DURING the last few days of conflict it seemed the enemy fired everything they had at us; it was like Normandy all over again with some very, very near misses.
At one point before the official surrender cam e, I was reconnoitering the area on my motorcycle just north of Ede at Veenendaal and ran into the town square of Wedderveen.
This was still occupied by the Germans and it was a scary and very disturbing feeling to see fully armed enemy troops in the square, totally ignoring my presence. I stopped there for about five minutes then decided not to chance it any longer. I returned to Ede and the unit moved off eastwards to the German border.
When the German surrender finally came, at the time we now celebrate as VE Day, I was with my unit at the 219 Battery HQ that had been set up in a farmyard just inside Holland on the Dutch-German border.
I remember it being very quiet and a few officers sitting around, probably having a few drinks. Several of the blokes wanted to set off a few rounds in celebration but the officers put a stop to that.
After a few more days our unit moved east into Germany and Iremember seeing the road sign for a place called Hitler.
We then moved on to Osnabruck where we sleppt on a deserted railway station platform. It was here that a notice was pinned up informing us that arms collected from the Germans were to be reissued to them to resist Russian attacks!
This was an unbelievable thing to witness: after all the Russians, and we, had gone through in the last your years as allies!
This is absolutely true and I wonder who issued such an order, and why at that moment?
It was, I think, New Years Day 1945 and I was doing a duty-watch on top of the fort when a German jet fighter plane came swooping over the road dbridge and along the river.
It flew past the fort at the same height as my position and at breathtaking speed; the pilot was easily seen. The jet followed the course of the river in the direction of the German border until soaring skywards. This was the first jet I had seen: if they had had these in Normandyit would have been a different story.
On this day the Luftwaffe had launched a tremendous attack – including the use of jet aircraft – on allied installations and to gain air superiority. The operation was codenamed Bodenplatte (Baseplate): the operation failed in it’s objective but the sight of a jet fighter was most impressive.
Shortly after this I was lucky that my name was drawn from a ‘unit raffle’ to have a week’s leave at home in the UK. My home in Malpas Road, London at that time in January 1945 was under bombardment by V2 rockets and had recently sustained damage from a nearby V2 explosion.
So I had switched from avoiding the shelling from the Arnhem area to an Anderson air raid shelter in the garden for a week!
THE 49th Division continued it’s advance, overcoming strong resistance in the area of the town of Poppel. Dates, days and times usually meant very little at the time, but the date of Sunday 18th September cannot be forgotten as the sky was filled with planes and gliders.
Each of these was filled with paratroopers on their way to capture the bridges across the major obstacles of the River Waal at Nijmegan, the River Neder Rein at Arnhem and the town of Arnhem itself. This was to ecome known as Operation Market Garden (made famous in the film A Bridge Too Far – Ed.).
The main allied land forces were to launch a huge simultaneous attack to link up with the paratroppers by going through the twons of Valkenswaard, Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem and then on to the industrial area of the Ruhr in Germany. Things did not go to plan and the attack was practically halted after some miles by the enemy holding the very few approach roads and bridge crossings of the numerous small rivers and canals. Allied attack movement then became West and East as well as North; all being hampered by the very wet weather and approaching winter.
When Brussels was liberated some troops were given a short peiod of leave; usually two days and staying in an Army hostel. One day I had to pick up one of our men returning from Brussels at a nearby railway station and take him back to his unit; the next day he was killed. this particular death still haunts me. His name was Arthur Brown; he is buried at Bergen op Zoom in Holland and I have visited there a few times, post war.
The Germans were still resisting strongly in many areas. In one village we came under a good deal of shelling by their heavy artillery; the dreaded 88mm gun.
the 88 could fire shells at speeds far greater than the speed of sound so that the firing and explosion of the shell almost occurred together, giving no time to take cover.
One one occassion an 88mm shell landed about 23 feet from me, crouching behind my motorcycle; fortunately the blast did not come in my direction,
Soon after this I was given two days leave in Brussels. The city didn’t appeared damaged and I was able to get into the Palais des Beaux Arts and liten to the Scottish National Orchestra. It was so good to hear music again!
The tide was fairly high as the landing craft headed towards the beach. There were a few tall houses behind the beach and a sea wall with a gap leading inland.
We had all been issued with lifebelts; these were semi-circular in design and tied around the waste. After beaching from our landing craft we discarded the lifebelts in heaps piled up by the sea wall. I shudder to think how useless these ‘lifebelts’ would have been in the sea.
The area of our disembarkation was designated as Gold Beach. The precise area, I believe, was designated as Gold Beach King Red, an area between La Riviere and Asnells and in front of the village or Ver-sur-Mer; the track I believe we took is now called the Rue de 50th Division.
There were some damaged seafront houses, but fortunately they had no enemy in them, although I still felt a bit exposed on my BSA M20 motorcycle (Ed Note: Tony was Battery HQ despatch rider).
From the beach we continued to move some hundreds of yards in convoy until reaching the Ouistreham – Arromanches road. We then crossed over that road and, skirting the town of Ver-sur-Mer, we continued along a track where two dead German soldiers still lay in a ditch by the roadside; this was quite a sobering sight.
Naturally we became a little more cautious as we advanced further inland, and at the top of a field about 300 yards further on we halted in a small wooded area.
On dismounting my motorcycle I unslung my Sten gun from my shoulder and stood it down between my legs. At this point I heard the slight click of the breech block moving back under the impact of standing it down, which had been sufficient to push a bullet into the barrel.
Fortunately the impact had not been quite hard enough to cause the gun to fire, but in inspection the firing pin had actually made a small dent in the base of the bullet’s percussion cap. The gun had been set for rapid fire, which would have meant the whole magazine of 28 9mm bullets being fired – another lucky escape!
I can recall another incident where a Sten gun became caught in some camouflage netting resulting in the death of a comrade. There were many incidents and deaths with the Sten gun until a simple modification was made enabling the breech block to be safely secured.
The Regiment left the east coast on the night of 4/5th June for the West India Docks in London.
On arrival I knew that my home was just a few miles away on the other side of the River Thames. I realised that by scrambling over the dock wall I might be able to return home to see Helen before embarking for France, so I climbed over the wall and landed in the garden of a small house.
The woman who was living there said: ‘Come through, and when you come back I’ll let you back in to the garden’.
I ran all the way through the pedestrian tunnel under the Thames and managed to reach home, only to find an empty house – my wife and her mother had gone to the cinema! Fortunately they returned just before I had to make the return journey, where I once again scrambled over the dock wall. Fortunately I had not been misssed – very lucky!
We embarked on 7th June aboard the SS Fort McPherson and sailed down the Thames Estuary to a salute of hooters and sirens.
On the way over to France there was a submarine alert during the evening but no attack took place. However during the night the ship was attacked by planes.
At first there were some near misses but these were followed by a tremendous shudder as the ship was hit by a large remotely guided bomb. The bomb had penetrated the ship but failed to explode. I like to think the resistance movement had sabotaged the bomb.
The wings of the missile-like bomb were sheared off, revealing masses of wiring cabes that appeared to be attached to it.
The ship stopped and destroyers stood nearby while the bomb was defused. I watched as this missile was hoisted up and lowered over board; it appeared to be a massive size of about 14 feet.
Our ship’s steering gear had been damaged by the impact and the ship delayed, but was soon able to continue on to France by going round in circles.
Standing off shore the ship was attacked again, with many more near misses. Eventually landing craft pulled alongside us and we scrambled down the nets into the landing craft and we were beached at Ver-sur-Mer.
To my amazement the pilot of the landing craft taking me ashore turned out to be a man called Jackie Legge, who had been one of my next door neighbours at home – what a fantastic coincidence!
DURING the summer of 1940 I spent a few days with my sister Beattie and her husband CHarles at their home in Chipstead in Kent.
I recall very clearly witnessing the dog fights between the RAF and their Spitfires and Hurricanes and the German fighters as the air battles of what we now know as The Battle of Britain played out.
I stood and watched as the planes whirled round and round each other and the bursts of their machine gun fire could be clearly heard.
In September 1940 our house at 12 Holmshaw Road and several others were destroyed in a night air raid.
This included my grandmother’s house at number 10, the Hargreaves family at number 8, Mr and Mrs Ashleigh’s house at number 6, Mrs Woodham’s at number 4 and numbr 2, which I recall was an empty shop on the corner of the street; all these were destroyed.
In the other direction, our next door neighbours at number 14 were the Legge family, who were also made homeless that night. Jackie Legge, who was a little older than me, by strange coincidence would turn out to be the pilot of the landing craft that took me ashore in France following D Day.
Fortunately, at the time of the air raid we were sheltering in the Anderson Shelter in our back garden; thankfully there were no casualties in our family.
The next day we relocated to a different house in Byne Road, Upper Sydenham.
THE air raids and bombing around this time had a profound effect on my father, who had been badly affected by his experiences on the Somme during the First World War.
Now, with the recent loss of our home, he had a terrible reaction to the bombing. Each day before the anticipated air raids he had a compulsion to get to the safety of the deep caves at Chislehurst.
I can remember walking with him almost every day from our home in Byne Roda to Penge High Street where he would catch the 227 bus that would take hin to Chislehurst and safety. It is also worth noting that during the First World War both of his parents and three sisters had been killed in a bombing raid. Also, his brother Walter had been killed while fighting in France in 1916. Little wonder then that he had such a reaction to what must have seemed to hom a never-ending cycle of horror.
In North Africa there were battles between the 8th Army and the German Afrika Corps. My older brother Ted was at this time serving in North Africa and was reported missing.
This was an anxious time, although later we had news that he was confirmed as a Prisoner of War. He was transported from North Africa through Italy and into Germany. He would remain in captivity in Stalag 344 until the end of the war in Europe in 1945.
HELEN
IT was during this period I met Helen West, the daughter of one of my customers. Helen had dark hair and lovely brown eyes; we grradually got to speak and know each other.
Helen was a court dressmaker before the war, but of course most trades like those simply folded when the war started. Helen was then directed to work with the Co-operative Bakery, delivering bread.
This was certainly a contrast to her former work but she really enjoyed it. Initially the bread was delivered by hand cart but later on Helen had a horse and cart, so Helen and I had similar jobs for a time.
We saw each other most days: cinema going, cycling and visiting friends, etc, all of this during the times of day and night air raids.
CALL UP and MARRIAGE
In January 1942 on my 19th birthday I received my call-up papers for the Army to train as an Anti-Tank gunner at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire. During this time one or two periods of leave were granted and I would return home to see Helen.
Of course we discussed the future and the chances of survival, and we decided if possible to get married in the August of 1942. Helen and I were married on the 19th of August 1942. I was 19 and Helen just 21.
