In 61st Reconnaissance, on the edge of Briquessard Wood, Sandy Handley tells of his time in the listening post:
“Whilst we were at that place me and my friend had to have twenty four hours duty in the listening post, which was twenty yards away to our front - just a crudely scraped out trench, just room enough for five of us (four troopers and one corporal). We had a field telephone, not a radio, to link us up with the men at the back. We couldn’t do nothing, just lounge and listen (!) for any movement in the front. We had to be like that for twenty four hours. In the night it was endless. In the day it wasn’t too bad as we could see the surrounding trees. Quite a few times we were mortared and of course this hastily dug trench wasn’t deep enough for protection. I heard a mortar shell coming down and I really thought it was going to land on top of us five frightened men, but it landed with a terrific thud (it didn’t explode). Was we relieved.
Of course now and again one man would leave the confines of this trench for the call of nature. You couldn’t stand up, especially in the day time , because you would be spotted by a sniper, so there was all sorts of antics - undoing your braces and so on, balancing on your elbow in a crouched position and doing the best you could, perhaps doing your business laying down etc. I don’t remember army training telling you had to go about that problem. One had to be quite a contortionist to perform this exercise. Forget about the rules of hygiene in this situation, days went by when we couldn’t wash our hands let alone anything else!! But I was surprised how fit we were. Our Officer* told us a little dirt won’t hurt if you swallow some."
*Lieutenant Dick Williams
Anthony Rampling described how even in the main trenches you could hear the Germans at night moving vehicles and equipment. "It was very nervewracking." In front of the wood there were small fields (dense ‘bocage’) with thick hedgerows where the Germans could hide. The wood was coppiced (regularly cut over to provide small timber) so didn’t provide very good cover.
He also spent time lying flat in an outpost:
“We had to do 24 hour stints on an outpost, which was out on a hedgerow ahead of the trenches and, during that time, we hadn’t had any food and we had a phone so we rang and said we hadn’t had any food and Lieutenant Williams, our troop officer, crawled out with some food and to get the food out to us it was tied up in string and he carried it in his mouth to crawl out to this outpost.
I think he was very brave to do this because he could have been sniped by the Germans at any time.”
Eric Brewer was "At harbour going out to STAND to position" on 25th July and the next day "Still at harbour, moved off in afternoon to the old position" so presumably the outpost again. He'd written home that "we are not really needed out here as they don't want you for Recce...Gerry is so close to the front line you cannot get any nearer him". Gerry certainly was at Briquessard!
Like Dick he'd obtained some supplies from the NAAFI van "we have also been issued with ... a bottle of beer, chocolate, spearmint, razor blades, envelopes and writing paper for 50 Franks or 5 shillings...the fags are 4 pennies for 10." Also "We are having some fine weather here, except for a couple of short showers its been perfect...At the present moment the sun is out and I have made my bed down in a slit trench." The censor for Eric's letters was A.R.Stone who later received the Military Cross for action at the bridge over the Escaut Canal in Belgium on 4th September 1944. (Extracts from Eric Brewer’s diary and letters included by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)
26th July 1944- After five months fighting the Battle of Narva (now the third largest city in Estonia, right next to the Russian border) Soviet forces finally capture the city from the German occupants.
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