drops, are you?’
Major Campbell wanted to see just where the Germans were dug in so that he could give them a battering. The driver had to drive through a minefield to view the area. He was given really precise instructions to get through it, how he did it I don’t know, but he did and the Germans got a leathering. After the event all those involved were awarded medals, the driver got the Military Medal and the Major got the Military Cross.

We were involved in the taking of Cannes; the town is at the South East of the airfield. The Canadians were at the North West of the airfield and we were both given instructions to put out red smoke at 10am the following morning because there were a lot of Germans in the Fally gap and the Yanks were going to attack them. Red smoke signified allied troops, but although the smoke went up, the Canadians were bombed, it nearly wiped out the Division, I don’t think anyone knew why it had happened. There’s about 750 dead in the cemetery there. The instructions were that once you got on the road to the Fally gap, you had to keep going. If you broke down, you were just pushed to the side, it took us about six hours to do about 20 miles. Once we started on the road, the smell it made you sick, there were dead bodies and horses everywhere. The civilians were cutting horses up for meat, we were told not to touch them because they might have been mined and some civilians were blown up. The prisoners were walking with their hands on their heads, a single file of German troops as far as the eye could see. They had no guns, they’d flung them away and there weren’t many troops guarding them, they’d been battered with airforce and they were surrendering, just glad to be alive. When they got down to Bayeaux, they had nowhere to put the prisoners of war.

We carried on up the Fally gap with all this stink and then we branched off towards Brussels and eventually we came to Moll in Belgium. We got 48 hours leave to Brussels, the trams were free and everybody was put up. There was a N.A.A.F.I. and you could purchase goods there and they would send it on to your family. The stuff cost peanuts; I sent my wife six lots of different perfumes – all the crack makes - and some silk underwear. It took a while to get through mind, I’d paid for them about three months before they’d all arrived. Of course the Yanks got to go to Paris for their 48 hours leave! We went across the River Mas and into Tilburg in Holland and onto Goile and all the civilians welcomed us 1;‘You’re not sleeping out tonight, sleep in our beds!’ The house I went to had a radio which was transmitting very faintly. All I had to do was change the voltage, I did that for them and about another four radios that night! And the next morning they were all after me again to sort the radios out!

We were wakened at half past five one morning and were on the move within a quarter of an hour. We went through Helmond’s H.Q. – Second Army H.Q.- and at a place called Aston we crossed the Helmond’s Canal. Our unit had brought our guns over the bridge. We were on our way to Meijal and we came to a crossroads. We could only see a Military Police Sergeant with his snowdrop (white steel helmet). There was something wrong and Captain said ‘Come with me, if you suspect anything, shoot them first, ask questions afterwards.’ We went up to the Sergeant and my Captain asked ‘Where are your troops?’ and he said ‘Oh they’ve gone, there’s only me here!’ I thought he was kidding. He blew his whistle and two more Sergeants arrived and that was it, off the three of them went in the jeep, leaving us to it! Our Captain put two guns on the road to Meijal and one on the little side road. Visibility was poor and we couldn’t go off the road because the land all around was boggy. We heard funny noises so we put an anti-tank shell (a new type weighing 25 pound, solid steel) in both guns and fired it up the road. Nothing happened, so the Captain said ‘Fire round 2’. There was such a crash, we didn’t know what damage we had done, but when we passed it early the next year, a German Tiger tank was bombed. We said how lucky we had been that we’d hit it because if it had come at us down the road we would have been massacred. Our guns started firing by map reading and we had to contact the service core to bring us more shells. But it didn’t work like that, we had to go down to load our own shells. All hands on deck it was to get our ammunition and when we were near the service core we could see that the Yanks had pinched their own bridge and we were stranded. Our Captain blew his top and got onto H.Q. and the Royal Engineers, who fixed us a bridge across the canal out of tree trunks and old doors. We were able to get our ammunition from the service core and walk across the bridge to put in our vehicles for distribution to the gunners. The bridge was very wobbly and we were told that if we felt we were going over, the ammunition was to be ditched and to save ourselves.

At the end of November 1944 I was co-opted to the post office distribution and sorting centre because the Christmas rush was about to start. I was a postal official.

We were staying at a place called Box. The Germans were dug in in a railway embankment and we couldn’t shift them and they were holding up the advance, the Infantry couldn’t move. The artillery had a go, and we still couldn’t get the shells down into the holes. So they called up the R.A.F. Typhoons to use rockets on them. The R.A.F. did a reccie and there were three of them. The first one fired his rockets off and they went on the embankment. They were still in formation and when the 2nd one launched his rockets they were so close that those rockets blew up the leading typhoon. The 3rd one turned off, he didn’t launch his rockets. But they did sought them out and the Gordon Islanders Infantry could advance.

I was a driver on the Bren carrier, taking the Captain and signallers to rendevous near the front so that ammunition and guns could be positioned in the correct places. I changed over on the Thursday and it was The Lance Corporal’s turn to drive the Bren carrier with the Gordons regiment. They went about a mile up the road, it was supposedly clear, but he drove over a landmine. The carrier turned on it’s side and the occupants were thrown out of the carrier. The mine blew up on the driver’s side, through the armour plating, the Corporal had his legs blown off and he died instantly. I was so lucky because it could have been me, we’d only just changed over.

In January 1945 we started the push, we left Meijal and went up to Mastereich and got across the river and kept pushing forward through Germany. We got to outside Usselin and then we started taking the side roads through woods. We came to the edge of the wood and then began staggering our approaches. ‘B’ troop started up the road to cover our advance and there was an ack-ack battery in the woods and they opened fire on ‘B’ troop and killed eleven. Of course we were mad, but the Major arrived and stopped us shelling them, which is what we wanted to do. Instead we fired rifles and the Germans started coming out of the wood really slowly. To hurry them up the Major fired over their heads. They thought he was firing at them and so they opened fire again and he had three bullets in his stomach. We got to this big house in Usseline and there was a S.S. man stood on the steps outside the house. The S.S. officer said ‘I am Baron _______, this is my house and you’re not coming in!’ He had a sword slash down his right cheek from honour fighting. The Major said ‘You’re a prisoner of war’, he replied ‘I’m not’ and Major asked him ‘What are you doing in uniform then?’. But we took the house over, the staff there were scared of us because they thought we would shoot them. Of course we didn’t, but they were expecting that because of the way they had already been treated. The S.S. officer had just taken the house over for the night and enjoyed some of the champagne there.

After taking Usselin, we came to Celle aerodrome and that was where I was shocked to see the people from Belsen. They were wearing black and white striped trousers and coat, nothing else. The majority of them had a piece of wood tied to their feet for shoes. They were like walking matchsticks. They were pleading for food from us, tea, cigarettes, anything. We had strict instructions not to give them anything because ordinary food, even tea, would have killed them because they had been living on such short rations for such a long time. The stores there had special food in that they could give them so that they could build up their appetites slowly again. They were like sticks and their heads all shrunken. They had walked from Belsen, well, not walked just shuffled. It was awful to see. They got the service core to take them back to Belsen. The trucks and the service core all had to be fumigated afterwards.

We went about 40 miles into Poland and when the peace was signed we came to the S.S. barracks on Rattseburg Sea. It was all new, lovely. Then we went to Lubeck every weekend and the beer was one penny a pint and it was rubbish! The tables were stacked high with all the beer soldiers had ordered and much of it wasn’t drunk. So the N.A.A.F.I. used to re-claim that, put it in the barrel and sell it again! There were boat trips up to Travemondy, where the flying bombs and V IIs were first developed. We could see the piles of rubble, where it had been bombed later in the war. The docks there were assembling submarine parts which were delivered from all over the country – it was a production line! Well organised, they reckoned they could launch one every three days!

From Lubeck I was de--mobbed (1946)to Hamburg and then via Holland, came home to Felixstowe. I went up to Ashton Barracks where they gave us 10 bob to be going on with! The next morning you were taken to a mill and rigged out with everything, suit, stockings, shoes, trilby, collar, tie, shirt, you had a choice of size and colour and if they didn’t have what you wanted they paid your bus fare to come back again. After your de-mob papers from the barracks they would send your bonus for the time you’d spent in the army, I got £69 for 7 years service, that was the maximum, £10 a year! I blew it all on a holiday.

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