"He was a brave boy"
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"After Normandy the war became a war of movement instead of the. confined area of Normandy. I was asked if I would like to join a Reconnaissance squadron and I thought, I’ve nothing to lose, I'll go for it. I was in time to take part in the dash up through Belgium into Holland, and that was a very exciting time. A war of movement, racing through villages, and being rewarded by the civilians with drink and flowers".
"I found the Reconnaissance Regiment, being a member of it, gave you more scope to use one’s initiative, as you worked in smaller groups. I found it very interesting. We consisted of a troop - we had three heavy Armoured cars, with two-pounder guns and machine guns, and our personal weapons, side arms. We fixed ourselves up with German M42 Schmeizers which we found lying around. They were very good guns, similar to a Sten, 9 mi11imetre ammunition, and we had those as a personal weapon, so all around we had quite good fire power, and our jobs were to be a screen in front of the army, going forward, patrolling, contact work, flank protection, whatever."
"A typical job was one day going up into Holland, a little place called Helmond. We were creeping along, clearing the villages and hamlets. For the first three there was nothing and the King’s Royal Rifle Corps were behind us about a mile or so, and we just kept forward of them, going through these hamlets, making sure they were clear."
| A last check of the map before going out on patrol |
"We
came to about the third one and we stood there, looking down into it, at about
600 yards away, and we couldn’t make up our minds whether it was defended or
clear. Sometime we would have to hit them because they always put a road block
down. You couldn’t go too far but, we were undecided on this third one. I
had an opinion it was clear but the Lieutenant, who was the commander, he wasn’t too
sure about it. About half an hour before I’d taken a change from my driving
position, I went up back into the turret to have a spell, and we were leap-frogging
along, but this village intrigued us. But anyway, we had to make up our minds and
the commander said he wasn’t happy, and l said it was OK but just as we were
debating it, the driver shouted out ‘at one o'clock, fifty yards, ditch’
Well, we’d been looking, I was looking through the ‘scope at the village
about 600 yards away, and l couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, but I
swung round, traversed round, and as I traversed down to 50 yards in the ditch,
one o’clock, I could see this helmet sticking up, and I done a quick burst,
more in fear than anything else, and just then a mighty crash hit the side of us
and someone said, ‘We’re alight’, but by then the village erupted.
They’d been waiting for us, no doubt about that.
"I managed to jump out into a ditch with the driver. The lieutenant, he was still in the turret, he received a wound to the head, but the rest of the troop deployed and started pouring fire into the village, and in no time at all the Rifle Brigade came up with half a dozen Sherman's, and they went past us into the village."
"What was burning on our
car was - this young fellow, Jerry, in the ditch - he’d fired a bazooka at us at the same time as I’d fired at him and
he’d hit the side but not to penetrated it, what he had done though, was to set fire
to all our bedding kit. After pulling that off the Armoured car was
quite OK. While we were sorting ourselves out, I ambled along to see this
young Jerry in the ditch, and he was lying on his back, and I went down to him
and he’d been sick, and he was choking on his own spew. I turned him over and
cleared his mouth. I noticed his arm was shattered at the shoulder, more or less
hanging off, but he was conscious. He was saying 'Mutter, Mutter’. He was a
young fellow about my age, about twenty year old, and he was quite a brave kid
to
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