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Our recovery crew had been trained on the various methods of recovering vehicles, tanks etc and given the basic instructions on what to do in such a case, and which winch pull and lay-out would be required to recover a vehicle from a certain position. With this knowledge, plus the little practical experience already gained, they entered their active service role in Normandy fully realising that everything was not going to turn out in accordance with the books, and a great amount of initiative was essential on such a job - a point that had been greatly stressed during training.

The very first job confronted was a knocked out carrier in a minefield, and the instructions were to get the carrier out of the field by dusk. The classroom lessons and training in dealing with mines were behind them - they were suddenly hit by the seriousness of the situation and the fact that this was the real thing. The cable was eventually laid and they began to winch in, but owing to the earth being soft and sandy, and one of the tracks blown, the carrier began to dig in. The danger of contacting hidden mines had to be considered, whilst at the same time speed was a most important factor. Their first snags had arisen, but they tackled it from a different angle and eventually retrieved the carrier. Their training had held them in good stead and they were gaining confidence - it was at this period that they were thnkful that they had paid so much attention and created sufficient interes during their training periods.

The climate and dry Normandy roads were not to advantage particularly on one occasion when two recovery vehicles went forward to recover seven carriers, as apparently the enemy had spotted the dust trail created by the vehicles and came uncomfortably close with his air-burst shells.

Recovery work continued - they removed overturned vehicles from ditches, recovered booby-trapped vehicles from minefields, cleared roads that had been blocked by shot up or overturned vehicles and generally carried out their active service role.

One amusing incident - at least it is amusing now - occured at Grimbose on the River Orne. The recovery crews were with our AWD and word came through that three vehicles, shot up by mortars, were blocking the road and it was imperative that the road be cleared at all costs - further along the road a Churchill Tank was trying to hold his own against a Panther on the bridge and a Tiger on the other bank. A volunteer crew set out and when travelling along the road, they met, coming towards them in the opposite direction, an armoured bulldozer and were naturally amazed to see this vehicle coming along what they understood to be a blocked road. The NCO jumped off the recovery vehicle and asked the driver of the bulldozer if the road was blocked and he replied to the effect that it had been, but he shoved the b... things into the river - the job was done, the road was clear. It was round this area that our troops subsequently broke through and proceeded to chase the enemy across the remainder of France and most of Belgium.

Unfortunately, at this period Monty had decided that our Division (the 59th) had evidently completed the tasks alloted to it, and instructed that we were to be disbanded, however, the workshops remained intact and we were sent back to carry out repairs to the numerous vehicles now lying awaiting attention.

The recovery section, however, were detailed to move to the Falaise area where they were confronted by a job vastly different from their previous training and experience. At this stage it depended solely on initiatve, as no training instructions were laid down for the clearance of such a devastated area as this and was a complete change over in so far as having to recover chiefly enemy equipment of a heavy nature with our own particularly light equipment.

It is impossible to frame suitable passages to explain the devastation that had been left behind by the enemy in his mad rush to escape from this vast trap, and it speaks highly for the accuracy of our artillery and air crews, and the persons responsible for framing such a plan. The roads and fields were chock-a-block with tanks, guns, vehicles, carts, dead horses, cattle and bodies; ditches were piled high with overturned equipment and one could visualise the mad chaos that must have taken place in the deperate scramble to get away.

The river was literally piled high with dead horses attached to gun limbers or carts, and we presume that the reason for this must have been the fact that the horses must have gone mad and bolted, in many cases complete with riders, into the river, or maybe it was part of the plan of the enemy to avoid us making use of the slow moving traffic that they previously knew could not possibly escape. It was, therefore, the priority job for our recovery to remove these in view of the dangerous threat of disease, and for weeks this slow process of winching dead animals and bodies from the whole area took place. The Scammell jibs certainly bore strange cargoes.

A particulalry tricky job came our way when they came across a 45 ton Panther Tank in the river with just the turret showing. The tank was required for experimantal purposes and as far as they could observe, was intact and should prove helpful in this respect. Owing to the soft and slimy nature of the river bed the tank was well buried and it would have been impossible to try to pull it out under these circumstances. The tank was therefore pulled over on its side, and load after load of stones were dropped into the river to try to form a firm base; this of course was a lengthy job in view of the fact that the first loads buried themselves, however, they completed this and a causeway was dug in the river bank and the tank brought to an upright position on this harder surface. The surrounding ground was in a terrible state and as it was impossible to drivew a Scammell there, it was decided to use four Sherman Tanks hitched together, but unfortunatley they just dug themselves in. As this was unsuccessful they decided to tow a Scammell in and managed to get it near enough to make an effort - a 6 to 1 pull was laid down and the tank was slowly wrested from its slimy grave.

One outstanding point that has been in the minds of our recovery team since being in action was the evident inferiority of the enemy recovery equipment and absence of vehicles capable of recovering tanks, however, at the later stages of this clearance job something did come to light. They were undergoing the task of recovering a tank, and whilst digging a causeway to allow removal, struck upon part of a vehicle underneath the earth. The German prisoners that had been allocated to the section were ordered to dig, and it was found to be a German tank recovery vehicle with a permanent 8 to 1 winch pull, and had been buried evidently with a view to preserving the secrecy. The prisoners were amazed to see one Scammell tackling the job of drawing this heavy vehicle out of a hole 50 or 60 degrees, the base of the vehicle being about 50 feet below ground level. However, a 6 to 1 pull was laid down using 16 ground anchors and once more a dead vehicle was brought to life, and later transhipped to England.

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