Support in Europe
The next day Ken Nelson, Alan Ainsworth, and myself were detailed guard duty on the Brengun (Anti aircraft Pit) but our luck held and no enemy planes in our area!
At about this time of our initiation to action in occupied France, 'Monty's' 21st Army (Of which we were lines of communication support group) were being held at Caen about fifteen kilometres in land by the Hitler Youth Para-Brigade who were hard tough young fanatic fighters supported by tanks and armour.
So for a while the allied advance was held up. When we moved off from the sand dunes we marched up through ripening corn fields and orchards and the first sign post was Courselles where we had set ashore, we learned later that this was 'Gold Beach' the Canadians had taken on D.Day.
Marching and 'Bivouacing' en route for about ten days, start stop, we were installed in a large wood on the outskirts of St Lo, here we held up for a while to take a clean up and wash with clean water and remove ten days growth of beard!
Myself and some other in the section had our heads shaved but left with moustaches and other odd bits of facial hair for a bit of a lark and I suppose in the forlorn hope that we made ourselves look a bit more awesome should we inadvertently come face to face with the enemy.
Guard duty at night the confines of the wood was a hairy business as we were unaware of how things were going up front. Gun fire and 'Moaning minnies' from our rear over head proceeded the break out from Caen and eventually we were on the move again this time mobilised and up through the 'Falise-Gap' where the advance forces had encircled Hitler's hoards after long and bitter fighting.
The next few weeks were hectic rush forward through the Bocage Country and villages practically wiped off from the face of the earth.
Blown up corpse of cattle and horse lay in the fields and occasionally German solider lay in the roadside ditches with the terrible sickly stench of death being about everywhere in the hot summer air.
We crossed the seine by pontoon bridge (A slightly unnerving experience in a long convoy of army vehicles) and by passing Paris our first stop was Lille a further rest and recuperation here. From this point on it was a continuous push forward to the Dutch boarders where we crossed the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnham which had been overrun and held against terrible heavy odds by the Parachute and Glider-Borne regiments ahead of the foremost 21st army group among others.
Then onto the outskirts of Brussels where we finally called a halt at an abandoned army barracks. After a short rest the coy moved to Auderghem where we found ourselves billeted at the Chateau Val Duchesse for the next four months.
Time to rest up, and the mobile workshop to which I was attached together with Stevie another fitter and Ken Nelson blacksmith, was stationed in the Chateau grounds by a rear gate leading out onto the Rue De Vue Muller an easy access to the village.
The locals welcomed us to their homes, and although food was scarce occasional hot-meals were pressed on us and much appreciated. We had a supply of coke for the blacksmith forge and so many a dark nights and odd sack here and there was smuggled out to our benefactors when winter set in to help with their heating. We thought this fair exchange for the hot bowls of soup etc, a few glasses of local wine and the odd Cognac.
Our time was taken up with daily working parties to various sites for all manner of jobs, clearing vacated German Army and S.S. billets etc, of mines and booby traps.
Sometimes the crafty buggers had perhaps left an anti-personnel mine fixed in the toilets in such a way to be out of sight, but anyone lifting the seat or pulling the chain would detonate the device disastrous consequences! A hair-raising job de-fusing these devilish things.
On one of these occasions our little convoy of army vehicles returning to billets was attacked by a lone Messer Schmitt which came out of the blue and gave us a burst of machine-gun fire, and in the in suing panic stations of jumping from the moving truck to take cover in the road-side ditch, I landed awkward and broke my left ankle this time.
I was the only casualty our section suffered being at the rear of the convoy. That put me into Military Hospital Brussels for a couple of weeks where I felt a bit out of place among many other blokes with hard won injuries.
We learned later that our lone attacker was one of a surprise last attempt to strafe the airfield at Brussels where they did considerable damage to our grounded planes.
As the winter progressed the weather got worse, heavy snowstorms and below freezing temperatures. This was when the Germans tried a last desperate breakout through the Ardennes back to Brussels. We had several 'Stand-to' night patrols on the main road in these arctic conditions when you could not use the riffle-bolt without gloves else it stuck to your fingers in well below zero temperatures.
Rumour had it that Jerry, in a last attempt to break through our lines was trying to infiltrate in captured U.S. Vehicles and uniforms but did not get as far as our particular road-block.
A few weeks later a notice appeared on the coy notice board asking for volunteers for service in the Far East. A couple of my mates and I put our names down as we weighed-up the odds of staying with the coy lumbered with a useless Section Officer to cross the Rhine into Germany under hazardous conditions or to take a chance out East, which maybe with luck might be near its end by the time we were posted. Within days we were on a thirty cwt. truck with all our gear heading for Ostend and a boat back across the Channel to Blighty once more. The white cliffs of Dover never looked so good in the morning light! .
