Sandy Handley and Anthony Rampling continue the 61st Recce story:
“I thought we had said farewell to our trusty old Humber (Liktor) but on that cold, misty December morning we started off, this time to Namur in the Ardennes. In convoy it took about 24 hours, stopping and starting.” (From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)
“When we got to Brussels it was packed full of traffic, military and otherwise, and the streets were full of girls waving at us.” We couldn’t get through for all the girls surrounding us. (From Anthony Rampling’s account of 61st Recce - pers comm).
Sandy:
"We eventually joined up with the Armoured Brigade of 11 Armoured Division. The plan was to hold the line of the River Meuse from Namur to Givet, then patrol farther forward.”
Tony:
“Eventually we got to the Ardennes and we were told to keep going until we met resistance which we did.” We were in the front as Recce.
Eric Postles remembers guard duty on the Meuse: "On 21st December, Army Headquarters ordered the regiment to become immediately operational and throughout the night we worked to re-equip. By the night of 22nd we were manning the River Meuse bridges from Namur to Givet. The weather had gone bitterly cold and very heavy snowfalls meant that our Airforces could not fly. Our troop was in a deserted café near one of the bridges. Guard times were shortened and we wore woollen balaclavas and white smocks for camouflage in the snow. The balaclavas were provided through Lady Mount’s appeal to soldiers’ relatives to knit them. My mother knitted several of them." (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)
Colonel Brownrigg explains the role of 61st Recce in the Ardennes:
“We joined the armoured brigades of the 11th Armoured Division in the Ardennes, first sitting along the length of the Meuse from Namur to Givet and then gradually patrolling farther forward, until towards the end of the campaign we had a battle ground of our own with a front of 20 miles between the Americans and the rest of the British. Day after day the armoured cars set out to find and kill as many of the enemy as they could, and daily they met anti-tank guns and tanks. And when the armoured cars could not get on, the assault troops penetrated deep into enemy territory.”
(From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lieutenant-Colonel P.H.A.Brownrigg D.S.O.)
IWM archive photo of 11th Armoured Division badge
(SAVE THE IWM STUDY CENTRE)
The 11th Armoured Division, known as the Black Bull, had been almost continuously engaged in action, since it landed in Normandy on 13th June 1944 with British VIII Corps. Deployed in Operations Epsom and Goodwood to take Caen and Operation Bluecoat near Caumont, it famously liberated Amiens enabling the crossing of the Somme during the advance through France and was also involved in the liberation of Antwerp.
After Market Garden, where it was tasked with securing the right flank of the advancing ground forces, it was engaged in clearing pockets of German resistance remaining west of the Maas/Meuse river.
At the beginning of December units of the 11th Armoured Division were in reserve near Ypres but were ordered back into action to hold a defensive line along the Meuse between Namur and Givet to resist the German advance in the Ardennes.
61st Recce started patrolling straight away. The citation for Corporal John Frederick Mulcahy’s Military Medal includes this description of his patrols:
‘His armoured car troop was engaged in continuous patrolling between St Hubert and Rochefort* from the 22nd to the 29th December 1944. The situation throughout was extremely uncertain, as the area of these patrols, about 10 miles forward of any main Allied position, covered the tip of the German salient, and while the Americans were holding firm on the flanks, in many places there were no troops to bar the progress of the German tanks in the centre. For most of the period Corporal Mulcahy’s car was the leading car of his troop. Every day they made contact with the enemy, three times with German tanks. During this time Corporal Mulcahy’s handling of his car was so skilful and courageous that it became a byword in his squadron.’
* a distance of about 13 miles/20 km south-east of Dinant, between the Meuse and Bastogne i.e. the direction of travel for German forces.
(See 61st Recce Battle Honours http://61st-reconnaissance.weebly.com/medals--awards.html 61st Reconnaissance Regiment Living History Group.)
Don Aiken was also involved in action from the first day:
“We arrived at Namur a few days before Christmas, and were immediately given the task of contacting a forward unit of US Engineers who had been instructed to blow a bridge over a small river whenever they sighted the German advance. The orders had now been changed to 'blow up the bridge regardless', but radio contact with the Engineers had been lost.
We set off on our mission and we were shocked to see convoys of US troops retreating in total panic. They threw us some fags and shouted that we were going the wrong way.
We approached our destination, and turned a corner to see that the road ran down into a steep valley, with a similar road running round and down the cliffs on the other side. At that moment we heard a loud explosion and knew that the bridge had been blown. We continued for a short way down the road before spotting the US Engineers running up behind the hedgerow and waited for them to arrive. It was then that I observed a German tank on the road across the valley and, almost immediately, a puff of smoke from his 88 mm. gun. There was a whoosh as the shell screamed over my head and took a lump out of the road and part of the tyre from the armoured car which stood a few yards behind me. Within a few seconds our armoured cars had disappeared up the road and round the corner, in reverse."
(Extract republished from 'From the Breakout to the Rhine' by kind permission of Don Aiken.)
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