Troop Leader E-Book

Bill Bellamy

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 392

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Bill Bellamy was a young officer in the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars from 1943 to 1955. He served in 7th Armoured Division in the North West Europe campaign, landing in Normandy on D+3, fought throughout the Battle for Normandy and into the Low Countries as a troop leader in Cromwell tanks, and was latterly a member of the initial occupying force in Berlin in May 1945. Against the rules, Bill kept diaries and notes of his experiences. His account is fresh and open, and his descriptions of battle are vivid. He witnessed many of his contemporaries killed in action, and this life-altering experience clearly informs his narrative. The accounts of tank fighting in the leafy Normandy bocage in the height of summer, or in the iron hard fields of Holland in winter, are graphic and compelling.

Leseprobe

Troop

Leader

Troop

Leader

A TANK COMMANDER’S STORY

BILL BELLAMY

Foreword by

Richard Holmes

First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by Sutton Publishing Limited

Paperback edition first published in 2007

The History PressThe Mill, Brimscombe PortStroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Bill Bellamy, 2005, 2013

The right of Bill Bellamy to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9561 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Foreword

Preface

  1    From School to Regiment

  2    Transport Troop, A Squadron

  3    3 Troop, A Squadron

  4    Battle in the Bocage

  5    Battle of Caen Plains – Operation Goodwood

  6    Battle of Mont Pinçon

  7    The Breakout to Belgium

  8    Holland and the Corridor

  9    The Maas, Dutch Winter

10    St Joost, Hospital in England

11    Hamburg, Hostilities End

12    Recce Troop, HQ Squadron, Berlin

Foreword

I have always enjoyed writing,’ observes Bill Bellamy at the start of this book, and it shows in the pages that follow. His account of life in the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars is a masterpiece of military history in the minor key. He is not preoccupied with big battles or great generals, but with the day-to-day minutiae of a tank regiment in North-West Europe in 1944–5. It is an affectionate snapshot of the army of sixty years ago, and also a penetrating insight into the age-old alchemy that binds men together in the claustrophobic world of the tank troop and armoured vehicle crew.

The recurrent themes, never laboured but always there, are decency and duty. Bill Bellamy went from public school to the army as a private soldier at the age of eighteen. Once trained, he went to Sandhurst, where he learnt ‘very little of technical or tactical value’, but imbibed a ‘philosophy of duty’ which put others first. He just managed to join his regiment in North Africa before it came back to England for D-Day. After landing on Gold Beach he spent the first weeks of the campaign responsible for his squadron’s transport, leading trucks full of fuel and ammunition forward at night through the bocage south of Bayeux.

Soon given a troop of Cromwell tanks to command, he fell under the spell of his squadron leader, ‘a demi-god, totally unflappable and always prepared to listen’, and the inevitable intimacies of life inside a steel hull brought him close to the men he commanded. Death plucked away his comrades, and the rough little realities of war made their mark. Dust, funnelled in through a tank’s few apertures, gave crewmen conjunctivitis; piercing sunlight and frequent use of binoculars brought temporary blindness; and the half-crushed body of a German at a crossroads gave a sense of ‘revulsion and sacrilege …’.

Having been involved in Operation Goodwood and the fighting around Mont Pinçon, Bill Bellamy took part in the great sweep into Belgium, which ended in wintry stalemate on the Dutch border. Although worldly wise in many ways, he remained naïve in others. News of his Military Cross was followed by a party, but when his landlady came and sat on his bed he did not quite realise that she was ‘offering to complete my evening in the traditional way!’ And he no longer looked the smart cavalry officer: ‘I wore pyjamas under my underclothes, a thick shirt and sweater, corduroy trousers and that marvellous fur-collared American jacket.’ His mother was killed by one of the first V2 rockets to hit London, but hatred for the Germans was soon blunted by the sight of the ruins of Hamburg and, after the war had ended, by the suffering of the population of Berlin, where ‘life was cheap’.

This memoir gives affectionate sketches of the characters that no regiment, then or now, can be complete without, like the decorated trooper who greeted him with the irreverent exclamation: ‘Cor, f——g schoolboys now,’ the debonair captain with ‘sleek black hair well buttered back,’ and the ‘solid and capable’ Bill Pritchard, doyen of troop sergeants. It speaks volumes about the British army at the end of a long war – and about British soldiers across so much of history.

Richard Holmes

Preface

I have always enjoyed writing. As a child, and later at boarding school, this took the form of essays and poetry. When I went into the Army at the end of 1941, I continued this practice and wrote accounts of my experiences almost as they happened, a habit which continues to this day. These, together with notes, maps and photographs, were tucked away in a box which I retained when Ann and I were married in 1950. For the first forty years or so, I didn’t want to think about the war, but some time after I had retired the box came out of the attic and down to my office.

My wife suggested that I should put the material into book form and give copies to our family, both as a record of my early years in the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars and of my participation in the campaign that took place in north-west Europe in 1944–5. I did so, and produced a few copies of a book which I called ‘Schoolboy’s War’ on my computer. In the event it proved an interesting exercise. It recalled, in a very special way, a most exciting period of my life and made me realise how fortunate I was to have survived, when so many of my friends perished. I was very lucky.

It is by its nature a very personal account, perhaps rather naïve, but then I was quite young. Apart from correcting several minor mistakes and expanding one or two points for the sake of clarity, the book is exactly as written shortly after the events which it describes took place.

I owe special thanks to my wife, who was a constant source of encouragement; to Alan Howard, who served alongside me as my Troop Corporal and was a valuable source of information; to Major Bill Best, our LAD officer, for the free use of his library of war photographs. It is a great shame that none of these is alive now to see it published.

I am also deeply grateful to Professor Richard Holmes who has not only been most encouraging but also has written the Foreword, and to the staff at Sutton Publishing who have been such a pleasure to work with.

Bill Bellamy

ONE

From School to Regiment

Stick to your original ambition, my boy,’ said my father, ‘join the Royal Navy! Make a career of it.’ He was visiting me at my school, Blackfriars, Laxton, making me the envy of my peers. He was an heroic figure to us, having recently escaped from France via Brest. At that time he was camp commandant of 1st Armoured Division and was completing his embarkation leave before departing once more, this time for Egypt. I saw him positively blossom in wartime. He had served in France in 1918, loved all that was military, and had rejoined the Army in 1938. I longed to follow his example and ‘join up’. My constant prayer was that the war would not finish before I was old enough to fight.

My final term at Blackfriars was a busy one, I was head prefect, captain of the rugby team, patrol leader of the Owl Patrol, and a lance corporal in the Wakerley and Barrowden Home Guard. At the same time I was, theoretically, attempting to get enough passes in the Higher Certificate to allow me to read history at Peterhouse. I found it very difficult to concentrate on anything except the war, which at this time was going very badly for the Allies. My mother and grandmother lived together in Shepherds Bush, West London. The bombing was intensifying and there were concerns over their safety. My mother, a dress designer, had been given war work and appointed to assist in the distribution of meat to the ships in the Thames. Her places of work were Smithfield Market and the London docks, both being the most heavily bombed areas. I took to going to Mass at 6 every morning, followed by a 4-mile run and a cold shower. This was intended to make me fit both spiritually and physically.

In October 1941, my father left for the Middle East with 1st Armoured Division. On hearing this I reported to the recruiting office in Northampton and volunteered for the RAF. The newspapers at that time were full of heartwarming stories about heroic pilots, and I was impatient to become one of them. In the event, it appeared that everyone else had the same desire and there were no vacancies. I was very downcast, but remembering my father’s words, went along to the Royal Navy stand. At this stage of the war one still had, to some degree anyway, the opportunity to choose in which arm of the services one wished to serve. For some inexplicable reason, when I got there I wasn’t attracted to the Royal Navy, and wandered on past the other recruiting stands. One, with pictures of the tanks in the Desert War, caught my eye. I hesitated there, and immediately a very smart sergeant buttonholed me and asked me if I was interested in the Royal Armoured Corps. I told him about my father and asked if I would be allowed to join him in the 1st Armoured Division. ‘Very easy, laddie,’ said the sergeant, ‘as you have a father in the tanks [which he wasn’t] you can go straight to the Armoured Training Regiment and in six months you’ll be able to go out to Egypt.’ On that promise, forgetting about the Royal Navy, I signed up.

On my eighteenth birthday my ‘call up’ papers came, accompanied by a railway warrant and instructions to report to the 58th Training Regiment (RAC) at Bovington Camp in Dorset. It was Christmas 1941.

In some respects, life in the Army was school all over again, except that my fellow troopers came from all walks of life. I soon learned that it was not always those with the purest of accents who were the most reliable. On our first evening, still dressed in ‘civvies’, we all went rather shyly to the NAAFI canteen. We sat in a ‘rookies’ block, overawed by the hairy old sweats around us, some of whom, I found out later, had joined only a few days before us. We exchanged names and I met ‘Tiny’ Williams, ‘Lefty’ Thompson, ‘Chalky’ White, ‘Butch’ Kemp, ‘Sooty’ Chapman, ‘Halifax’ (from that town), Charlie, Winch, Fred, Alf and so on. I was paralysed as my turn approached. My given names were ‘Lionel Gale’ and I was known by my relations as ‘Boy’. I didn’t feel that any of these were appropriate to a soldier, but at short notice, my mind couldn’t rise above ‘Bill’, so I announced that as my name and I have retained it happily to this day.

It was one of my father’s maxims that if you were asked to volunteer for something then you responded in the affirmative and did your best. I found out very quickly that this was totally opposite to the instructions passed on to their sons by all the other ‘dads’. However, it landed me with a lot of jobs, some dull, some interesting. I peeled spuds for the Sergeants’ Mess, swept the square for Church Parade, learned some of the intricacies of the camp drains, served drinks in the Officers’ Mess (narrowly avoiding becoming a permanent mess waiter) and so on. During this first month I spent my life square-bashing, polishing my equipment and stripping my rifle for inspections. It was not a very exciting time. However, at the end of one of our interminable drill parades the sergeant asked for a volunteer driver. On several occasions I had driven my father’s Ford 8 in Wicksteed Park, Kettering, and so I stepped forward. I was then instructed to collect the Scammell recovery truck from the fitters’ shop and take it to the Driving and Maintenance Wing in the Main Camp by 0630hrs the following morning. I was numbed by the order, as we had been shown a Scammell and I had the distinct impression that it stood about 10 feet high to the driving platform.

I didn’t sleep much that night and at about 0530 hrs I got up, made up my blankets and in pitch darkness stumbled through the camp to find this monster. I clambered up the steps into the cab and fumbled with the various switches. Eventually a small light came on which I presumed was the ignition. I heaved the great gear lever into what I hoped was neutral and then as I could find no self-starter, I engaged the starting handle at the front under the radiator. I found that it was too stiff for me to turn, so locking it in a horizontal position I stood on it and pushed and jumped with all my force. My guardian angel must have been working overtime, as although the engine turned over with a wheezy slurping noise, it did not fire. If it had done so, I have no doubt that the starting handle would have broken both of my legs. I climbed back into the cabin, pulled out a few more knobs, and then tried the handle again, this time by hand. Suddenly the engine roared into life, throwing me half way across the garage, and the Scammell stood there pulsating and ready to go.

After several false starts we jerked our way out of the garage, turned into the main road through the camp and ground our way through the crowds of recruits on their way to Mess Hall. I felt like a king! As we approached the main gates of our camp, which led out on to the main Bovington–Wool road, I prayed that I wouldn’t have to stop. Luckily the regimental policeman opened up the barrier and let me straight through. I crossed the main road in first gear at a majestic 5 miles per hour, and was avoided with great difficulty by a black-bereted officer driving a very elegant Austin 7. He finished up on the grass verge astride a drainage ditch.

At this moment the gates of the D & M Wing opened as if by magic and I juddered through, ground to a halt by the side of the first garage I could find, and ran back towards my own unit. As I reached the gates a very angry officer from the Royal Tank Regiment stopped me. ‘Are you the idiot who was driving that Scammell?’ he asked. ‘Yes, sir’ I replied, standing stiffly to attention. ‘Why the hell didn’t you stop at the main road junction?’ the officer continued. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, when something stopped me and I remained mute. He then reviewed, in fair detail, my back-ground, breeding, capabilities, likely career as a sanitary orderly, etc! When there was a pause in the ranting, I apologised for my stupidity. He seemed a little taken aback at that and, after one of the amused guards and I had helped him to extract his car and lift it back on to the road, he dismissed me.

At Christmas I had received a postcard from my father indicating that he was in Durban, and it was with surprise that some three weeks later, I had War Office notification that he was posted as missing. However, three months later, in March 1942, I learned that he had been taken prisoner by the Germans and, although wounded, was alive and well. Later I found out that he was captured at Agedabya, where Rommel almost destroyed the 1st Armoured Division. Apparently he and his general swapped cars, and my father then drove across the desert in the staff car flying the command flag. He told me that he felt very important as the German armoured cars turned to chase him; that was, until they opened up with their machine-guns! Happily, the general escaped unscathed.

A few months later, I was learning how to drive a Covenanter tank, taking my turn with the rest of my troop, when the same officer from the Royal Tank Regiment appeared and watched for a short time. He then came over and, calling me out of the ranks, told my sergeant that I was to report to the Main Camp as a relief driver on the tank reliability trial that was being mounted that week. I was, for five days, second driver on a Valentine tank, which, in common with all the other known types, Churchills (with a 2-pounder gun), Covenanters, Crusaders, Honeys, Shermans, Grants etc., were to be driven, night and day, round a mixed road and cross country course. It was a reliability trial. We completed approximately 1,000 miles together. I contracted diesel oil poisoning and erupted in sores which, as was the custom of the army medical units in those days, were treated with gentian violet. The sores rubbed on the rough material of my battledress and greatcoat. I looked and felt a great mass of violet coloured sepsis and just wanted to hide. However, it was the time of our Passing Out Parade, we had now qualified as soldiers, and we were sent on five days leave. My mother was horrified; I was not attractive to go out with, and although the sores were improving rapidly, I was not unhappy to leave London and return to camp. On my return I found that I had been promoted to Provisional Unpaid Lance Corporal and selected as a potential officer. Later I passed my Commissions Board, and was posted to Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet. It was August 1942.

On arrival at Sandhurst, I was posted to 24 Troop, quickly known as ‘The Lords Troop’ because it contained so many cadets with titles. I was in ‘C’ Section, commanded by Captain Julian Ward of the Household Cavalry. Training, under the eagle eye of our sergeant major, Mr Leckie of the Irish Guards, was hard, discipline on the square positively cruel and the level of ‘bullshit’ required, in terms of both personal kit and the rooms which we occupied, little short of ridiculous. However, we cooperated with enthusiasm and worked very hard at everything they gave us to do. Unfortunately, our exposure to armoured vehicles, gunnery, wireless and driving was minimal. Our exercises were carried out in trucks or on foot, and looking back on it all, we learned very little of technical or tactical value. Most of our troop, having come straight from school or university, had no previous experience to fall back on and I found that on technical matters, having been to a training regiment first, I knew more than most of my colleagues. Despite my boredom and frustration with the drill, the polishing and the scrubbing, I put my heart into it all and undoubtedly left Sandhurst with a more informed and adult approach to problems and their solution.

One of my greatest friends at this time was a fellow cadet, George Atkinson-Willes, whose stepfather, Brigadier John Van der Byl DSO, had commanded the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars after the First World War. He vetted likely officer recruits for that regiment. George asked which regiment I wished to join and I explained that I wanted to join one which was out in the Middle East and fighting. He invited me to meet the brigadier and I visited him at his large Victorian house in Camberley. He was a kindly old gentleman and, having accepted a fellow cadet, Philip de May, and me as potential officers in the 8th Hussars, invited us to take tea with him at his house every week. He taught us a great deal about the regiment, its traditions and its glorious history. He instilled into me a sense of being a part of this, and I still retain that sense to this day, even though I was finally invalided out of the regiment in 1955. I learnt a lot while I was at Sandhurst, but perhaps the most important lesson of all was that to fail in duty was a dishonour to yourself, your comrades, your regiment and your country. In fact, if the chips were down, then the lives of your soldiers were more valuable than your own. It follows that what some may consider as bravery is in fact the enact-ment of this philosophy of duty.

I worked hard and strove to gain the Sword of Honour for my regiment. In the event and quite rightly it went to ‘Poppa’ badge. Gowan, an elder statesman of perhaps thirty years old, who had a good effect on us all and was a stabilising influence throughout the course. My mother was invited to the Passing Out Parade. She arrived in a stunning hat and dress that defied the war. Despite the cold March day, her ever-present illness – she suffered from myasthenia gravis – and her worry that her only child was now likely to have to join the fighting, she brought joy to the event.

After the Passing Out Parade, we all celebrated with ‘tea and a wad’ in the Old Building. During this party, Captain Ward came over and asked if that pretty woman really was my mother. He then told her that I had been a runner-up for the Sword of Honour. We both believed him, and I know that she felt very proud of me. Looking back on it, perhaps he said that to all the pretty mothers!

It was 15 March 1943 and I left with her to start my first leave as an officer, dressed in the finery of a cornet in the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars. We spent the week together. My first Paddy’s Day (17 March) in the regiment, was spent in Chiswick, with a special lunch of liver, off ration, given to her by colleagues at Smithfield market.

At the end of my leave I reported to the 9th Battalion of the Royal West Kents in Pontefract, as an Assistant Armoured Training Officer. During the train journey north I was sitting opposite an elderly lady, who after some hesitation asked me whether I, as a Polish officer, was enjoying my new life in England. I assured her that I was. It was not the last time that the green and gold tent hat worn by officers in the regiment has been a source of amusement in this way.

I was made very welcome by the Royal West Kents. We did little training, as there was no actual equipment on site, but we had a week at Kirkcudbright Ranges learning some tank gunnery, and did a lot of lorry maintenance. Sleeping, as the officers did, in the jockeys’ training room in the grandstand of Pontefract racecourse, I couldn’t fail to learn a lot about racing. Happily, meetings were still held there during the war and we had to evacuate our room while the racing was on. I was given some very good tips, as well as some very bad ones, but all in all it was good fun. We certainly learned to realise how unimportant we all were when the question of our comfort conflicted with the demands of the racing fraternity.

In June, I was posted to the Manchester Regiment in Otley pending overseas posting. This came promptly and I was ordered to liaise with my fellow cadet from Sandhurst, Philip de May, and together we were to proceed to North Africa to join the regiment. We were both granted a week’s leave and I visited my old school on the way south.

Arriving unexpectedly at my aunt’s house in Kettering, I found my father there. He had been wounded on capture and had been exchanged in Turkey for a boatload of ‘mad Italians’ (his phrase). After a few weeks convalescence in Cairo, he had been flown home, and his new temporary job was to travel the country giving pep talks to factory workers. He was not very pleased. I enjoyed his account of meeting Rommel, who treated him with great chivalry after his capture, and of the pride with which the Germans presented Major de Patourel with his VC at a parade in Camp 35, Naples, where they were both incarcerated. We spent the remainder of my embarkation leave together in London.

Philip and I met at the RTO’s Office in King’s Cross station. His air of confidence and calm was very reassuring, and I found in him the ideal companion for so complex a journey. We were each put in charge of a group of soldiers, were allocated carriages and after a long, hot and airless train journey in the dark, arrived at the dockside in Glasgow. We commenced embarkation immediately on to the passenger ship Cameronia, a vessel of, I believe, some 18,000 tons. We sailed next day and were astonished to find how narrow the River Clyde was at that point. It was a brilliant cloudless summer day and we could almost touch the gangs of ship-workers building ships all along the riverside. The preponderance of them were women, and they cheered and screamed good wishes at us as we went. Very elating to someone as young and impressionable as I was.

The convoy was small and very fast. We sailed out into the Atlantic towards the Americas, were tracked by one of the huge German spotter planes, apparently were chased by U-boats but saw no real excitement. Eventually we turned south and then east, arriving eight days later at Algiers. We disembarked by lighter and then stood in the blazing sunshine on the dockside for a long time. My soldiery were all fairly ancient and experienced men and, after a while, they all began bleating like a flock of sheep. I was unable to restrain them and the bleating spread throughout the dock, to the astonishment of the Arab dockworkers. Within minutes we were moved into the shade and trucked away to various destinations. Another lesson learned.

Two days after landing I contracted amoebic dysentery and was admitted to the general hospital at Maison Carrée, 15 miles to the west of Algiers. Philip came out to see me after a few days and told me that he had wangled two seats on a train to Philippeville, but couldn’t hold them for long. I discharged myself, as my stomach was fairly solid again. I was helped greatly by a very kind Italian orderly who obtained a bottle of ‘Dover’ pills for me, plus a box of condensed milk and tins of Ovaltine. These seemed to stabilise the situation, and off we went by train. We called them ‘Dover’ pills as they looked and tasted like chunks of chalk.

At Philippeville, we were directed to a transit camp in a wadi. It was mountainous country, and very hot and arid. I insisted on pitching my tent well up the hillside so as to catch any breeze that existed, while Philip settled down in the valley itself, closer to the Officers’ Mess. During the night there was a terrible storm, Philip lost his kit and two soldiers were drowned in their sleeping bags as a torrent of water poured down the old river bed. I tried to join the Green Berets there and be trained for Yugoslavia but the regiment, when contacted, signalled ‘No’ and they helped both of us to get another train, this time a local to Constantine.

The railway tunnel that leads to that city follows a circular route through the mountains. Our train was full of Arabs, men and women, with chickens, sheep and fleas in abundance. We were scratching within minutes of setting forth. The train had open carriages with a very old steam engine at the front and, when we entered the tunnel, we, literally, nearly choked to death. We both lay on the floor coughing and gasping as we fought for air. Our Arab companions suffered as much as we did and the cries of the people around us added to the general horror. I think this part of the journey lasted for about 30–45 minutes. On emerging, as soon as we could see again, we were astonished at the wonderful view of Constantine, which crowns a mountain top and is surrounded by deep gorges. These were bridged by two very narrow viaducts, one of which carried the railway. It was an unforgettable sight. We reported to the RTO there and then, having obtained a jerrycan of petrol, went into an unoccupied compartment in a siding, stripped, and washed our clothes and ourselves in petrol. We dried them off in the sun and that killed the majority of the bugs.

In the evening we joined a prisoner of war train routed to Tunis, picking up more prisoners at Medjes-el-Bab on the way. Tunis itself was relatively unscathed by the war. I went to the cathedral for mass and met a charming French priest there who gave me a book on Charles de Foucauld, which I still possess. He introduced us to an American Army major who organised a truck to take us from Tunis, via Sousse, to Sfax, where we were stuck and couldn’t get any further. It was the end of the line in every way. Luckily I made friends with a naval officer and we sailed a felucca together in the harbour. It was a fascinating boat to sail, as you had to gybe to come about. A little different to our 16-foot lobster boat on the Crouch in Essex. There was, I remember, an Italian hospital ship sunk and on its side just under the water in the harbour. One could see right into the cabins. My naval friend introduced us to his number one and, when their destroyer received orders to sail to Tripoli, they took Philip and me with them.

On arrival in Tripoli, we had the good fortune to fall in with some pilots, who flew Dakotas from the El Adem airport thirty miles south-west of Tripoli. After a couple of very hairy parties with them in the city itself, they uplifted us from our quarters and took us out to their mess. I shared a tent on the airfield with an Australian pilot, who smoked half a Woodbine before going to sleep and placed it over the top of a half a bottle of beer. When he awoke in the morning his hand blindly fumbled for the beer bottle and then, having drunk the tepid flat beer, he smoked the butt end of his cigarette. I couldn’t wait to leave. We had two false starts in a Dakota from El Adem, the port engine died on the first and the starboard on the second, and both times we returned to base. On the third all went well until we started to leave the coast for Benghazi, when both engines cut out and we glided to a crash landing on the mud flats near Gabes. Curiously enough, my father had been captured at ‘Marble Arch’ which was nearby. Nobody was hurt, so we returned to El Adem by truck, spending a night at the leave centre in Homs on the way. Next day, with some apprehension, we took off again and this time we made it to Benghazi.

As we left the aircraft we were met by the toughest, most bronzed trooper that I had ever encountered. He was wearing the MM. He got out of his jeep, looked us both up and down two or three times, then said ‘Cor, f——g schoolboys now’, indicated that we should put our kit in the back, and then remained silent until we reached the regimental orderly room. I was mortified. But even more so when it became clear that the adjutant, Jack Ladenburg, was too busy to bother with us. He told us that the regiment had been ordered back to Egypt, and that we were to make our own way there. On arrival in Cairo we were to report to Kasra-Nil Barracks and to find an 8th Hussar officer called Bob Ames. Luckily we were instructed to see Titch Kirkham, the quartermaster, as Philip needed some replacement bedding, and he very kindly sent us in his own truck to the town itself. There we hitched a lift with an American lorry convoy which was just about to leave for the Canal area.

We then enjoyed a fantastic journey along the coasts of Libya and Egypt, and saw clear evidence of the bitter battles that we had read about so often. First Barce, and then Derna with its famous pass, winding tortuously down the mountain side. Terrifying in a 3-ton truck, driven with élan by a black American driver called ‘Nutty’. By the end of the 600-mile journey, I realised how he had got his name. We saw Gazala and spent the night close to Sidi Rezegh where the regiment had so distinguished itself. Then on to Sollum and Buq Buq, Sidi Barrani and a final night halt, this time near Mersa Matruh. The next day was especially interesting as we went through the northern end of the site of the battle of El Alamein, where the great turning point in the war had really started.

As we turned south-west towards Cairo, the road surface improved and the speed of the convoy increased. Much of this road was raised above the level of the surrounding desert, with a fall of some 10 to 15 feet on either side. I was in a 3-ton Dodge truck, my back rubbed raw by constant sweaty friction with the leather seat, and my dysentery was becoming menacing again. Suddenly there was an explosion at the front of the vehicle and we slewed off to the right almost turning over in the process. Our front offside tyre had blown. By a stroke of fate, this blew at the very moment that we reached the only place on our side of the road where trucks could park and where the NAAFI had sited a canteen. Apart from damaging the side of another truck, which we hit as we skidded into the car park, we were only shaken and suffered no injury.

On arrival at Kasra-Nil Barracks in Cairo we reported to Bob. I was sent to the MO for a check up, was given a severe rocket for leaving the hospital in Algiers, and finished up in the 15th Scottish Hospital in Alexandria. When I returned, the regiment was installed in a tented camp at Mena, very close to the Pyramids, and I was posted to A Squadron under Major ‘Piff ’ Threlfall. It was October, and rumours began to circulate that we were to return to England and not go to Italy to rejoin the war. I was shattered by this as I felt certain that it would be all over before I had seen any action. I asked if I could be posted to one of the regiments serving in Italy and received an imperial rocket from Colonel Cuthie Goulburn, my commanding officer. I can only remember the last phrases, which were to the effect that he hadn’t sent for reinforcements in order to wait for three months while they dawdled across Africa, and then found one of them sick on arrival, only to post them to other regiments. The war in Europe, he added, would more than satisfy my war-fever. I kept a low profile from then on until we transhipped to Port Tewfig, were loaded on to a ship by lighters and, with eighty junior officers stacked six bunks high in a small cabin, commenced the journey home.

The voyage had its excitements. Our ship rammed the right-hand side of the Suez Canal. Having been towed clear, we joined a convoy off Port Suez and sailed to Malta, which we saw in the early hours. Then north to Famagusta in Sicily, more ships joined us there and we off-loaded some equipment. There were some excitements from aircraft on the voyage to Gibraltar, but after a day standing off that port the convoy reassembled and swung north towards England. It was early December and by this time the seas were fairly heavy. One of the merchantmen, which was returning to England for repairs, suddenly swung to starboard out of the line and rammed another ship. This split the escort and later that night, depth charges exploded alongside our ship as a German submarine attempted to run through the convoy. By this time, I had recurrent dysentery again and collapsed. I ended up in the ship’s hospital where they found that I had also contracted a severe case of jaundice. Clearly the heat did not suit my metabolism.

When we arrived in Liverpool I was still too ill to walk and went ashore on a stretcher. Apparently my friends stuffed a load of dutiable goods under the blankets, recovering them as we left customs. The stretcher bearers complained about my weight so there must have been a lot of it! I was taken to Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool where I stayed until being discharged on 14 January 1944. The staff of that hospital were kindness itself and despite the fact that no one from my family was able to visit me, they made my stay there, including Christmas, a time which I recall with great pleasure.

I left the hospital on a Friday, and travelled down by train to my grandmother’s house in Chiswick, with the intention of taking a week’s convalescence leave. However, Philip de May telephoned and he told me that there were now a large number of new officers in the regiment and that the troop leaders appointments were being made. I decided to waive my entitlement to leave and I reported to the adjutant in West Tofts Camp near Thetford, Norfolk, on the Sunday evening. My health was still suspect and in the event I was too late to be given a troop of tanks and instead, to my profound disappointment, was put in charge of A Squadron Echelon.

My mentors were SQMS Jessikins, regimental light heavyweight champion, and Sgt Bob Butterfield. I don’t know what they must have thought when they first saw me, but I was very impressed by their experience and I certainly learned a great deal about practical man-management from them both. To my horror, I found that the 15-cwt truck allocated to me at that time was driven by the same trooper who had greeted me when we arrived in Benghazi, Tpr Bob Weir MM. He saluted me most respectfully and then said, ‘A little f——r like you needs protection, I’ll look after you.’ And to be fair, he did that, until he had an altercation with a military policeman just before the invasion and was thrown out of the regiment. Having served his sentence, he came out to the Tank Reinforcement Unit (RFU), but the regiment refused to have him back, and later he collected a DCM for extraordinary bravery while serving with 5th Dragoon Guards.

We trained hard at West Tofts, but only once was I given the chance to command a troop of tanks. This was during an exercise in which we used live ammunition. Under machine-gun fire my driver, with his front visor closed, lost sight of the track, and took us over the edge of a quarry. At the last minute he saw the void in front of us and slewed the tank to the right, one track slipping over the edge, where we teetered for what seemed like a lifetime. I ordered the crew to remain inside and stay totally still, as any movement caused the tank to slip a little more. I then eased myself out of the turret and fixed a tow rope on to the lifting shackle eye on the side of the tank turret and passed it round a tree. This secured it reasonably safely. I then evacuated the crew and the tank was soon recovered by the LAD. ‘I can see why you’ve got the Transport Troop,’ said Bill Best, the LAD Commander.

In late March, we collected the new Cromwell tanks from Leeds and in a regimental convoy returned to West Tofts by road. In April, His Majesty the King visited us, arriving with his escort on the wrong side of the tank park. I was staggered to find him standing next to me as I clambered out from under my truck. ‘Where’s your commanding officer?’ said General Erskine, who was our divisional commander and was escorting the King. ‘Please go and fetch him.’ The tank park formed a ‘U’ shape, so I took the direct route across the centre of the ‘U’ through low bushes and finding the colonel told him of the King’s arrival. He too took the quickest route back, and we both arrived with the front of our battledress covered in white fluffy seeds. His Majesty really enjoyed that. Later we were visited by a Russian delegation, who stayed for lunch. The Russian general sat next to the colonel, who at one point, stuck for conversation, pointed to the ‘Balaclava’ battle honour embroidered on the table cloth in front of him and said, ‘We celebrate that as a great victory, general.’ ‘So do ve, colonel,’ replied the general, ‘So do ve.’

In April we attended a pep talk, given to all the officers of 7th Armoured Division, by General Montgomery, and shortly afterwards loaded the tanks on to trains at Brandon sidings, where I was thrilled at being allowed to drive a shunting engine for a few miles. The regiment then went by rail to Bognor Regis while the soft vehicles, such as mine, travelled down in convoy by road. We settled down there and completed our programme of waterproofing the vehicles ready for the invasion. Everyone seemed to have a girlfriend and I was lucky to find a kind and gentle girl, Audrey, who seemed to understand my adolescence. Her family were very decent to me as well. I became deeply attached to her, and she became my anchor point in England throughout the ensuing campaign.

Having been put in charge of the squadron echelon I was determined that it would be the best one in the regiment. I studied the problem of refuelling and of the transference of stores to the tanks, and as a result I broke bulk and evolved a new method of stowing ammunition and petrol in my 3-ton lorries. After trials, we proved that this halved the time taken to refurbish a tank, and this was to stand us in good stead later. Initially my squadron leader was furious with me, as it was strictly forbidden to break bulk stores. However, it was too late to alter and he showed off the idea to the colonel, who was cautiously enthusiastic. On 5 June, we were told that the invasion was on. The move to our assembly point was carried out on tracks and wheels during a lovely hot summer’s day. There was no parade or crowds to wave us off as we drove through the outskirts of Bognor on to the main road to Chichester and Portsmouth. At one point, as the tanks turned, so the asphalt road surface – which was sticky because of the heat – lifted in great slabs and was distributed generously over the ensuing quarter of a mile. It is an indication of the pragmatic attitude of the residents that a bill for this damage reached the regiment during the battles in the Bocage!

We spent that night in the New Forest and from there to Gosport where we drove to ‘Bumper’ quay and embarked for France. I have a note of the orders given at that time and they read:

TT’s 111 and 114 alongside 50509 on BUMPERMove off 1110hrs tomorrow (A RCRP4 1140hrs)Parade 0945hrs Regtl Parade Ground (D Sec)

All men have Embarkation Tags with them.1400hrs Map Distribution and Briefing.1630–1800hrs Stores by Crafts.

Bellamy

Fry

Jessikins

Wizard

Butterfield

Cook

Rations 43 men – 5 Boxes –

Split ‘B’ Echelon – 1, ‘A1’ Echelon – 2, ‘A2’ Echelon – 2

I was twenty years old. I tried to conceal my excitement with a veneer of sophistication, but in reality I couldn’t wait for it all to begin. To me, it seemed like a sort of game, there was a feeling of chivalry about it, almost a crusade and certainly a sense of heroism at being part of it. It didn’t reduce my awareness of the dangers, nor did it make me careless, but I decided that if I had to take risks in order to carry out my allocated task, then right was on our side, and they would be well worth taking.

TWO

Transport Troop, A Squadron

Only a very dull-witted or totally unimaginative person would have remained calm and unexcited by the prospect of taking part in the invasion. The atmosphere was electrifying, not only because of the long wait and the huge build-up, but also by the very nature of the task facing us all. It was a great leap into the unknown, and my imagination ran wild at the thought of all the incredible and exciting things that I might find when we landed. This excitement did not diminish after we had embarked, in fact rather to the contrary, it gained in intensity as we began to see evidence of the enormous fleet of ships which was engaged in this operation.