大象传媒

CHAPTER 9

On one occasion when I returned from a weekend in London I went into the hut. It was very late, so I undressed in the dark, and climbed into my top bunk bed. A few minutes later another soldier cane in. He was the last one and his bunk was about halfway down the hut. I was on the point of falling asleep when I thought I could smell smoke. I sniffed once or twice and then thought I had better take a look, because it was a pungent smell and not like tobacco smoke. When I looked down the hut I saw that the last arrival was sitting on the edge of his bunk and had put his lighted cigarette on the top of his kitbag while he undressed. The cigarette lad set light to his kitbag, not as a flame, but as a circle of glowing red, ready to burst into flames at any moment. In a panic I was just about to jump down and rush along to put it out, when the soldier himself realized what had happened and beat the glowing embers out. It could have been very serious as the huts including the flooring were totally made of wood, and it took me some tine to get to sleep.

This period of service at both Oxford and High Wycombe lasted for a month or two, and I had the opportunity to see for myself the hundreds of people sleeping on the Underground station platforms, and to experience the regular air raid warnings which Eileen and her mother had suffered for four years.

I had been back in England now for nearly a year, and it was obvious that we were being rapidly equipped for the impending invasion of France and defeat of Germany. On the first day of June we received our orders to proceed in convoy to Portsmouth. We were given quite a reception as we drove through the towns and villages. In one place a very large apple was tossed into the driver's cabin. It was a beautiful ripe apple but unfortunately it hit my driver on the head! As we drove through the countryside we looked up and saw wave after wave after wave of huge bombers on the way to bomb the enemy. They flew very low in the sky, only a few hundred feet up. They flew three and four abreast and took several hours to pass over. This was yet another of the thousand bomber raids which were destroying large parts of German cities. One more incredible sight that will never be seen again.

When we arrived at Portsmouth we were directed into a very heavily wooded area and given our sleeping accommodation which was in bell tents. There was a Tannoy System operating in the woods and as all sections had their own code numbers we had to listen all the time in case any messages referred to us. We were not allowed to leave the area and no letters were allowed out. There was no way we could have contacted our families. We knew that this was it - the long awaited invasion was only hours or days away. We received no news about what was happening and did not know whether the actual invasion had started or not. We just waited and waited. We were there for a few days and then suddenly our number came up. We understood that it was D6 and we were to move out immediately. We were all issued with a bag of boiled sweets. I suppose to counteract seasickness. As quickly as possible we loaded up our vehicles and drove off to the decks. So far as I can remember at that time we knew nothing definite about the invasion or how well or badly it was going.

We just drove our vehicles up a ramp and into an LCT (landing craft tank). I do not remember how many lorries were in each craft. It may have been ten or even more. The fumes in the hold of the LCT were very bad so we hastily climbed a ladder up on to the deck. The ship sailed, but it was rather choppy and the craft heaved and rolled. Very soon most of the chaps were feeling rather sick and it was quite a shock when we were told that we had not chained down our lorry properly and in the rough seas the vehicles were moving about. The fact that we had not been told to chain down our lorry when we had driven on to the ship, did not help. In the event I went down into the hold with three others and we did manage to chain each wheel to the floor of the hold. The hold was still full of fumes and by the time we emerged into the fresh air, we all felt rather sick. In fact two of the others were violently sick. I was pleased to say that my feeling of sickness soon passed off. The LCT was fully manned by Americans, who fed us in due course. The food was served on large aluminium trays with sections hollowed out to hold each type of food, including the sweet. By the late afternoon we were ready to disembark. We had sailed as far up the beach as we could and then waited a while for the tide to go out a little further. We then drove down the ramps and were very happy to land on the sand in only a few inches of seawater. We did not after all have to test the waterproofing of our vehicle. We drove off the beach towards some sand dunes. The Army called this Gold Beach, but in reality it was at a place called Arromanches. Our first shock was to immediately find a number of hastily dug graves in the sand dunes with a little crude cross on each. They were all Canadian soldiers killed probably on D-day - just six days earlier. Our next shock was to find ourselves surrounded by notices, each showing the skull and crossbones sign with the warning 'achtung- minen' . This quickly brought us to our senses, and we were determined not to wander off the paths other vehicles had taken before us.

On the horizon, less than five miles away, the sky was blood red and there was a continuous booming as our big guns were pounding the enemy. This went on hour after hour with no respite. From dusk onwards, all around there was tracer fire, where the Germans were firing at our aircraft. Quite frequently there was a sound like a tube train rushing through a tunnel. This was immediately overhead, and probably caused by shells fired by our ships out at sea, or maybe they were coming from the Germans. So long as they were passing overhead, we had no cause for worry. We had to set up a communications service by radio, telephone and dispatch riders where needed. The night sky was constantly lit upas the Allied big guns never stopped firing, and for days we had very little sleep.

The day following our landing we checked through our equipment and made radio contact with other groups around. There were soldiers of all sorts of units everywhere and suddenly news went around that there was free cider available at a bar just up the road. Of course, at the first opportunity we paid a visit, to find that for sure, we could have as many pints of cider as we could drink, but it was so rough and sour that after just one mouthful all the rest of my first pint finished up on the ground. Maybe it was just as well.

The next day we moved on and found signs of battle all around us, burnt out tanks, bren carriers, lorries, mostly German but also British. In modern warfare the dead and injured are removed from the field of battle very quickly, but not so with the animals. There were many dead horses and cattle lying in the fields. Some were already bloated and on their backs with their legs sticking up in the air.

As we moved on, one of the sights engraved on my memory were the tracks made by the tanks. They did not travel on the roads where they would have caused too much damage, but they drove on the other side of the hedges on the left of the road. They made what looked like a black mud road about thirty yards wide, alongside the proper road with the hedges in between. The tracks went on and on, without a detour of any kind, flattening hedges and anything else that was in the way. It was a most impressive sight and one I shall never forget.

A few miles along this road we turned off into a field and made radio contact with other units around. We also pitched several tents, as we were to stay here for a few days. Later that day, two of us wandered off to save a look around, because I had noticed a very unpleasant smell. We soon found out what was the cause. Lying in the middle of a very small pond in the next field, was the bloated body of a horse. It was swollen up as if it would burst and I foolishly thought that if I put a bullet in it the whole belly of the horse would collapse. It looked like a balloon that if punctured would let all the air out, but of course this did not happen, and after two bullets I realised there was nothing I could do about it. The smell continued to worry us, but we had to put up with it and try to forget it.

Our next stop was just outside Bayeux. It did not seem to be too badly damaged. In the centre was a small round building that used to house the famous 'Bayeux Tapestry'. Because of the war it had been removed to a place of safety, which I believe was in England. All we saw was a replica, drawn on thick paper or cardboard, but it was nevertheless quite interesting. Not that we had much time to think about it because we were almost immediately off again. In front of us the guns were still booming and every now and again the shells overhead sounded like express trains in a tunnel. About this time we heard and saw the first of the V1 German flying bombs. There were a lot of them and on at least two occasions we heard them overhead and then almost immediately turn round and go back from whence they had come.

There was tracer fire going up into the night sky all around us, and it may have been this that upset their mechanism and reversed their normal direction. Mostly of course, they flew on straight over us as they were programmed to fall on London.

One day a Spitfire was shot down immediately in front of me. It was less than a quarter of a mile away and it came down in a nosedive and exploded on hitting the ground. I could see clearly the full width and length of the wings with both roundels and the open cockpit. It was a frightening sight but it only lasted a few seconds. Then I saw the pilot was coming down by parachute. He seemed to be struggling with the parachute cords and I thought at the time that the Germans were firing at him and he was trying to change direction so as to come down within our lines.

The next day around midday we were collecting some tins of beef stew when there was a tremendous explosion seemingly in our midst. We all hastily lay down on the ground as we had been taught but surprisingly nobody was hurt. There had been many shells overhead but this was the first to land close to us and for some time we were fearful of another one coming over. Fortunately there were no more.

We moved on to a farm that was unoccupied. There were various outbuildings in addition to the farmhouse itself and in one large shed there were hundreds of carpenters' tools. They were in very good condition and we were tempted to take some of then, but how could we carry them? Over the next few weeks we moved into a number of other farms and found other sheds full of tools and farm implements. Some of the farms nearby were still occupied and if they were, on a number of occasions, we knocked on the doors and asked in our best French -'des oeux s'il vous
plait' . It was always a woman who answered the door and they never said a word. They just disappeared for a moment and always came back with eggs, sometimes four and sometimes six. What the chaps who could not speak a word of French said I do not know but I guess just the word eggs had just the same effect.

On two nights me and one of the other chaps crept into a chicken house on a nearby farm. The chickens were roosting and were very quiet - only a little rustling noise as we grabbed the nearest one and made off. On the second occasion we did not kill the chicken very efficiently and we decided we would not do it again. We enjoyed eating the chickens but it was unnecessary and not very clever.

We were four hours on duty and four off and also alternate nights, so we were not sleeping too well. We were in tents, but on the ground and constantly moving. We progressed bit by bit towards Caen, which was not captured until July. We went through it and saw how badly damaged it was. We then drove through what was called the Falaise Gap and one village we passed through had been so completely destroyed that it had been bulldozed down flat and made into a large crossroads. There was literally nothing left standing at all.

All this time we had suffered from having Scottish cooks. Every morning there was porridge available but they always put salt in it making it for some of us virtually uneatable. Fortunately, even these cooks could not spoil the tins of beef stew we ate daily and were our main means of sustenance.

It was now almost at the end of August and I had been in Normandy for nearly three months. One evening I joined a dispatch rider and two others on a Jeep trip through to Divisional headquarters. Unfortunately, when travelling round a bend at speed, the offside wheel cane off. Apparently the tow chain had been dislodged from the back of the Jeep and came down on the wheel, cutting through the axle as would a knife through butter. All four of us were thrown out on to the road and subsequently taken to a Field hospital by ambulance. The following day I was flown back to England in a Dakota plane. All of us on the plane were on stretchers, the door to the cockpit was left open the whole way, and it was an incredibly noisy and bumpy flight. We were then put on a train and taken to a hospital in Swindon. Two days after arriving at the hospital I received a telegram from Eileen saying that our daughter Jacqueline had been born. After nearly a fortnight in Swindon I was taken by road to Cardigan in South Wales to a convalescent home. It was two weeks of pure luxury and then I was sent home to see our daughter for the first time ever and Eileen for nearly four months.

I was on fourteen days leave and then had to report back to Dover, en route to rejoining my unit, which during my absence had advanced right through to Paris and beyond. I went by boat from Dover to Calais and then by several short trips, and eventually I caught up with my section which had by that time reached a position in North Belgium close to the Dutch border. We were billeted in some quite good barracks and had a good cafe, where we could buy tea and coffee and cakes.

It was about this time that if we looked north into the far distance we could see the spiral vapour trails of the V2 bombs which the Germans were targeting on London, from sites in the north of Holland.

I was now working in large teleprinter lorries. Each lorry had eight teleprinters in it. The chaps working them were very fast indeed. I was in charge of one unit and of course took the opportunity of using the machines myself. I did get very fast but could never match the speeds of the trained operators. The static electricity on the lorries was so great that every time we went up the steps into the lorries and touched the handrail we received quite a severe shock. In fact, one of the chaps working on another teleprinter lorry died after getting a shock. We presumed he must have had a weak heart.

We stayed in this area for the rest of the winter, during which time the Germans made a last desperate attempt to break through the Allied lines, in what was called the 'battle of the bulge' I remember that the battery in our little radio failed and we found out that the Philips Factory in Eindhoven, Holland, was less than fifty miles away. The next day I set off on a motorbike and after finding the factory without much trouble, I bought a new battery.

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