Chotie Darling

80 years ago today - D Day

In memory of those who braved so much for our freedom from fascism,

especially those who went over to Normandy eighty years ago,

including 50th Division's 61st Reconnaissance Regiment.

 

“I have also to announce to the House that during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place.”        (From Winston Churchill’s speech 'The invasion of France'.)

6^th June 1944 – D-day. 150,000 troops land on the beaches of Normandy in the Allies’ invasion of France, Operation Overlord.  21^st Army Group are under the command of General Montgomery with the US 1^st Army led by General Bradley and the British and Canadian 2^nd Army led by General Dempsey.  The German defenders, taken by surprise, are gradually overwhelmed although heavy casualties are sustained, particularly by the Americans on Omaha – the US V (5^th) Corps is held up less than one mile from the shore (the naval bombardment and US bombers failed to destroy the strong beach defences) . US VII Corps, spearheaded by the US 4^th Division, is able to advance inland from Utah beach while the Canadians’ 3^rd Infantry Division and British commandos rapidly push inland from Juno beach. British I Corps on Sword beach also secure most of their targets including the vital bridges over the River Orne, taken by the airborne.  21^st Panzer head for Caen and the gap between Juno and Sword, engaging with British 3^rd Division and stalling their planned progress to Caen but failing to break up the bridgehead.  Hitler kept close control of the reserve Panzer Divisions himself and fails to authorise their movement to Normandy until late in the day while Rommel arrives back from Germany to direct defences at close to midnight.

 

On Gold Beach the British 50th Division, including elements of 61^st Recce, lead XXX (30) Corps ashore. 61st Reconnaissance was the first Regiment in the Reconnaissance Corps to land in France.

The 1^st Hampshires and 1^st Dorsets (Dick had joined up with the Dorsets) of 231 Brigade led the assault at le Hamel, where artillery had escaped the bombardment. It was fiercely defended by the German 716^th Division and did not fall to the Hampshires until late afternoon.  The 6^th Green Howards (69th Brigade) landed at La Rivière, where Sergeant Stan Hollis performed the first of the feats that would win him the Victoria Cross.

"On the right the 231st Brigade was to push westwards in the coastal area, taking Arromanches (the destination of the artificial Mulberry harbour, built in segments in Britain and slowly towed across the Channel  from the afternoon of 6^th June) and the battery at Longues, while the 47th (Royal Marine) Commando went ahead to capture Port en Bessin and join up with Americans from Omaha. On the left, the 69th Brigade was to strike southwards and crossing the Seulles in the St. Gabriel-Creully area to secure the Bayeux-Caen road near Ste. Croix Grand Tonne. The reserve brigades were to advance between these two—the 56th on the right to Bayeux and beyond it to the river Drome; the 151st on the left to seize the Caen road and railway between Bayeux and the Seulles." (50th Division history)

Map courtesy of Eric Postles from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO

‘Gold’ was 9 miles wide with a 5 mile landing zone at the eastern end.  According to Anthony Rampling, the men of 61^st Recce were aiming for the section codenamed ‘King’ (nearest to the Canadians on Juno) but Eric Postles writes that the plan was for his unit to land at ‘Jig’ section. Since 61^st Reconnaissance were acting in support of all of 50^th Division (and 47 Commando) it’s probable that elements landed at both (See D-Day landings booklet and Campaign Summaries of World War 2 - Normandy landings.)

“First vehicles ashore on D-Day were the light Recce cars of Major Cave (‘C’ Squadron) and his crew and that of Corporal Howard* and his crew (‘A’ Squadron).  Due to embarkation problems in the UK and the vagaries of war, they arrived on different landing craft and at opposite ends of the landing beach, but managed to rendezvous safely in the area inland beyond the dunes, and were able to radio beach information and R.V. positions to the C.O. and remainder of the landing force still aboard their landing craft." (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lt-Col P.H.A.Brownrigg, D.S.O.)

*Roy Howard’s vehicle had failed to start on loading and crossed the Channel in an LCT carrying tanks fitted with flails to beat the beach surface and detonate mines:

“We were the first off our Landing Craft and silent prayers were uttered that our engine would not let us down again as we slid into some five feet of water and ploughed our way slowly towards the distant beach.  After what seemed to be a very long time we reached dry sand and drove under small arms fire towards the sand hills, where we were directed to head along the beach for a considerable distance until we arrived at a point where white tapes had been laid to mark an exit clear of mines.  This led us on to a small track behind the dunes and we followed this track for about half a mile when we spotted another Recce car behind a hedge in a small field.  It proved to be that of Major John cave of C Squadron and we joined him with some relief.”  (From Roy Howard’s ‘Beaten Paths are Safest – Memories of the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment’, Brewin Books 2004)

"Nearly half the contact patrols with the assaulting infantry were killed or wounded on D-Day, either on the beaches or before reaching them.  Nevertheless, they justified themselves by getting much information back to divisional Headquarters before it arrived by the normal channels and some of the patrols, whose sets had been shot-up, did great work with their weapons.”  (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lt-Col P.H.A.Brownrigg, D.S.O.)

Eric Brewer, was part of the ‘B’ Squadron assault unit:

“Landed in France at 7.30 at the right of “Port Embasie”* the beach is filled with stuff and plenty of dead lying about. Gerry gun positions have been well blasted, all the crews were killed from concussion, the shell craters are as big as houses and they are everywhere.

We pushed on to the Caumont** Area and got lost from the rest, Spando opened up from the hedge about 2-ft away and killed carrier driver.”  

Eric said he had a bicycle when he landed but it had punctured tyres and he threw it away (pers.comm.).

 (From Eric Brewer’s Diary by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)

*Port-en-Bessin

*Possibly Caumont-l'Éventé, south of Bayeux and about 20 miles from the coast?

Lt.Ron Griffiths of 61st Recce landed with the 231 Brigade at 7.35 am and, having lost his jeep, swum to the shore, beginning his war in Normandy with only the kit he was wearing - see 'My D Day story' and his picture with medals in his local paper.

‘By 10.30am the British Second Army had landed 15 infantry battalions, seven commandos, seven tank regiments, two engineer assault regiments, nine field artillery regiments and detachments of scores of supporting units.’ 

'50th Division, moving inland from Gold beach, fought a succession of hard battles against elements of the 352nd Division.  By evening troops of the 151st Brigade had reached the Bayeux-Caen road and tanks of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards were reporting little in front of them.  Though the 50th was short of most of its D-Day objectives, it was solidly established in Norman hedges and fields, with only limited German forces on its front.'  (From ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition)

Don Aiken also recalled his D-Day on the BBC History People's War website:

“We arrived off the shore of Normandy in the late morning. 'Gold' Beach near the village of Arromanches, which was our first destination, had already been captured by the assault troops of the Hampshire Regiment, and it was now possible for vehicles to be disembarked on to the beach and directed to designated areas for the purpose of de-waterproofing the vehicles and preparing to advance into the bridgehead.

The LST dropped anchor and the remaining Rhino was untied from the side of the ship and made its way round the bows, ready to be attached to the gangway which projected forwards when the bow doors opened.  It was then discovered that the coupling gear had been smashed and this sparked off a frenzied burst of activity to try to tie the units together with ropes. However, ropes are flexible by necessity, and the choppy seas made it almost impossible to hold both units in line; but with the aid of a couple of small motor-boats, pushing away like tug boats, they became near enough to go for it and our Troop made the transfer across. Soon we were running in to the beach and the Rhino bottomed out. The light armoured car (Recce Car) in which I was a crew member was the first to drive off, and in my elevated position in the turret I felt like a submarine commander, especially when we suddenly dropped into a bomb hole which was concealed beneath the water and only the turret was left exposed.

The Beach Party had been well trained for this situation and had the de-waterproofing area completely organised and running smoothly. Although I almost threw a spanner in the works !  My armoured car had been fitted with a device, which I had contrived, to allow me to operate the smoke canister gun without having to lean outside the turret. Basically, it was a bike brake mechanism which was attached at one end to the gun and, at the other end, the brake grip was attached to my seat support.  Whilst the driver was removing the waterproofing from the engine, the Officer went to a quick 'O' Group (Officers briefing) and the radio-operators tuned in their radio transmitters to the H.Q. transmitter . This was quite a delicate operation and it was at it's finest point when my elbow touched against the trigger . Bang! went the smoke discharger - and as I quickly bobbed my head out I could see the smoke bomb heading straight into the middle of a wired off field, with dozens of painted notices showing the sign of a skull and cross-bones and the words "Achtung Minen". Which didn't take a genius to recognize that my bomb was landing in a German mine-field, and the mines were too close for comfort.

I ducked down inside my turret and held my breath........
Nothing - oh good! Then Bang! Bang! Bang! ..... I realised it was someone banging on the turret. When I popped my head back out I was confronted with the angry face of the Beach Officer - a Major - whose features reminded me strongly of the Medical Officer with whom I had been acquainted in Scarborough; complete with black curly moustache, but perhaps even stronger on the language!

Soon the various sections of our Regiment were ready to move off to try to reach their pre-arranged target locations. Ours was a wooded hill about 15 miles inland, and our role was to 'seize and hold' it, until the main body of troops could relieve us. It was soon quite obvious that, because of our delayed landing, there was no possibility of us reaching our target that day. As we drove off the beach, through a pathway made through the minefield and on to a narrow road which ran in a southerly direction, a huge anti-aircraft barrage opened up from the multitude of ships which lay offshore. As the barrage drew nearer I spotted a German plane flying very fast and very low as it fled southwards directly over our heads. I quickly joined the fading barrage and emptied my Bren gun magazine in the direction of the speeding ‘hornet’ as it disappeared out of sight. Despite my effort being in vain I felt great satisfaction in at last being able to throw things back at the Germans.
I remember nothing about our advance during the remainder of the day, only that we eventually had to give way to the coming of the night.

My only memories of that first night were that we had to remain standing in the pitch blackness, not daring to make a sound as we had no idea of how close we were to the Germans. We were fortified by a tiny drop of rum, which barely covered the bottom of our tin mugs, and a 'keep awake pill'. Nothing happened all night but we were all relieved when dawn broke and we were able to start off again."

Eric Postles wrote his account in a book ‘My War Years’:

“At dawn we could see the French coast being bombed by Allied planes and later nearby warships and rocket ships shelling the coast.  The heavy seas caused problems for the ships towing Rhinos and we were late arriving at the beach.  After much effort our Rhino was linked to the ship’s ramp and my carrier was first on the ramp when the Rhino broke away.  We jumped off the vehicle and waited for the reconnection before finally getting onto the Rhino next to a bulldozer which was intended to lead us off.  We got near the water’s edge and the bulldozer which was intended to destroy obstacles drove off but disappeared under the water and we did not see the driver again.  The Rhino moved further along the beach and we all got ashore.  It was late afternoon.

There were beached ships and landing craft everywhere and we were directed to a track which led off the beach and through the sand hills.  There was a lot of enemy shelling activity and our heavy warship and rocket ships were firing over us.  There were groups of prisoners and we passed a line of British dead lying side by side.  The scene out at sea was unbelievable with hundreds of ships.

I never saw the beach again until I went to Normandy for the 40^th Anniversary of D-Day.

Away from the beach we removed our waterproofing plates and spent the night at the edge of a cornfield in which there were a number of dead Germans.  It was an uncomfortable night because of the enemy activity and we got little if any sleep.”

Neither Sandy Handley or Major Brownrigg were to land on the Normandy beaches on D day:

“Owing to the roughness of the sea several of the Rhino ferries broke away from their parent LSTs.  Only half the regiment got ashore on D-Day, the rest of us remained in our LSTs about 300 yards from the shore.” (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lt-Col P.H.A. Brownrigg D.S.O.)

“We arrived off the French coast as it was getting light.  The American gun crews of the Horlican were popping away (rapid firing). I don’t know what they were aiming at, there was so much smoke being laid by destroyers.  I didn’t think the sea was rough. 

I looked over the side and saw quite a large craft completely capsized and partly submerged.  Most likely it had hit a mine (what a sight to greet us - made me think).

We were supposed to land at Gold Beach H 7.25 (07.25) that morning of the 6^th June.  Some of our Reconnaissance boys had got ashore in the other LST allotted to 61^st Recce.  But the captain of our LST held back as he was afraid there wasn’t enough draught (depth) to unload us, then get away from the shore quick.  There were other problems too: we had towed two large rafts or rhinos from Southampton to facilitate the landing of our vehicles.  The plan was to manoeuvre the large Rhino, thus enabling the armoured cars to go in at a low depth of sea.  But unfortunately one Rhino broke away.  This meant the remaining Rhino had to do the whole job.  We laid off Arromanches till the next day (D + 1). 

In the meantime we had a grandstand view of the beaches where we should have landed.  All the time the mighty roar of the guns from the British Navy, the shells going over our head like an express train.  What a sight!

Of course for us this would be a sixth night on the steel decks but we appreciated that most likely we were better off on our LST that the 61^st Recce lads who had to land first on 6^th June with 50% casualties.”

(From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’ unpublished.)

By the end of D Day 50th Division had lost 700 men.

 

61^st Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on this day:

        Sergeant William Richard Moss (age 24) of Witney Oxfordshire

        Trooper Arthur Harry Newell (age 31) of Brockley, London

        Trooper Richard Henry Rainford (age 19) of Leeds, Yorkshire

All are laid to rest in the Bayeux War Cemetery (from 61st Recce Roll of Honour, courtesy of Recce Mitch).

Many more lost their lives but their bodies were never found and identified.  

We will remember them.

 

‘What hollow, false relief

To hug French shore:

And seek out mates – some lost

For evermore!’ 

(From ‘Seize and Hold, Invasion – 6^th June 1944’ by Major Frank Harding MC, in ‘War echoes over thirty years’ published by Arthur Stockwell, 1970)

75 years ago - Home, Married and at Rest

 

Dick was killed at the end of March 1945, less than 6 weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

He met Chotie for the first time since D Day on 1^st March in Pagham, where he was home on leave with his parents.  Five days later they married under under special license at Chichester registry office.  Their one night of honeymoon was spent at the lovely Spreadeagle Hotel in Midhurst, West Sussex.  On 7^th March they returned to be with family and on the 8^th Dick “Left Bognor for Dover via Victoria” to rejoin the war.

 Mr and Mrs Richard Williams with Dick's parents at Pagham

 

Meanwhile his regiment, now the 52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance, had at last crossed the anti-tank ditch at Afferden, defended tenaciously by German paratroopers.  They advanced into Germany, south-west towards Geldern and the Rhine.  On 3^rd March Montgomery’s pincers in the Northern Rhineland (British XXX Corps with Canadian 1^st Army for 'Operation Veritable' and the US 9^th Army for 'Operation Grenade') at last met at Geldern, about 10 miles from the Rhine, east of the Ruhr industrial region.  Dick’s ‘C’ Squadron were nearly at Twisteden, five miles to the north-west.  On 7^th March 52^nd Recce took over from 53^rd Recce to lead the Rhineland advance. 

Further south the US 1^st Army’s 9^th Armored Division dashed forward to secure an intact bridge over the Rhine at Remagen (between Bonn and Koblenz).  They secured a bridgehead across the Rhine and successfully defended the bridge from the relentless German attacks, including the use of V2 missiles.

 

Chotie wrote to Dick from Pagham on 9th March: “It was very wonderful to be with you for even this short while, so it is a glorious thought that we have a life-time to spend.  Don’t feel too blue – I am trying not to.”

 

Dick, having travelled overnight via Calais, had reached Bourg Leopold in Belgium, where he managed to spend a couple of days with his brother Bryn.  He wrote to Chotie on 12th March just before rejoining his regiment – his home leave had perhaps not been idyllic:

“You must find me terribly moody.  I try not to be, but since the beginning of the war I find I’m completely di-orientated at home.”  (My mother said Dick ‘knew’ he was going die and they cried all night on their honeymoon.)

 

Meanwhile on 10^th March Dick’s ‘C’ Squadron had been tasked with reconnaissance of the Rhine west bank along a four to five mile frontage near Menzelen (north-east of Geldern, near Xanten and Wesel).  At Menzelen they met no opposition and took a dozen prisoners.  There was more German resistance at Ginderich (nearer the river to the north) but they were soon backed up by infantry.  Pushing on via Gest (en route towards Wesel) they reached the Rhine at dusk and could observe hundreds of Germans on the opposite bank.  Calling down an artillery bombardment on the German defences, they also captured an enemy patrol sent back across the river to recover equipment.

From 12^th March 52^nd Recce rejoined their Division (52^nd Lowland), although squadrons were detached to work with various Scottish regiments – ‘C’ Squadron were with the Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment).

 

Dick was at Ginderich on 13^th March ‘resting’.

Photo labelled 'Ginderich, March 1945'. Dick is on the right.

 

Chotie wrote to him from her home in Parkstone where she was enjoying being 'Absent without leave' with her best friend, Mary Dakin.  She wrote again later, after a miserable time at the dentist, having broken a tooth on her mother’s home-made toffee.  She was meant to return to her unit now after 14 days leave.

Dick wrote on 14th March from a “cushy billet (no windows but everything else is OK)” where he’d had a party with three other “Bolshie subalterns” and had made a new friend, Peter Evans.  Lieutenant Evans had led ‘C’ Squadron’s ‘almost copybook advance to the River Rhine at Ginderich’ (Trevor Whitfield) and subsequently received the Military Cross for this and his role in clearing the Scheldt Estuary in autumn 1944.  Dick’s old friend from 61^st Recce, Ronnie Jury, was now a Liaison Officer “in some Corps or other.  A pretty steady job but not much excitement.”  After the war he returned to painting and taught at the Slade School of Art.

Don Aiken recalls that the 52^nd Recce were now pulled back about a mile from the river awaiting the Rhine crossing, which was preceded by an intense build-up of men and equipment.  Like Dick, some of the men passed the time in bare-back riding the horses left by the Germans.  One of Don’s troop was killed by a single shot across the river while riding.

 

Chotie wrote on Friday 16th March with some good news – she’d been granted another 7 days leave so would not be punished on her return.  Relatives were still sending money for their wedding presents and Chotie was enjoying taking her sister Margaret’s baby, Roger, out in his pram.  Her younger sister Beryl was also at home – they went to see ‘Kismet’ at the cinema.

On Saturday night Hull, where Chotie’s anti-aircraft battery were stationed, was attacked by a single Heinkel, which killed 13 people and injured 22.  Chotie wrote again on Sunday 18th while packing to return there and sent another letter when she was back at Fort Godwin (on Spurn Point near Easington, east of Hull) after "an eventful journey".  She’d treated herself to lunch at a Spanish restaurant near King’s Cross and missed her train.  Arriving late in Hull a fellow lady in her carriage had invited her to stay so she enjoyed supper, a comfy bed and bacon and eggs for breakfast.  “Everyone” back at the battery was excited about her marriage and she seemed to have told her “tale about a hundred and one times”.

 

On the west bank of the Rhine 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment had been assigned traffic control duties as part of the preparation for ‘Operation Plunder’ (the Rhine crossing), although their ‘A’ Squadron was now with 1^st Commando Brigade – destined to lead the assault across the river. 

Dick was at Kevelaer, back from the line and north of Geldern, in a 300 year old cottage “having evicted the ‘civvies’ ”.  He wrote to Chotie that he’d spent 48 hours painting signs (presumably for traffic control) after a very close shave when a shell killed the bloke next to him.

 

Chotie wrote on Wednesday 21st: “We had a spot of excitement last night” so Hull may have been under attack again.  She was furious Dick had shaved off his moustache.  He’d written “I reckon I look much better without it.  I now look eighteen instead of thirty-five” (he was 23).  Chotie was enjoying walking on the beach in the sun with friends.  On the 23rd she wrote “It is decidedly better up here, now that Spring is here” and was hoping to stay with her ATS friend Nan’s family in Yorkshire.

 

At 6pm on 23^rd March Operation Plunder began with a massive artillery barrage along the Rhine from Nijmegen to the Ruhr – the largest bombardment undertaken by the Royal Artillery during the war.  A huge smokescreen was amassed to assemble supplies near the front and at nightfall the RAF saturated the town of Wesel, on the east bank with high explosive bombs.  52^nd Lowland Division, with their guns trained on the bank near Wesel was “in the front row of the grandstand at one of the most imposing spectacles ever staged".  General Eisenhower watched the operation from within the Division’s beat for a while.

Sandy Handley in Dick’s No 15 troop remembered “we were on the banks of the Rhine opposite the town of Wesel” in a large bulldozed ditch. Their officer told them the artillery barrage was about to start - canon and rockets were fired with a deafening noise – and later came to their car again to tell them this was only the beginning: “he said at 11 o’clock pm ALL THE LOT was going to open up.  At 11 o’clock we found out what he meant!  The noise was terrible; my nerves were getting a bit jaded.  There we were, in front of all these guns, yards from the actual river. 

I suggested to the other chap we go under the Daimler, which we did, scooping ourselves a little dugout.  We thought the deeper we dug the more safe we were…”  They had a complicated code to send back messages but Sandy was so shaken he just relayed the message in phonetic terms: “At times like these certain things didn’t go text book fashion…I had experienced these artillery barrages since we landed but this was the Daddy of them all.”

The first attack towards Rees (north of Wessel), led by 51st Highland Division, was a diversion from the main attack.  1st Commando Brigade with 52nd Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron, quietly crossed the river at 10 pm.  The Recce were in canvas boats with oars – their job was to provide beach control parties for the commandos and keep up communications across the river while the commandos observed radio silence.  By mid-morning the Commandos had secured most of the town – of the 1,600 men with them 11 were killed and 17 missing. 

The 15^th Scottish Division also crossed during the night, north of Wesel while to the south the US 9^th Army had crossed between Wesel and Rheinberg on an 11 mile front.

“In the early hours of the next morning the guns had ceased firing and we could actually hear birds singing.  One of the Officers in charge of our section came over to our Daimler and said “Well done men!” although I didn’t think we’d done anything except cringe under the Daimler… The officer then said at 10 o’clock this morning the Airborne paratroops and gliders will come over and land on the other side of the river near Wesel … precisely at 10 o’clock we heard a roar which grew louder and louder.  Someone said “Here they come”.  They flew low.  It was one of the greatest memorable sights I have ever seen, unforgettable.  First the paratroopers, then the gliders being towed over this great river.” (Sandy Handley)

 At 10 am on 24^th March 'Operation Varsity' began with more than 3,000 planes and gliders dropping over 16,000 men of the British 6^th Airborne and the US 17^th Airborne Division.  Unfortunately they were landing in ‘Flak Alley’ – the main defences for the Ruhr – and took more than 2,000 casualties.  However, by nightfall they’d met up with the ground forces and captured 3,500 German soldiers.  Montgomery’s  bridgehead over the Rhine was established.

Don Aiken, was also on the bank of the Rhine having volunteered to assist the Royal Engineers with communications.  After the air landings they went in under heavy fire to build pontoons across the river for getting ground troops across.  Don was waiting for a runner to come from the next armoured car with the latest message when, poking his head out of the turret in a lull, he found the runner had been killed by a German shell landing close by. 

The bridges were constructed and in a few hours the infantry had crossed followed by tanks.  Soon the pontoon bridge was a two-way highway: “all the paraphernalia of an attacking army was crossing into Germany” and “long lines of German soldiers were being marched out to Prisoner of War camps somewhere in England”.  8,000 Royal Engineers assisted the crossing of the Rhine.

 

The rest of 52^nd Recce, now based in a tented camp in woods near Sonsbeck (between Kevelaer and the Rhine), were given the administrative job of getting the leading battalions and regiments from their concentration area up to the river bank.

Dick wrote on 24th March: “Well my darling, I’m in a smashing billet away from my troop in charge of about 20 miles of road as Traffic Control Officer.  Imagine it, armband and all!  I look quite a dog…I’m with two other subalterns who share my taste in living so we’re really very happy.  I’m afraid it won’t last for long though – it’s much too cushy for that.” 

 

Chotie was on watch between 10 and 3 am that night when she wrote to Dick:

“The news is good again today, darling, - it can’t be long now.  When you come back and when we can be together always, well, won’t it be wonderful?

One day next week, if we get a spot of ‘off duty’, a whole crowd of us are hoping to get cracking on a ‘binge’ - celebrating my third week of being married or something.” 

 

By midnight on 24^th/25^th March 80,000 Allied troops had crossed the Rhine, including Winston Churchill who went over the river in a landing craft near Wesel.  Over the next couple of days there were more Rhine crossings by the Americans to the south and the US 1^st Army broke out of their Remagen bridgehead and marched south to join up with Patton’s 3^rd Army forces.

 

Chotie wrote to Dick again on the 26th, having received a letter from Brinner: “It’s marvellous that you are so near to each other.  I hope you manage to meet.”

“Just think, darling, tomorrow we have been married 3 weeks...  I spend quite a lot of my time just dreaming of things to come.  Have built us a home and furnished it (all in my imagination) most marvellously.  I think I had better see what I can do with a Missen, probably have to.”

 

By 27th March the Rhine bridgehead north of the Ruhr was 35 miles wide and 20 miles deep and 52^nd Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron reverted to regimental command.

52^nd Reconnaissance Regiment “moved over the Rhine under a full moon in the early hours of Good Friday, 30^th March, 1945; crossing on one of the various pontoons and Bailey bridges built in record time by the Royal Engineers.  Mile after mile of vehicles queued for the limited space on the roads, therefore it was mid-afternoon before the regiment was concentrated near the town of Mehr (north-west of Wesel), just a few miles east of the Rhine, ready to take part in what was a rapid advance into Germany” (Carl Shilleto).

 

Dick wrote his last letter to Chotie:  from “a windowless ‘brewed-up’ house with with half a gale blowing but having so much spiritual warmth I’m not unduly cold.  My cushy post has gone with the wind and I’m now back on the job again…Nothing very thrilling to write about – so I’ll close here.

                                                          Your loving husband

                                                                        Dicker.”

 

Photos from the BBC's VE Day 70: A Party to Remember - Honeysuckle Weeks and Laurence Fox read extracts from Chotie and Dick's letters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Mehr ‘C’ Squadron were placed in reserve, earmarked for Prisoner of War duties.  Dick learnt that Bryn’s unit was in the vicinity and set out to visit him in his small Daimler Dingo.  He was taking Bryn back when the car hit a small crater in the road, made by a shell or bomb.  Dick was killed instantly while Bryn escaped with cuts and bruises.

Sandy Handley remembered:

“Sometime in the afternoon Mr Williams’ brother came towards us and introduced himself and said “Mr Williams, your Troop Officer, is dead”.  Naturally we were stunned…

Later we (the No. 15 Troop) attended a small burial ceremony conducted by the 52nd Division Padre for the burial.  I think we all wanted to pass our condolences on to Mr Williams’ brother, who sat in another staff car with his fellow officers…

We would miss Mr Williams.  He had been with us from Normandy June ’44 to March ’45.  From a trooper’s point of view this Officer had looked after his eleven men and never asked us to do or risk anything that he couldn’t do himself.  We liked Mr Williams and we were going to miss his coolness.  He thought his troop were a good team too… 

It seemed ironic that a man could live through the many hazards and horrors of war, from the beaches of Normandy (where the 61st had become the first Reconnaissance Regiment to come ashore) and through the terrible fighting on the Rhine, only to be killed in a traffic accident.  Perhaps most tragic of all though was that the young officer had just returned from some leave and had been married for only three weeks.”

 

Chotie, at Spurn Point in Yorkshire, was “in the large mess hall, full of people.  The Sergeant-Major handed me the telegram to say Dicker had been killed.  The saddest moment of my life.”

 

Lieutenant Richard Kelner Williams is laid to rest in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery south-west of Kleve in Germany.

We will remember them.

The Last Post

 Alex de Groot's memorial photo of Dick's grave.

 

75 years ago - 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment

At the beginning of February 1945 Dick was still at Izegem in Belgium, billeted with the lovely Sintobin-Anne family.  The Regiment he had fought with in France, Belgium and the Netherlands was in process of disbandment after separation from its Division, the 50^th Northumberland (now a training unit back in England) and a brief 'reprieve' to fight the German Ardennes offensive.

    Gradually some of his comrades left on leave or to other units.  Tony Rampling, a gunner in Dick’s No 5 Troop, who had landed in Normandy with him, joined his brother in the 4th Armoured Division (the tanks of the ‘Black Rats’ were famous for their fighting in the Western Desert).  Exceptionally, all Dick’s troop had survived since D Day and the loss of that comradeship forged under fire was a bitter experience.

    In Eric Postles’ 10 troop only six of the eighteen originals who had landed in June 1944 survived to February 1945.  Eric was sent back to 'the Island' to join the 49th Division wearing the white rose of Yorkshire - and him a Lancashire man!

    Dick and the rest of his troop were assigned to the 52^nd Reconnaissance Regiment with five other officers and nearly 150 ‘other ranks’ from 61^st Recce.  The 52^nd ‘Lowland Scottish’ Division ironically wore a mountain symbol and had been trained for mountain combat to invade Norway and then an airborne role in Operation Market Garden.  52^nd Recce arrived separately in France in September 1944 to form part of the ground troops in Market Garden, working with the 101^st Airborne (and 61^st Recce) to defend 'Hell's Highway' and reach ‘the Island’ next to Arnhem.  Re-joining the Division they contributed to the vital work of First Canadian Army clearing the Scheldt Estuary and restoring access to the port of Antwerp.  In December 1944 52^nd Lowland were at Schinveld (close to the German border, north-east of Maastricht) defending the right flank of British 2^nd Army during the Ardennes offensive.   Then in January they advanced into Germany as part of Operation Blackcock to clear the Roer triangle (between the Maas/Meuse and the Roer rivers, south of their confluence at Roermond) and take the German town of Heinsberg, before returning to Schinveld.  On 7^th February they moved north to Boxmeer, near the German border south of Nijmegen, where Montgomery was assembling his forces ready for Operation Veritable.

from 52nd (Lowland) Division's souvenir map of the North-West Europe campaign

 

 

The 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment officially broke up on 5^th February 1945.  Since landing on D day, or soon after, the Regiment had accounted for at least 5,000 of the enemy, taking 4,000 as prisoners.  The Commander of 50^th Division, Major-General Graham, wrote to thank them: “They have been simply magnificient, and although their battle history is not long…it has been glorious… When much that has happened in this war is forgotten, the memory of your deeds will remain.”

 

On 6^th February Dick at last managed to see his brother Bryn at Bourg Leopold/Leopoldsburg in Belgium, while en route to meet his new regiment.  He sent a brief letter to Chotie, trying to arrange leave, and arrived at Boxmeer to join the 52^nd on Wednesday 7^th February.  Operation Veritable began the next morning with “the largest artillery barrage yet laid down in the NW Europe campaign” (Carl Shilleto in ‘The Fighting 52^nd Recce’, Eskdale Publishing 2000). 

                Monty’s plan was for the Canadian 1^st Army, including British XXX Corps, to advance south and east from Nijmegan and Boxmeer to take the Reichswald Forest area between the Meuse/Maas and the Rhine in 3 or 4 days.  Meanwhile in ‘Operation Grenade’ the US 9^th Army was to cross the Roer River and swing north, capturing German forces in a pincer movement with Operation Veritable.  The British and Canadians met firm and bloody resistance from the German Field Parachute Army (the elite Fallschirmjäger), rapidly re-inforced by veteran panzer forces from the Ardennes, while the Americans' Operation Grenade was delayed for two weeks when the Germans released water from the Roer river dams to create an impassable flood.   The city of Kleve/Cleves (east of Nijmegan), reduced to ruins by RAF bombing, was finally captured in Operation Veritable on 12^th February. 

 

Initially 52^nd Reconnaissance Regiment were held at Boxmeer.  Dick was placed in ‘C’ Squadron at Sambeek (immediately south of Boxmeer) and had an “Easy time with vehicles.  Nothing much doing".  Sandy Handley returned from home leave in Dover to join Dick’s new No. 15 Troop and became Dick’s batman (soldier-servant).  He was also a Gunner/Operator in a heavy Daimler armoured car while Don Aiken became a Driver/Operator in a two man light armoured Daimler (the Daimler Scout Car or ‘Dingo’).

    On 13^th and 14^th February the 52^nd Recce area suffered some spasmodic shelling.  Patrols were carried out in assault boats due to the local flooding.  Dick wrote to Chotie on a page of lined paper on Wednesday 14^th February:

‘C’ Squadron.

52^nd (L) Div Recce Regt, BLA.

Wednesday Feb 14^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Sorry I have to write on this stuff, but it’s all I have at the moment.  I hope to get some more writing-paper tomorrow.  I received two letters from you yesterday, dated the 2^nd and 8^th respectively – both very welcome.  Reference the photos, I think you must be losing your sense of proportion – the moustachio effect, probably being a chiaroscuro* trick, I expect.

            I’ve just rushed out to see a dog-fight that’s going on overhead.  You should bring your gun** out here – there’s plenty to shoot at.  109’s*** have been milling around here all day. 

            This regiment isn’t too bad on the whole – most of the Other Ranks being Scots, but happily most of the officers are English.  I can’t discuss how I happened to come here in writing but will give you the griff on my leave (always provided you can make it yourself.)  The date still stands at March 1^st or a little later.

            I’ve had two letters from the Sintobins since I left.  They’re a wonderful family.  Change pens!  They also sent a tin of marvellous biscuits, a speciality of theirs.  I hope to get another photo of the whole family from them shortly.

            I’ve also got a photo of all the officers of my old crowd which I’ll let you have – but it’s not worth sending from here seeing that I’ll be home in a fortnight or so.

            After some four months trying I managed to contact Bryn on my way to join this regiment.  We managed a night together at an Officers Club.  Very pleasant as you can well imagine.  He’s altered a lot and seems much quieter – though perhaps it was just my idea.

            Well, my darling there’s no news to tell you.  Please write soon to let me know whether you can make it for the 1^st or 2^nd.

                                    Auf wiedersehen, Liebling,

                                                (which means ‘So long, baby’)

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

*the use of strong light and dark in two-dimensional art to achieve a sense of volume and depth.

**a reference to the anti-aircraft gun Chotie was responsible for siting on targets.

***German fighting aircraft – the Messerschmidt Bf 109.

© Chotie Darling

 

The next day 52^nd (Lowland Reconnaissance Regiment) joined the advance of Operation Veritable, crossing the Meuse/Maas and arriving at Gennep on the 16^th.  Dick’s ‘C’ Squadron moved south towards Afferden but were held up at a road block – a large crater with flooding either side, defended by four machine gun posts.  Sergeant Walter Everson was killed when the Germans opened fire.  ‘C’ Squadron patrolled all night but the enemy withdrew so they moved into Afferden to secure the road running east from the town.  Here the regiment was held up by a flooded anti-tank ditch, a western arm of the Siegfried line (Germany’s famous Westernwall defences), guarded at the east end by a Dutch castle, Kasteel Bleijenbeek.  The Recce were ordered to clear enemy resistance here but astute patrolling revealed the area was heavily populated with German troops and Captain Hathaway of ‘A’ Squadron resisted the order averting heavy losses. Subsequently two Divisional attacks were sent in but failed to cross the ditch or take the Kasteel.

    52^nd Recce, now responsible for Afferden, were stuck here subject to mortars, shells, snipers and counter-attacks until the end of February.  Casualties mounted steadily and communication between the squadrons and frozen, dirt-covered troops sheltering in their fox-holes was often lost.  Amazingly the Padre, Captain Bradley and a Salvation Army truck driver made it to the front-line bringing tea and cigarettes.  Between the dug-outs it was “Crawl or RIP” in the areas constantly under observation.  It must have reminded Dick and his troop of Briquessard but much colder with fog, floods and mud all round instead of dust.

 

On 21^st February skies cleared and the RAF bombed the Kasteel, reducing it to a ruin (in the end it had been manned by just 15 paratroopers).  XXX Corps captured the remains of the city of Goch, east of Afferden and Gennep, the next day.  On 23^rd February the floods along the Roer had receded sufficiently for the US 9^th Army to cross the river and proceed with Operation Grenade.  The Canadian Army began a fresh attack along the Hochwald Forest ridge towards Xanten (Operation Blockbuster).  Operation Veritable had taken two weeks to achieve its initial objectives at a cost of 6,000 casualties.

 

 

Dick, however, was out of the fighting for a while – at last he had home leave.  He arrived at Bourg Leopold on Monday 26^th, spent a couple of days with Bryn and headed for Calais to cross the Channel.  This was his first time back in England since June 1944.  His diary entry for 28^th February simply says “Arrived home on leave.”   Chotie received a telegram from his father “RICHARD AT PAGHAM”.

75 years ago - the end in the Ardennes

Dick spent the New Year in the comparative safety of Honnay, a little village between Beauraing and Wellin, where he was based for 5 days in all. On 1^st January XXX Corps were operating offensively south of the River Lesse and contact was made with enemy posts held by 9^th Panzer Division at Wavreille, Bure and St Hubert (all 61^st Recce patrolling areas) as well as Hargimont and Jemelle, east of Rochefort. 

The huge Luftwaffe attack on Allied airfields in Belgium, Holland and France (Operation Baseplate) resulted in a net loss of German planes, many shot down by their own anti-aircraft batteries due to excessive secrecy surrounding the operation.  The Allies were now assured of air supremacy but the skies in the Ardennes had clouded over again since the 26^th December.

 

In January the weather became the main enemy – temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees centigrade and there was nearly a metre of snow to contend with, as well as icy roads, hidden mines and booby-traps.  “I was never so cold in my life as in the Ardennes.  If you had to sleep in an armoured car it was like sleeping in a fridge” (Tony Rampling).  One night Dick had found a rough barn for his troop to sleep in.  Tony and another chap were sent to fetch the rum ration – they had one or two spoonfuls each every night – and, after “sipping” it on the way back Tony swore at Dick (the only time he ever challenged an officer) “When are you going to get us out of this **** place?”  Dick didn’t put him on a charge and said very little.

 

On 3^rd January Montgomery launched a major counter-offensive with US 1^st Army attacking from the north and XXX Corps from the west.  6^th Airborne Division moved in first, through Beauraing and Wellin, following the 61^st Recce and Belgian SAS reconnaissance line towards Bure and Wavreille, where they met fierce opposition.

Lieutenants Urban-Smith and Fling led the way to Wavreille with a local Belgian nobleman, overcoming a group of Germans who came up behind them and driving the enemy from the village.  They had to withdraw following fierce counter-attacks but the next day 6^th Airborne re-took the village.  At Bure there was intense fighting over a number of days – 29^th Armoured Brigade with the 5^th Para captured the village, were driven out again and finally held the village on 9^th January in what became one of the toughest battles of the campaign.  Four 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment men were killed on 4^th January.  Sandy Handley wrote: “Sadly we had several casualties in the Ardennes but considering we were front line troops our casualties were light, although one casualty was one too many.”

 

On 5th January the news broke that Montgomery had taken command of the US 1^st and 9^th Armies, split from rest of the American General Bradley’s forces by the German offensive.  The British press inferred that Monty had saved the day in the Ardennes, aggravating a dangerous rift between the Allied Commanders.  This was further inflamed by Monty’s own arrogant behaviour and a fake BBC News broadcast by the Germans implying that the British Field Marshall had saved the US 1^st Army from disaster.  Churchill attempted to mend relations by citing the huge American losses – c. 80,000 men compared with the British 2 to 3,000 -  but political damage was done that diminished Britain’s role in the invasion and occupation of Germany and even affected President Eisenhower’s reaction to the Suez Crisis.

 

“Fighting in the Ardennes reached a degree of savagery unprecedented on the western front” (Beevor).  The German slaughter of American prisoners at Baugnez-Malmédy, and the murder of civilians, led to large numbers of revenge killings, some even condoned by senior officers.  On 7^th January two British armoured cars at Forrières (east of Wavreille) also shot surrendering Germans.

 

Operation Nordwind in the Alsace launched major offensives north of Strasbourg on 5^th January and south, from the Colmar pocket, on 7^th January.  However, on 8^th January the German High Command at last ordered a withdrawal in the Ardennes.  9^th Panzer Division pulled back to a line east of Rochefort and Marche-en-Famenne on the 6^th Airborne front, withdrawing from Jemelle that night.  The sound of bridges being blown could be heard as the Germans retreated from the salient.

 

Dick had found billets for ‘B’ Squadron in a large village and time to write to Chotie on 8th January.  His letter, restricted “about 90%” by self-censorship is full of family news with updates on his injured fellow officers Lt. Geoff Winzer and Major Harding.  Dick was staying with “a charming family who do everything they possibly can to make things as pleasant as they can be, under these circumstances.” Belgian civilians suffered terribly in the Ardennes offensive – about 2,500 were killed (as well as c.500 in Luxembourg) and many who survived the bombing and heavy artillery barrages emerged from cellars and vaults to starvation and disease.  88,000 were made homeless.  Towns and villages were reduced to rubble, food stores had been raided by the Germans, livestock slaughtered and furniture, or anything else that would burn, destroyed by troops of both sides trying to keep warm.

 

On 9^th January Groupont, Forrières, Jemelle, Hargimont and, at last, Bure, were occupied by 6^th Airborne who continued moving towards la Roche-en-Ardennes and Saint Hubert the next day.  61^st Recce were asked to investigate Saint Hubert, although it was in the American sector.  When the carrier of the new troop leader, Lieutenant Spreag, was blown up on a mine he transferred to a horse (first time on horseback) and rode into St Hubert with two Belgian woodsmen to find the Germans had just left.  The Americans were not pleased when the BBC reported British armoured cars were the first to enter Saint Hubert.

 

The Christmas Eve massacre at Bande was discovered by 1^st Canadian Battalion, (working with 6^th Airborne) on 11^th January.  

The same day 61^st Recce patrols contacted US VIII Corps from Patton’s 3^rd Army in the area of St. Hubert.  Lieutenants Spreag and Abercrombie “walked 20 miles through shocking country beset with mines to contact the Airborne Brigadier.  He was so impressed that he at once offered them jobs”.  By the end of the next day they had walked over 50 miles (Colonel Brownrigg). 

“Despite the snow, the cold, the landmines and the roadblocks, as well as German defensive actions the British continued their advance and hampered the withdrawal plans of the German troops trying to escape the pincer movement of the allied armies”(from ‘The British in the battle of the Ardennes’).

On 12^th January British and US 1^st Army forces link up in Roche-en-Ardennes and the next day patrols from 6^th Airborne Division contact the US 3^rd Army’s 87^th Infantry Division at Champlon. 

The Russians had now begun three massive offensives on the eastern front and were striking from Poland towards Berlin.  Germany’s commitment of forces in the Ardennes and Alsace had seriously weakened their defence in the east while the Red Army had deployed 6.7 million men along their front.  They surged forward and on 19^th January troops from the 1^st Ukrainian front captured Krakow in south Poland.  Nearby, on 27^th January, a reconnaissance patrol from the 107^th Rifle Division discovered “the most terrible symbol in modern history” – the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

 

Dick’s diary for 13^th January records “Arrived Sintobins”.  61^st Reconnaissance Regiment had returned to Iseghem, driving along ice-bound roads through Mons and Ath and reaching Kortijk / Courtrai after dark.  Eric Postles’ carrier got stuck in the tram-lines here and had a “close encounter with a tram”.  There were happy re-unions with their hosts from early December but, despite their merited performance in the Ardennes, the Regiment was still due to disband.  Their equipment and vehicles were once more handed in.

Their General sent a message that all those who had fought in the Ardennes could take a few days leave in Brussels.  Some headed straight for the brothels.  Tony Rampling remembers staying in a very lively area but Dick’s diary only records a night out with Ronnie Jury and Johnnie Heitman at "Herboz von Brabant” on Tuesday 16^th.

By 15^th January, having cleared the whole salient up to the River Ourthe in the north-east and the Ourthe Occidentale to the south, XXX Corps returned to Boxtel near Eindhoven to prepare for Operation Veritable, Monty’s crossing of the Rhine into Germany.  The next day the US 1^st Army met up with US 3^rd Army at Houffalize and US 1^st Army reverted to American control under General Bradley.

 

Dick was with the Sintobins for dinner on Friday 19^th January “with Ronnie (Jury), Brian (Coote – the new ‘B’ Squadron Commander) and Ted Oliver”.  He stayed with the Sintobin-Anne family until at least the 27^th January and wrote to Chotie on Monday 22nd January:

61^st Recce Regt RAC

BLA.

Chotie Darling,

                                    Many thanks for your last letters – I’m afraid I’ve been rather pushed for time, or I would have replied before.

            Once again I’m with the Sintobins and living in complete luxury, which is quite a welcome break for us.

            You’ll find two photographs* enclosed that they took, just as I was leaving the last time, to slow up von Runstedt a little.  You’ll see a look of calm purposefulness (?) written all over my face ….

            They really are a fine family here – I must certainly make the effort to see them again after the war.  They gave a dinner for us – my Squadron leader Brian Coote** (Sandhurst mate), Ronnie and myself – last night which was a great success.  Madame Sintobin went out to dine with the Colonel*** a few nights ago.  She thought it a terrific honour….

            I had a very unfortunate stroke of luck the day before yesterday.  I had a letter from Bryn telling me he was in a town just seven kilometres from here.  Accordingly I gripped some transport and after several false starts arrived at the town to find he had left that morning.  Deadly, wasn’t it?  He’s now hundreds of miles away, so we’ve had it for some time.  His letter took four days to do four miles.  If only it had arrived in reasonable time I could have met him and brought him in for a meal with my family here.

            Is there anything further concerning your continental tour?  I see they still want them****.  It would certainly be more interesting than being in England but rather a gamble as you might well stay there for years.

            Well, Darling, must close here to write the family.

                                                All my love precious

                                                                        Dicker

P.S. Have just received a lovely little diary from your mother.  Will write her this afternoon. 

*Photographs of Dick and the Sintobin-Anne family in Iseghem

**presumably Major Frank Harding's replacement

***Colonel Philip Brownrigg

****Towards the end of the war service women in the UK were asked to volunteer to relieve men who had been serving abroad for some time.

 © Chotie Darling

This letter was sent to Fort Godwin, c/o Easington near Hull so Chotie had moved station yet again: “We moved to Spurn Point, indescribably stark…”

 

In the Alsace the French First Army attacked to defend Strasbourg on 20^th January and a few days later Hitler’s Operation Nordwind began to peter out as they crushed the German bridgehead around Colmar.  The Battle of Ardennes was now also ended – the US 1^st Army captured what remained of St. Vith on 23^rd January and by 29^th January the front-line in the Ardennes was restored to roughly its position before the German offensive began 6 weeks earlier.

The Battle had involved more than 1 million soldiers including 55,000 British.  The Americans lost almost 90,000 men with over 8,000 killed and 67,000 injured, the rest captured or missing.  British losses were proportionately lower with about 200 killed, 1,000 injured and c. 240 captured or missing although those of 61^st Recce were heavy with 48 killed, 144 wounded and 23 missing or captured.  A report by a military observer on 22^nd January records that 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment “although working in completely unknown country, miles ahead of our main forces, sent back such valuable information of the disposition of enemy troops that our advance went ahead smoothly.”

The Germans lost around 80,000 men in the Ardennes with 15-19,000 killed.  Although German capability in the west was destroyed the western Allies’ invasion of Germany had been significantly delayed.

 

The end of 61^st Reconnaissance regiment had also been delayed but it was now inevitable.  Photographs were taken of the Troops and Officers, there was a stand down parade and a regimental dance.

The officers of 61st Reconnaissance Regiment in January 1945 - Dick is at the end of the back row.

The men of 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment earned one Distinguished Service Order, eleven Military Crosses (including their Belgium Liaison Officer), one Distinguished Conduct Medal, five Military Medals, three Croix de Guerre and three M.B.E.s (Member of the order of the British Empire).  Subsequently, since 2014, all D Day veterans including Tony Rampling, Don Aiken and Eric Postles were awarded the Legion’d’Honneur Chevalier by France.

 

After landing on D Day, or soon after, they had fought for two months in Normandy, led the Allied forces across France and were the first into Belgium.  There they held the line along the Escaut Canal and fought in the Battle of the Albert Canal near Gheel.  In Operation Market garden they were part of the ground forces trying to reach Arnhem.  Their forces were split but many made it to the bank of the Lower Rhine and helped rescue some of the 1^st Airborne.  61^st Recce stayed on the front line here for two months, with the US 101^st Airborne, until the ‘Island’ between the Lower Rhine and the Waal was flooded.  Their Division (the 50^th Northumberland) was sent back to England and the Regiment was in Belgium ready to disband before their ‘reprieve’ for the Battle of the Ardennes....

Sources include ‘Ardennes 1944’ by Anthony Beevor published by Penguin 2015 and ‘German attack in the Ardennes: Operation by 30 Corps’ published on WW2 Talk Forum.

75 years ago - into the Ardennes

Hitler conceived the idea of a surprise attack on the Western Allies through the Ardennes back in September 1944.  The advance through the mountains between Belgium and Luxembourg would reprise the success of the German offensive into France and the Low Countries of 1940.  This time the intention was to swing north to Brussels and the Belgian port of Antwerp, cutting off the British, Canadian and American armies north of the Ardennes.

Preparations continued in total secret through the autumn of 1944.  Troops and tanks assembling in the thickly forested Eiffel region on the German side of the Ardennes managed to avoid detection by air reconnaissance or Allied intelligence.

By December Operation ‘Wacht am Rhein’ (‘Watch on the Rhine’) had Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies prepared to lead the attack with Seventh Army ready to follow, holding the southern flank, and Fifteenth Army to come in from the north.  The Allies’ front line in the Ardennes was thinly held by the US 1^st Army with two inexperienced infantry divisions (V Corps’ 99^th and the 106^th) to the north and US 3^rd Army divisions to the south (the 4^th and 28^th), damaged and exhausted by the ferocious fighting in the Hürtgen Forest, south-east of Aachen in November.  The Panzer armies were to smash through these lines, heading west to cross the critical barrier of the River Meuse, aided by paratroopers capturing road junctions and commando sabotage operations.

 

 

At the beginning of December Dick had just returned to ‘the Island’ in the Netherlands, after his trip to Izegem.  While in Belgium he’d visited Audenarde / Oudenaarde - “the town I liberated on 6^th September” – and the Gervaert family he’d met there.  He spent a night in Malines where he saw the German flying-bombs for the first time.  On 1st December he wrote to Chotie, who “didn’t think much of the area” near Hull where she was now stationed with her anti-aircraft battery.  Brin, Dick’s brother, had left Belgium for infantry training on the Isle of Man and managed to visit the family home at Pagham in Sussex.

The Germans started to flood ‘the Island’ – Eric Brewer wrote in his diary for 1^st December that the water had risen two foot and many ‘Gerrys’ were trapped.  Operation Noah, the evacuation plan, was put into effect and B Squadron moved back to Mill, south of Nijmegen on 3^rd December.  The Regiment without 50^th Division was now ‘orphaned’ and held bits of the line for the 49^th (with 1^st Canadian Army) and 53^rd (Welsh) Infantry Division of XXX Corps.

Eric Brewer records that they moved to Ell (south-east of Eindhoven) on 5^th December.  Dick wrote to Chotie thrilled to have listened to the whole of Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’ opera from Germany (presumably on one of the radios ‘liberated’ from Eindhoven during Operation Market Garden), completing the letter after another move to “the inevitable farmhouse”.  He could now describe the rhythm of life on ‘the Island’: “Our usual practice was to do a week or so ‘in the line’ and have a week back at the farm in reserve” where the three ‘B’ Squadron “Armoured Car Officers (Geoff Winzer, Eric ‘Schoolmaster’ Macey and I) used to share a room.”

Eric Brewer’s last diary entry, on 10^th December, records relieving the 53^rd Division on a forward outpost ‘overlooking the Maas’.  Eric Postles writes that they were on a canal near Venlo (on the Dutch/German border east of Eindhoven) and “all through the day and night the Germans fired rifle grenades”.  This may have been where Eric Brewer was injured, with phosphorous burns to his hands and arms.  Although his ambulance crashed with a lorry en route to the hospital he escaped further injury and after a cheerful Christmas in the 105 British General Hospital appears to have made a full recovery, although he never returned to the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment.

 

Soon after this the Regiment was sent to Iseghem / Izegem to disband.  The men “handed in all our fighting vehicles, ammunition and petrol to various dumps.  All wireless sets were removed from their vehicles and the Quartermaster had all stores in a barn for checking” (Colonel Brownrigg).  Although the Regiment still had an H.Q. and cook-house, the men were billeted with the people of the town and at liberty to do what they pleased.  Tony Rampling and his driver stayed in a bakery and met a girl called Georgette: “the first love of my life”.  Eric Postles was with a family of shoemakers, the Deschermakers, and he gave them one of the Phillips radio sets purloined in Holland.  Dick, having arranged the billets, “naturally picked himself a first-class place” with a “very fine collection of records”.  He wrote to Chotie that they were “having a real holiday while we may – and the old beer certainly flows here.”   Chotie also had news – her sister Margaret now had a baby boy, Roger Lewis.

 

The German attack on the Ardennes began at 5.30 am on the 16^th December when 1,900 artillery guns suddenly opened fire.  That first day the Panzer Armies successfully breached the American lines on a 70 mile front.  It was a complete surprise – panic and confusion also arose from the landing of paratroopers behind the lines (although mainly far from their targets due to strong winds and poor visibility) and Skorzeny's commandos speaking American- English, wearing American uniforms and driving captured American vehicles.

On 17^th December Eisenhower sent in the US 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions, who were “recuperating from their extended combat role in the waterlogged foxholes of Holland” (Beevor in ‘Ardennes 1944’), where they’d worked with 61^st Recce.  Planes were grounded by the weather so the Airborne travelled from Reims (north-east France) in open trucks, many without winter clothing. The recuperation of 61^st Reconnaissance continued and Dick was involved in an unfortunate traffic accident in Izegem, knocking a lady off her bike who suffered three broken ribs.

 

 

Battle was raging in the on the Belgian/German border in the Ardennes around the Schnee Eiffel and the town of St Vith.  To the north a German battle group from 6^th Panzer Army rapidly penetrated westward and reached Malmédy.  There, at the Baugnez crossroads SS Panzergrenadiers shot and killed 84 American prisoners.  (A few escaped and, reporting the outrage - the massacre was widely publicised among US troops, leading to the revenge killing of many SS Prisoners of War.)  This spearhead was successfully stalled by US Engineers destroying all the bridges on the route west. Further south the Germans surrounded and recaptured the ancient town of Clervaux.  5^th Panzer Army were advancing towards the critical town of Bastogne although the 28^th Armored Division managed to defend Wiltz (east of Bastogne) until the morning of 20^th December.

 

Montgomery, in charge of 21^st Army Group (1^st Canadian and 2^nd British Armies) at the north end of the western front, sent his staff officers to find out what was going on at US 1^st Army HQ in Spa.  Finding it in disarray he sent Phantom and SAS (Special Air Service) reconnaissance teams to the Ardennes so he would know what was going on.  At 5.30 pm on 19^th December he ordered XXX Corps to secure the Meuse crossings.  11^th Armoured Division’s 29^th Armoured Brigade, waiting for new Comet tanks, was ordered to take back their old Shermans and head south.  “The 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment in Bruges ‘bombed up, tanked up, loaded up and drove into the night’"(Beevor in ‘Ardennes 1944').  They were to work with 29^th Armoured defending the Meuse from Namur to Givet, a front of over 50 kilometres.

According to Sandy Handley it took 61^st Recce 24 Hours to reach Namur – the convoy was forced to stop and start, particularly in Brussels where Tony Rampling remembers “we couldn’t get through for all the girls surrounding us”.

 

On 20^th December Eisenhower officially handed Montgomery command of all Allied forces north of the German advance including the US 1^st and 9^th Armies.  Lt-General Bradley, the American chief of US 12^th Army Group was based south of the Ardennes, in Luxembourg, with poor communication from his forces facing the impact of the German advance in the north.  Monty’s command extended to a line between Givet, on the Meuse, and Prüm in Germany.

By 21^st December Lt-General Brian Horrocks’ XXX Corps had completed their concentration along the line of the River Meuse.  Eisenhower’s aide, Bedell-Smith, was greatly relieved: “We knew Horrocks and knew he had good men.”  Don Aiken was involved in action as soon as they arrived at the Meuse – directed to contact US Engineers blowing the bridge over a small river his armoured car was shot at by a German tank.

The Germans captured St Vith, south of Malmédy, on 21^st December and the 101^st Airborne, having got through to Bastogne, were now surrounded.  Although progress had been slower than planned, and the 6^th Panzer Army spearhead was cut off by US 1^st Army re-taking Stavelot (south-west of Malmédy), elements of 5^th Panzer Army were steadily advancing west, delayed only by traffic jams and lack of fuel.  The Allied air-force was still grounded by poor visibility.  By 22^nd December 2^nd Panzer Division was only 25 kilometres from the Meuse bridge at Dinant.

 

On 23^rd December the skies cleared and the Allies began a co-ordinated campaign of bombing attacks against the German forces.  Supplies were dropped for the besieged defenders of Bastogne.  Air reconnaissance was now possible.  29^th Armoured Brigade had one armoured regiment and a company of infantry at each of the three Meuse bridges (Givet, Dinant and Namur) with a reconnaissance screen of 61st Recce Regiment in between.  A car full of Germans disguised as Americans tried to cross the bridge at Dinant but was blown-up.  Belgian refugees, fleeing westward, were blocked at the bridges so resorted to boats to cross the Meuse.

The heavily forested landscape gave cover to the Germans and made the Recce patrols “pretty nerve-racking…we thought at any moment the enemy would jump out and attack us” (Sandy Handley).  Once Sandy’s armoured car ran out of petrol shortly after attacking some Germans and re-fuelled from the jerry can just in time.

29^th Armoured was also working with the local Belgian resistance led by Baron Jacques de Villefagne, who lived in the château at Sorrinnes, east of Dinant.  Just to the south of Sorinnes lie the village of Foy-Notre-Dame and the small ancient town of Celles.  2^nd Panzer Division reached these on the night of 23^rd / 24^th December and on Christmas Eve made several attempts to penetrate towards the Meuse at Dinant, now less than 10 kilometres away.

 

61^st Recce was along and behind the German front in temperatures well below freezing with deep snow in the forests.  On Christmas Eve while Corporal Roy Howard was near Dinant, so close to the Germans he could hear them singing carols, Corporal Mulcahy (who earned the Military Medal in the Ardennes) went forward 10 miles east of Beauraing (10 km. east of Givet) to reach US Engineers with instructions for them to destroy a bridge and Dick’s troop shot three Germans (one had nearly killed Dick first).

Also on 24^th December the SS murdered 34 civilians in the village of Bande, near March-en-Famenne.  (The massacre was not discovered until 12^th January when troops for the 6^th Airborne Division liberated the village).

 

For Christmas 61^st Recce were issued with bottles of beer, which was frozen solid, and fat pork and potatoes, which they managed to boil over an earth fire doused with petrol (Sandy Handley).  Eric Postles remembers that for the first time they had self-heating cans of chocolate drink and soup.  He also describes how, they “moved forward to support attacks against the German spearhead.  The deep snow made foot patrols difficult and the Germans again fired airburst shells, which looked more sinister against the whiteness of the snow.  American troops were fleeing madly from the German advance and unfortunately early in the action an American lorry, being driven much too fast, hit our squadron leader’s jeep, which was parked off the road on a bend.  Major Harding was badly injured but he survived the war.  Our armoured cars were constantly patrolling between British forces and the US army, who bore the brunt of the action to squeeze the enemy back.”

29^th Armoured, with US VII Corps’ 2^nd Armored Division, successfully attacked the tip of the German salient at Foy-Notre-Dame and Celles on Christmas day.  Realising their offensive had failed von Rundstedt recommended withdrawal to Hitler, who instead insisted on more attacks against Bastogne.  However, General Patton had sent three divisions from his 3^rd US Army to relieve Bastogne from the south and, fighting their way through, they were now very close to the beleaguered town.  By nightfall on 26^th December 4^th Armored Division had broken through the siege and secured a narrow corridor for supplies.

 

29^th Armoured Brigade was ‘mopping up’ around Celles on Boxing Day and Dick’s troop shot another five Germans.  The remnants of 2^nd Panzer Division who escaped concentrated around Rochefort (15 kilometres east of the Meuse), which was held by the Panzer Lehr.

The next day the British 6^th Airborne Division replaced 29^th Armoured Brigade on the Givet-Namur sector.  They were assisted by Belgian paratroopers from the 5^th Special Air Service who now worked closely with 61^st Recce.  “These daredevils had jeeps with a machine gun mounted – not much protection or armour there” (Sandy Handley).

 

The weather had now closed in again so air reconnaissance was impossible but “the Allies needed to know how the Panzer Lehr and 2^nd Panzer were redeploying after their withdrawal from Rochefort.  The British 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment, as well as Belgian and French SAS forces, some 350 strong, was sent into the large area of forest and bog south of Rochefort and Marche-en-Famenne to find out” (Beevor, ‘Ardennes 1944’). “They encountered the enemy on the approach to St Hubert and on the line from Rochefort to Libin" (WW2 Talk Forum).

According to a Belgian SAS Intelligence Report 61^st Recce advanced towards St. Hubert (30 km. west of Bastogne) along a line of small villages: Halma, Chanly, Tellin and Bure.  These were at the southern edge of the 5^th Panzer Army salient, just north of the American lines.  They patrolled behind the German lines to bring back information on the location of enemy forces – Sergeant Hollingsworth (who was also awarded the Military Medal) was at Villers-sur-Lesse, west of Rochefort, on 27^th December and Lieutenant Laing located a German garrison HQ at Val-de-Poix, just west of St Hubert, on 28^th December.

British 6^th Airborne Division, while still defending the Meuse, established a defensive line east of the river.  The ground was too frozen to dig so they used explosives to blast holes – a technique made doubly dangerous by Teller mines the Germans had buried under the snow.  They were also tasked with carrying out offensive actions on a general access from Givet to St Hubert.  61^st Recce was involved in actions at Wavreille, Bure, Han, Mirwaut, Awenne, Champlon and Smuid (all around St Hubert or towards Rochefort).  Sergeant Hollingsworth saved an SAS patrol, tackling a tank and machine gun near Han-sur-Lesse and Dick’s room-mate Eric Macey and Corporal Mulcahy drew fire on their armoured cars to locate the enemy near Tellin.  Also on 29^th December Lt. Urban-Smith and Sergeant Moorehouse crossed the river at Lomme (south-west of St Hubert) on foot and in daylight, moving behind German forward outposts to bring back information on enemy defences. 

On 30th December the planned British attack towards Houffalize was halted by the strong German resistance.  Two men from 61^st Recce were killed in another traffic accident attributed to an American lorry fleeing from the Germans.  The Americans had, however, held firm on the shoulders of the German salient around Elsenborn Ridge to the north and along the River Sauer to the south and the resistance of the troops defending Bastogne is legendary.

 

Dick at last had a free day on the 30^th and wrote to Chotie:

Sat 30 Dec

Chotie Darling,

                                    I’m very sorry, Precious, for not having written you before, but it just hasn’t been possible.  I’ve now got the first free day for nearly a fortnight, so everything depends on today.  The mail has been very poor lately – I received your letter and calendar, for which many thanks, Darling.

            I’ve been at it for a fortnight, as I say, so Xmas was just another day.  I had an indifferent breakfast and a worse meal about 10 pm when I got back from patrol.

            Weather here has been quite good – very cold but plenty of sun.  The countryside here is really lovely quite like North Wales, and a wonderful change after the Nijmegen Bridgehead! (I had nine weeks there!)

            I hope you are keeping fit, Darling and warm!  It’s bitterly cold in armoured cars as the engine is in the rear and you get no protection from the wind.

            We shot another three Boche on Xmas Eve (one nearly shot me first) and another five on Boxing Day, which puts my troop in the lead again.  What a gruesome business!

            Hope Margaret is progressing well – I shouldn’t wonder the baby was late this weather!

            On Xmas Day the Squadron Leader* had a terrific crash in his jeep whilst out visiting the various troops.  They carted him off with severe concussion and he’s expected to be in hospital for at least a month.  So much the worse as he’s a very able Commander.

            Diller has been home on leave I believe, but I’ve heard no news of Brinner lately.  He’s supposed to be getting some leave I believe.

            I’ll enclose this letter** with the three little books*** I bought in Malines – if you would just keep them safe, Darling.  As I say it’s not much good sending them home as mother’s sure to throw them away in the Spring.

            I must close here, Chotie Darling –

                                                All my love Precious          

                                                            Dicker.

*Major Frank Harding had been the B Squadron leader from 12^th June 1944. He received the Military Cross for B Squadron’s role in the operation at Amayé-sur-Seulles and Condé-sur-Noreau in Normandy, the advance across France into Belgium and the holding of 15 miles of the Belgian Escaut Canal including Oudenaarde from the 4th  to 7th September.  ‘He never spared himself and his cheerfulness in any difficulty or danger has been a great inspiration to his Squadron’ (from his Military Cross citation).

**Perhaps because it was enclosed with the books, this letter seems somewhat freer with military information than Dick’s usual correspondence.

***my mother kept these three little leather bound books Dick bought (in Antwerp) but they eventually fell apart from love and use. One contained four Shakespeare tragedies (Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet) and the others were philosophical essays I think.

© Chotie Darling

 

Writing again the next day he revealed he was in a little village (the photos say Honnay, which is between Beauraing and Wellin), sharing a room in a café with Eric Macey – Geoff Winzer, his other room-mate had been “rather badly wounded” on the 30^th and was now “miles back... in dock for at least six to eight weeks”.  “The people are very good to us here” – after a huge lunch they had photos taken with them in the snow outside, before preparing for their delayed Christmas dinner.

 

 

Lieutenants Eric Macey and Richard Williams of 61st Reconnaissance Regiment in Honnay during the Battle of the Ardennes with girls (left to right) Esther, Lucienne and Victorine. 31st December 1944.

 

Fighting continued not far away – the Germans had launched a heavy but ultimately unsuccessful attack on Bastogne on the 30^th December.  Just before midnight on the 31^st Hitler began another surprise offensive, Operation Nordwind; this time towards Strasbourg and the Alsace-Lorraine against the now over-stretched US 7^th Army, south of the Ardennes....

75 years ago - a move to Hull

At the beginning of November 1944 61^st Reconnaissance regiment were taking their first break since 6^th June (‘D’ Day). 

Dick’s ‘B’ squadron were in harbour at Winssen, 15 kilometres north-west of Nijmegan on the River Waal.  Dick had 48 hours leave from 2^nd November and drove a party the 120 miles to Antwerp along “pretty grim roads” in a three tonne truck.  It took about 5 hours but seemed well worth the effort.

          “The shops are fun and already very ‘Xmassy’ – though everything’s too dear for the local population.  Service men with plenty of money are lashing out as usual….Cafés full of cream cakes, ice-cream and the inevitable acorn coffee…I made a complete pig of myself.”  Dick avoided the ENSA shows and went for the cabarets and night-clubs “(full of Yanks, Canucks*, Poles, ATS, Canuck WAAGs, etc.)” including a few Belgian strip-tease acts. (*’Canuck’ was a nickname for Canadians)

          “Prices are murder! But drinks in the Officers’ Hotel are very cheap.”  He seems to have been rather drunk when he wrote to Chotie on 3rd November.

 

Both Dick and Eric Brewer returned to Winssen from Antwerp on 4^th November but two days later Eric was on the ‘the Island’ front-line again at Zetten on O.P. (Outpost? Operational Patrol?).  Dick wrote to Chotie from the comfort of Winssen on Tuesday 7th  and Wednesday 8th – he was enjoying reading George Bernard Shaw, listening to German radio and talking with the local Burgomaster (magistrate).  The Armoured car Officers held a “miserable” dance on the 7^th with Dick running the bar.  The only beer available was “chemical synthetic stuff…you can drink something like 20 pints without mental troubles…The brewers call it ‘hop-less’ – the boys ‘hopeless’.”

Chotie was now based at the 6^th Heavy (Mixed) Anti-Aircraft Practice Camp at Cleve near Bude in Cornwall.  RAF Cleave used some of the very first drones as targets, launched off the cliff using steam catapults. 

Anti-aircraft ATS training at RAF Cleave, Cornwall

It seems Chotie may have been learning how to tackle the V1 or V2 rocket-bombs, which were becoming a nightmare in eastern England.  One ‘buzz-bomb’ had fallen just near Eric Brewer’s house; on 7^th November he wrote home “I received the Gazette and saw where the BB fell. Blimey, it was close to the house.   Lucky it fell when it did – if it had been in the air a fraction of a second longer it would have hit the house.”

On 9^th November 50^th (Northumbrian) Division, with 61^st Recce, joined 2 Canadian Corps.  They had liberated Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais and Ostend and at last succeeded in clearing the Scheldt Estuary of Germans so Antwerp could be used as an Allied port.  (Until 11^th November the front-line had to rely on the ‘Red Ball Express’; a relay of US Army supply trucks from the Normandy beaches.)  Sandy Handley, who had taken a shine to one of the barge girls at Ewijk (the village next to Winssen) was not so pleased when the Canadians “muscled in”.

 

The rest of ‘B’ Squadron moved up to Zetten on 10^th November so Dick was back on the front-line.  He moved into the same house he was in about a month ago (presumably when 61^st Recce were based at Herveld, just south-east of Zetten, from 8^th to 13^th October with the 101st Airborne).  Here he was with a Protestant Minister who spoke six languages - “a man of considerable intellect and general broadness of horizon” - who gave his house as a home for unmarried mothers.   Dick wrote to Chotie again on the 12th “from an armchair in front of a lovely fire…There’s a ton of books in this house – also a Blüthner grand (piano), so I manage to amuse myself during my ‘free’ time.”

Although the men often wrote re-assuring letters to their loved ones at home Eric Brewer (still at Zetten on O.P.) takes it to a new extreme, writing on the same day to say he was visiting ENSA shows and local cinemas and “the lads who are doing the cooking have started to bring our breakfast round to us while in bed.”  On 13^th November the 61^st Reconnaissance war diary records “The water level at Nijmegan bridge has risen greatly in the last few days.  It is believed that the enemy is now in a position to flood ‘the Island’ by blowing the dykes on either the River Waal or the Neder Rijn” (Lower Rhine).  Eric Brewer was on forward O.P. by the river on the 15th “saw two chaps crawling so we changed our position.  Blooming cold tonight.  Plenty of Spandau fire, etc.”

 

‘B’ Squadron was relieved by ‘A’ Squadron the next day and moved back to Winssen.  Dick was busy with personal and vehicular maintenance, including about four hours of washing because “the laundry system here is lousy – there’s no marking ink available and you never get the same stuff back again.”  He wrote to Chotie thanking her for some photos and excusing himself from buying perfume since “all that sort of thing is in Belgium …  there’s the snag of changing guilders into Belgian francs – no mean task as the Field cashier is never seen within 20 miles of the ‘front’ and I’m certainly never 20 miles from it!...

        Thawing out for the first time for days” he enjoyed an evening by the stove with Ronnie Jury, drinking Burgundy and listening to classical music from Munich in Germany. 

 

By the next night all the Regiment were back on ‘the Island’ taking over the sector east of Elst from an entire Brigade (the 151^st).  They had to plan for evacuation in case the Germans breached the dykes – Exercise Noah.  (Anthony Rampling remembers this is just what they did.)  Eric Brewer was near Arnhem again in “about the coldest and wettest position I have ever been in. There is 2ft of water in the slit trenches and we have to stand in it…”  On Sunday 19^th the Regiment was visited by the commander of the Canadian Corps and the temporary commander of 50^th Division, Major General Lynne.  They watched a V2 being launched from just north of Arnhem, behind the German front line.

          The Allies, having crossed the German frontier to the south, now began to mine ‘the Island’.  “Spasmodic shelling and mortaring of the Regiment’s forward positions continued” and Eric Brewer’s position was also subject to machine gun fire.  One of the mine-laying ‘sappers’ dropped a mine and “got his foot blown off.  The shrapnel just missed us.”  By November 20th five of the men in Eric’s troop were also ill.

        That was the day Colonel Brownrigg received the news that 50^th Division was to return to the UK as a training Division and the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was to be disbanded.  Dick sent Chotie this elegiac letter:

 

Chotie Darling,

                                    Received your letter, and the gloves yesterday, along with some tobacco from home.  So it was really a bumper mail.  Thank you very much for the gloves, Precious, they’re certainly the answer out here.

            It’s now almost five o’clock in the afternoon, raining steadily and quite dark.  As the electricity hasn’t yet been switched on for the evening, I’m writing this by candlelight.  I’ve had a very enjoyable afternoon – I went for a walk!  This may sound a little odd,  but quite genuinely, I haven’t been walking anywhere since I left England.

            I went out about two o’clock in typical November weather – a pale wintry sun, a fair wind, and very muddy underfoot.  I went as far as the nearest dyke, as the lane running on top of it was much drier.

            There’s no grandeur in the countryside in this country, but there’s beauty in the old white-washed farmsteads, lying in the rich meadows alongside the dykes.  Many of these fields were already flooded, and the last autumnal leaves were falling in the water and being banked up against the other side by the wind.  The river, when we got here, was about a hundred yards wide, and now already reaches the dykes on either side – some seven or eight hundred yards apart.  If the dykes should fail in their purpose the whole countryside would be flooded for miles, and presumably everyone would be drowned – but they’re pretty stout banks.

            By half past three, the sun had vanished and there was a gentle rain coming down – so I walked back into the face of it.  Luckily it was a mild, soft rain – which was quite pleasant – as I’d taken the precaution of carrying a rain-coat.  I got back to a warm fire and Spam* & chips for tea so altogether I spent a very happy afternoon.  Needless to say I went alone as neither of my brother subalterns share my aesthetic views….

            To get back to earth, I find myself instructing on the NCO’s Cadre course from Wednesday to Sunday – which also seems pretty odd, when everyone in England takes us to be in the thick of it all the time!

            I suppose you to be back at Bristol now.  Have you found the Christopher Hotel** yet?  Eric and I had many a drink there back in ’41.  It was there that the memorable occasion occurred when I cheerfully ordered two beers, and then, after they had turned up, found we’d only got enough money between us to pay for the one!  I still remember the look on Eric’s face as he watched me drink it….

            How’s Margaret bearing up these days?  You didn’t mention her in your last letter.

            Haven’t heard from Bryn for some time so I’ve no idea what he’s doing – or even where he is.

            Can’t think of anything more for now, Darling, so I’ll close here.

                                                                        Much love, Precious

                                                                                    Your devoted

                                                                                                Dicker.

 

*A canned pre-cooked meat with pork shoulder and ham.

** Mentioned in letter of 1st April 1944.

 © Chotie Darling

Dick had been with 61^st Reconnaissance for a year, his first as an officer; shifting from coastal defence to preparation for ‘D Day’, fighting in Normandy for two months before crossing France to the Battle of Belgium and Operation Market Garden.  He’d now been stuck on the Netherlands front-line for another two months.

On 21^st November Eric Brewer was moving into a burnt house to make it a strong point when he was shelled by the Germans and shrapnel hit his tin hat.  The burnt-out house was “just like a luxury, as bad as it is.  Gerry still active and also plenty of mortars.”  On 22^nd he wrote home that he’d “been told some good news today but I am very sorry I can’t tell you what it is.” Presumably Eric thought he’d be returning to England.  However, that same day Colonel Brownrigg had driven to XXX Corps HQ and, with the Corps Commander Colonel Horrocks, managed to persuade Montgomery to cancel the break-up of 61^st Recce.  Horrocks said that the Regiment “would be worth a brigade to me”.  (The normal strength of a Reconnaissance Regiment was about 40 officers plus less than 750 'other ranks' while a Brigade was three to six times as large).

 

Back on ‘the Island’ shelling continued and enemy activity was detected, including submachine gun fire (from infantry or paratroopers). The regiment could see several V2s being launched every day only 10 miles north of their positions.

          Chotie’s unit had moved right across England to Barrow-on-Humber on the Lincolnshire coast (possibly to the Barrow Haven anti-aircraft battery, designed to protect the port of Hull).  V2 rocket bombs could reach Hull and the 462 Heavy (Mixed) Anti-Aircraft battery of the Royal Artillery was now part of their defence against the buzz-bombs.

 

Dick had said he was teaching a course from Wednesday 22^nd to Sunday 26^th November but on 25th November he was more than 150 miles south-west of Arnhem in the little Belgian town of Izegem, near Courtrai/Kortnjk.  He was “fixing up civvy billets for the Squadron” and was only about 20 miles from Oudenaarde, the town his Troop had liberated where he had made so many friends. 

Back on the Netherlands' front-line 61^st Recce’s Regimental HQ at Elst was heavily shelled on the night of the 28^th and two soldiers were killed.  Eric Brewer was sheltered in the burnt out house until the end of November.  However, the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was about to leave ‘the Island’ at last. 

75 years ago - 'The Island'

October 1944 began with 50^th Division battling German attacks on ‘the Island’ – the front-line between the river Waal (with the critical Nijmegan bridge) and the Lower Rhine either side of Arnhem where the Germans held sway after defeating the British in Operation Market Garden.  Most of 61^st Reconnaissance was still on the right flank of the ‘Garden’ corridor between Uden and Grave, at Mill, where for the first time they could look into Germany.  ‘A’ Squadron and some of ‘B’ Squadron had been split from the rest of the Regiment by attacks on the corridor and were already on ‘the Island’, under command of 69^th Brigade (the Green Howards and the East Yorks) who had received the brunt of the German offensive.  Orders were received on 1^st October for those at Mill to move to Nijmegan and Eric Brewer moved that night.

‘A’ Squadron returned to regimental control on the 2^nd October while the British and Americans (101^st Airborne) went into attack - 50^th Division’s 151^st Brigade (Durham Light Infantry)  around Haalderen and 231^st Brigade (Devons, Hampshires and Dorsets) from Bemmel, both east of Elst.

On Tuesday October 3^rd Eric Brewer (and presumably the rest of ‘B’ Squadron’s Assault Troop) were relieved and Eric was able to have a bath – the first since Bayeux!  The next day the rest of the Regiment crossed the Waal onto ‘the Island’ in Divisional reserve near Elst, although ‘A’ Squadron were given a sector to hold for the 151^st Brigade.  On Friday 6th the Regiment moved back into harbour across the Waal south of Nijmegan to carry out maintenance etc. before returning to ‘the Island’ on the 8th, although Eric Brewer continued fighting with the 101^st US Airborne at Arnhem.  The Assault troop was particularly in demand because vehicle movements were almost impossible off-road on the wet boggy ground while the roads were targeted by German bombs and artillery.  Worst was “crossing the long Nijmegen bridge because of the shelling.  You just put your foot down and got over as quickly as you could” (Eric Postles).                                               

Dick had “spent three days with a very nice family” at Nijmegan- he was harboured in an orchard but offered a room and a bed.  ‘B’ and ‘C’ Squadrons were now in forward positions on ‘the Island’, with HQ base west of Elst at Herveld – Dick sent a Field Service Postcard on the 8^th just to let Chotie know he was well.  However, the next day he found himself working as Liaison Officer with an American Colonel (presumably from 101^st Airborne) and, at last, had time to reply to Chotie. She was bemoaning leaving the comfortable farm near Cheltenham to move back to Bristol with her Ack-Ack unit and considering volunteering for work overseas.  (In September 1944 the British Army Act, which meant women serving abroad had the status of ‘camp followers’, was revoked - women in the ATS were asked to volunteer for service abroad to fill the growing need in western Europe.) Dick advised her not to:  “you’ll probably go to Egypt or somewhere and never get demobbed”.

Holding the line in the Netherlands was dangerous work. ‘C’ Squadron patrols investigating barge movements on the Waal on the 9^th were wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans.  Corporal Roy Whitehouse died that day and Trooper Maurice Raine the next day as a prisoner of war near Amsterdam - 61^st Recce lost many other men that autumn and the 101st  US Airborne had more casualties on ‘the Island’ than in the Market Garden airborne landings. 

‘A’ Squadron relieved ‘C’ at Hien (west of Herveld) on the 11^th, finding and capturing an enemy outpost the next day. Eric Brewer was at Wamel (further west on the Waal) until the 16^th, where he alternated between the Forward Outpost, directing artillery fire on the Germans, and tea at the house of a friendly girl called Annie. 

On 13^th October ‘B’ Squadron were relieved by 52nd Recce and the Regimental HQ crossed the Waal and moved to Appeltern on the Maas river (south of Wamel).  61^st Recce now held the area west of Nijmegen between the Waal and the Maas.  On 16^th ‘B’ Squadron’ position was under attack from a self-propelled gun and approaching enemy, crawling along the road and digging tunnels to avoid detection.  Lieutenant Albert Stone was wounded.

The next day the Regiment moved back onto ‘the Island’ and were based at Driel, south-west of Arnhem on the south bank of the Lower Rhine.  Here they were really under the eyes of the Germans – all movements had to be carried out after dark leaving only skeleton crews in the forward outposts (slit trenches where everyone spent the night) by day while the others sheltered in nearby houses.  Eric Brewer was at last in reserve with the Regimental HQ at Lienden.  Dick also appears to have been there too but in very gloomy mood:

 

Letter written on Wednesday 18th October 1944

61^st Recce Regt RAC

BLA.

Wednesday October 18^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Nothing much to write about I’m afraid, but here goes in reply to yours of the 12^th.

            Weather has been very variable of late, but after a bad start this morning things have cleared up no end, and this afternoon it’s sunny – in fact, autumn at its best.

            Was very pleased to read that you were on leave again and that Mary* was home at the same time.  I expect you had plenty to talk about….

            I had some rather bad news yesterday.  My old friend “Chunky**” was killed in the Falaise Gap, some time ago though I’ve only just heard.  It’s very sad for his wife (whom I met once in London) as they’d only been married some 18 months or so, and Chunky of course, has spent all that time in the Army.  They had a baby son David, who was about a year old.  I’m the only one of the trio left, so it’s my turn next.

            Just received a letter from Brinner.  He’s still at Base but it appears he may have to go into the Infantry – which won’t do my nerves any good, as the Officer Casualty rate with them is appalling.

            Reference ‘demobbing’*** I make the 32 group and Brinner the 42 group so we both beat you – Yah!

            Haven’t shot any Germans lately or anything else of interest.  We’ve been working all the time but haven’t had many encounters.

            The NAAFI van**** has just turned up – for the first time since Normandy and even now, they’ve got no tobacco.  Apart from what Brinner can get at his RHU, I get nothing at all.  Makes me mad to think of it, especially when people in England imagine that the fighting soldier gets everything he needs.  We’re always hearing talk of “Officer Shops” but in four months over here I haven’t been able to buy a collar stud even!

            Must close here, Precious to do some work on the car.

                                    All my love, Darling

                                                Dicker.

*Mary DakinMary Dakin, Chotie’s best friend at home.

**Chunky, the 5 ft 2” tall ex chef of the Trocadero in London, shared a room with Dick and Brian ’the Ham’ when they were training to be officers in summer 1943

***Ernest Bevin's plan for demobilisation was published on 22nd September 1944 - release was based on your age and service number.

****Reg Harper describes “the occasional appearance of ‘Towrope’ Joe Meredith with the NAAFI truck …his opening gambit puffing smoke from his pipe – ‘Sorry Corporal, no pipe tobacco.  Stuff it with Woodbines; we have plenty of bootlaces, blanco, brasso, etc!’  So I settled for toothpaste.”  (From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books 2004)

 

 

 

 

 Postcard written Wednesday 18th October 1944 from 'the Island'

 

US troops reported that an enemy patrol managed to cross the river on the night of the 19^th October but they were located by ‘A’ squadron and heavily ‘stonked’ by the artillery. 

Dick and ‘B’ squadron continued in reserve so he bombarded Chotie with a daily letter and the slightly cheesy postcards he’d been given.  On the 20th he was installed in “an amazingly clean house...you change from outdoor shoes to slippers every time you go in the house!”  Their fastidiousness seems highly practical - on the 21st he wrote “The ground here is deadly with mud.  I’ve got five pairs of boots out here (a wise precaution - taken in England) and I wear them in rotation.  By the time I’ve got through them all the first pair are dry again…"

Eric Brewer was back on the frontline beside the Rhine from the night of the 20^th “with Gerry throwing grenades over our positions and plenty of Spandau fire”.  On 22^nd a small patrol of about 10 Germans came up behind their outpost: “I shouted ‘Halt. Who goes there?’ when they were 25 yards away and they were 10 yards away when they stopped – I wasn’t half scared” before “our Bren gun and grenades soon got rid of them.”

Eric Postles had a lucky escape when the squadron were at Arnhem; having called down artillery fire on some Germans, who had got through the embankment to their positions, the last shell fired was so close it blew him over and stunned him. “I found a hole in my greatcoat where a piece of shrapnel had passed through.  Luckily it hit the compass in my trouser pocket putting it out of action but leaving me with no more than a few bruises.”

Dick wrote again on the 22nd sounding rather bored after three days of rest with no other officers around, but was busy again from that night when ‘B’ Squadron were sent to the front-line and he went “up to Squadron HQ tonight to take over duties of 2^nd in command”.  Sandy Handley recalls looking out for “any Airborne chaps who’d managed to get away from the Germans.”  100 of the British Airborne who’d evaded capture were rescued near Renkum (6km west of Driel) on the night of 22^nd/23^rd October.

61^st Recce war diary (only October and November 1944 are available) reports a German deserter surrendering to them while Reg Harper recalls one quiet prisoner who turned out to be an American deserter.  Thirty abandoned vehicles were recovered while the Regiment was at Driel, cited in Captain Joe ‘Tow-rope’ Meredith’s MBE and Lt. Laing’s Military Cross.  Front-line positions were mortared, shelled or machine gunned during the day and enemy patrols tried to get past the outposts at night.  By the 25^th there were “plenty of Gerry dead” around Eric Brewer’s outpost.

In another letter on 26th October Dick describes his work as 2^nd in Command as “nothing very thrilling – just a lot of painstaking work.  It falls to my lot to issue all rations, clothing, rum, etc and entertain visiting Colonels…”  His father was trying to sell their “old London town-house”, Clevedon Lodge, (which had been damaged by flying-bombs) for £1,500.  Dick’s brother was “still at the Regimental Holding Unit… whether Brinner will ever fire a shot in anger seems a moot point”.  Although Dick also wrote “people seem to think the war’s all over…the biggest and most bitter battles are yet to come”.  He was still advising Chotie not to volunteer for work abroad. 

On 27th October the Durham Light Infantry attacked the German front-line through the ‘B’ Squadron position and found it very thinly held: “all active patrolling is being carried out by SS troops…47 Fortress Battalion has shown none of the aggressive qualities, which are apparent in the patrols”.  Orders were received for 61st Reconnaissance to be relieved by elements of the 101st US Airborne, although ‘A’ Squadron was to stay on ‘the Island’ at Zetten (west of Elst) - one of the most unpleasant sectors on the 2nd Army front.  (Troopers in Observation Posts sometimes stood in foxholes in two feet of flood water, with constant shelling.)

The next day Dick’s ‘B’ Squadron and the rest of 61^st Recce moved back across the Waal to the Winssen area, west of Nijmegan.  Dick had “flu or something” but “as I was 2^nd in command I couldn’t go sick.”  He was much better on the 30th when he wrote to Chotie from “a lovely old farmhouse” “rambling, thatched and whitewashed”, with a date ‘1660’ in wrought-iron metal figures.  The daughter of the house had got married that morning “so needless to say everything is pandemonium – even worse than the morbid business of getting married in England”.

Eric Brewer had at last been released on leave and arrived in Antwerp on Monday 30^th.  He had a wonderful time staying in a hotel, enjoying “perfect” meals, dance halls and ice cream and marvelling at the ‘legal’ black market with its eye-watering prices.  He wrote in a letter home “the working classes are very badly off…nearly all of them are undernourished and in many cases starving.  You can thank God that we have a government who stops the black market and that stuff is rationed fairly – else these rich people would grab the lot.”  He would soon be returning to face another month on ‘the Island’.

75 years ago - Belgium and Market Garden

At the beginning of September 1944 Dick and his 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment had at last broken out of the Normandy bridgehead and crossed the Seine at Vernon.  Now they were leading the British 2^nd Army across France on the left flank of XXX (30) Corps.  On 1^st September ‘B’ Squadron paused near Amiens on the infamous River Somme (scene of a devastating battle in WW1).  Near here they encountered a Guardsman, dressed as a civilian, who had hidden out in France since 1940 and had “valuable information” so he was rushed to Regimental headquarters.  The many prisoners they were collecting – Eric Brewer mentions more than 200 on 1^st September - were more of a problem.  On 2^nd September Eric Postles’ troop commander, Lieutenant Soul, was badly injured and two of his troop killed when a prisoner ignited anti-tank mines in their carrier.  Lieutenant Laing, a Scotsman, handed over some 40 prisoners to the local French to “hang on to” overnight and, misunderstanding his accent, they unfortunately hung them all!

    Heading into northern France via Cambrai and Arras (between Lille and Amiens) the Recce ran out of large scale maps, which showed the small roads they were travelling on, and the Germans had smashed up the signposts.  Nevertheless, by the night of 2^nd/3^rd September ‘B’ Squadron of 61^st Reconnaissance were the first British troops to cross the frontier into Belgium, “despite continuous enemy resistance”.   Don Aiken recalls mines across the roads, or sods strewn to simulate mines, and a trip wire loaded with a rocket grenade while Anthony Rampling exchanged fire with crack SS snipers.  Eric Brewer’s unit took on a German convoy in flight in Belgium, knocking out six vehicles before they were ordered to move on.  

    ‘A’ Squadron were held up in the village of Houplin near Lille where their action was recognised with a Military Medal for Trooper John Traynor and Sergeant Smeaton’s and Lt Griffiths’ Croix de Guerres.

 

The Guards Armoured Division (including Chotie’s brother-in-law, Ted Lewis) now took over the spearhead, liberating Brussels, the capital of Belgium on 3^rd September.  The port of Antwerp was taken undamaged by the 11^th Armoured Division the next day but was still unusable until November while the Germans held the Scheldt Estuary approaches.

    As the advance slowed to catch up with supplies, 61^st Reconnaissance held the line along 35 miles of the Escaut Canal from Ghent/Gent to Oudenaarde/Audenarde.  Dick wrote to Chotie on 5th September from Oudenaarde:

        “It’s impossible to describe the last 10 days – it’s simply been a case of flowers all the way.

I got the job to guard two bridges in the middle of a large town – and we were the first Allies in the town!  The welcome we had was amazing…we were already covered with flowers; we were soon to be covered with fruit and wine.

            …They’ve been living very badly for four years but they had hidden wine and food for us, as they knew we’d arrive eventually.

            …Had a very happy time ‘on guard’ with scores of civilians around to ask the usual barrage of questions.  My French is improving immensely.”

    Eric Postles had a less pleasant experience while guarding the bridge at Eine, just north of Oudenaarde.  They were on the far side when vehicles approached at dawn and a German officer strode to the centre of the bridge.  Eric’s new troop commander, Sergeant Atkins, took out the front vehicles with and anti-tank gun – when they eventually found the firing mechanism.  They’d removed it to let the village children climb over the gun while celebrating their liberation the previous day!  The battle, involving several hundred German troops, raged for a couple of days before the enemy surrendered.  Sergeant Atkins was awarded the Military Medal.

    Meanwhile on 6^th and 7^th September Eric Brewer had shifted to just outside Brussels and managed to make a couple of visits to the capital where “the civvies” gave them “as much as we wanted of everything”.  Dick wrote to Chotie on the 8th, mainly about the good time he’d had in Oudenaarde and the generosity and friendship of the liberated Belgians.  As the only fluent French speaker among the officers he’d “had the job of entertaining the daughter” at a party in a country house the previous evening.  Fortunately they appreciated the same French literature.

 

Also on 8^th September 61^st Reconnaissance moved with 50^th Division to the Albert Canal near Gheel/Geel.  Their HQ and ‘C’ Squadron were surrounded when supporting the Durham Light Infantry on a bridgehead across the Canal.  The Germans retreated but Eric Brewer writes that they put in 14 counter-attacks that day and the SS captured two carriers and their crews.  C squadron’s Sergeant-Major Page earned his Distinguished Conduct Medal at Geel and Lieutenant Joseph Pilsbury his Military Cross.  On 9^th September Eric Brewer’s ‘B’ Squadron Assault Troop had turned back German reconnaissance patrols and “Gerry mortar and shells” were “still coming over, also a few bombs dropped in the night.  Plenty of refugees coming into our lines from the Gerry side”.  Dick received ‘a little bit of gold’ – the oak leaf from a ‘mention in despatches’ - at about this time for “lying among the German dead to gain information” (Chotie’s Story).

Dick's citation for a 'Mention in Despatches'

    Reuters reported that “some of the most bloody battles of the whole campaign” were being fought along the Albert Canal.  On 11^th September 61^st Recce were still on the canal south of Herenthals (between Geel and Antwerp).  The Durham Light Infantry had reached the centre of Geel with Sherwood Ranger tanks on 10^th September but the Germans counter-attacked and re-possessed the town by the 12^th, when 50^th Division was withdrawn and replaced by the Scottish 15^th Division.  Geel was finally liberated on 13^th September.

 

61^st Reconnaissance “shifted to harbour” near Bourg Leopold/Leopoldsburg, a former Belgian Army training centre.  Here Eric Postles remembers they found a food depot: “At times both the Germans and ourselves were getting food from it.”

    Dick wrote to Chotie on the 12th with no mention of the Albert Canal engagements – instead he’d had it “very cushy for the past few days” staying “in the grounds of a very old and famous château” where he enjoyed dinners with the Baroness and her sister – a Countess who had sheltered British pilots after they’d crashed in France.  He certainly knew what Chotie would want to hear!

    While ‘in harbour’ they managed to get into some towns “instead of the old perpetual fields and orchards”.  He was also very pleased with the cafés, which were like pubs but had barbers inside “so that you can have a pint while waiting your turn”.

    Eric Brewer was back on the front-line again on 15^th September, carrying out reconnaissance across another canal to find the German positions.  Their observations directed an artillery barrage on 17^th September enabling the Royal Engineers to build a bridge across the canal for infantry.  Eric wrote in his diary: “big push coming and going to push on to the Zuider Zee” (a large shallow bay east of Amsterdam).  This was the beginning of Operation Market Garden.

 

On 17^th September 1944, after an intense bombing of German airfields and anti-aircraft defences, Allied airborne divisions began to land in the Netherlands.  The plan was for the Airborne to seize critical bridges on the rivers and canals in the south of the country, enabling the rapid advance of British ground troops on a narrow front to crack open the German line and a route to Berlin north of the well-defended Ruhr industrial area.  The Germans still held the Channel ports or they were, like Antwerp, unusable and the Allies’ supply lines could no longer support the advance on a broad front. 

            ‘Market’ was the code-name for the Airborne landings:  the US 101st Airborne landed near to the Belgium border around Eindhoven, the US 82^nd Airborne near Nijmegen and Grave and the unfortunate British 1^st Airborne Division landed by the Lower Rhine near Arnhem.  Within an hour some 20,000 combat troops and about 500 vehicles had been safely landed, although not all in the correct drop zones.  The Germans managed to destroy the bridge over the Wilhemina canal at Son, north of Eindhoven, and the Arnhem railway bridge.  However, by the end of the day Colonel John Frost's 2nd Parachute Battalion and some of Major Freddie Gough’s 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron (which Dick had joined in spring 1942) held the north end of the Arnhem road bridge.

    ‘Garden’, the ground forces advance, was the task of XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division.  43rd Wessex Division was behind the Guards, then 50^th Division, which had spent three days re-organising at Paal, south-west of Burg Leopold.  Breaking through the defences of the Dutch border the three XXX Corps Divisions had all reached Valkenswaard, south of Eindhoven by the evening of the 17^th.  ‘A’ squadron led 61^st Recce’s advance on the left flank of XXX Corps and were involved in finding routes from Valkenswaard for the tanks which, forced along a single narrow road, were vulnerable to attacks exacerbated by traffic jams and supply problems.

    Dick’s letter of letter of 18th and 19th September gives nothing away about his involvement in the advance, with a brief mention of “this latest Airborne effort”.  However, he’s “met a lot of Ted’s crowd” (the Guards) and is “getting eggs & tomatoes (hundreds of them) instead of the endless run of sausage-meat” – the latter a Belgian speciality while tomatoes are typical of the Netherlands market gardening produce.  Eindhoven was liberated on the 18^th September but the Guards had to wait while a Bailey Bridge was constructed at Son.  Making the crossing the next day they linked up with the 82^nd US Airborne at Grave and added their strength to the assaults on the Nijmegen road bridge.  This was at last taken on the evening of the 20^th – the Guards crossed the Waal and halted for the night 8 miles from Arnhem.  61^st Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron and some of ‘B’ Squadron, including Don Aiken, also crossed the Waal on the 20^th.

            A dwindling force of British 1^st Airborne still held the Arnhem road bridge and the commander of 1^st Airborne, Major-General Urquehart, had gathered the remains of the Division at Oosterbeek, west of Arnhem and next to the river.  On the 21^st September the Arnhem bridge was eventually taken by the Germans who streamed across to set up defences blocking the Guards between Arnhem and Nijmegen at Elst.

    German forces were also continually attacking the ‘Garden’ corridor laid down by XXX Corps, succeeding in breaking through on several occasions and splitting 61^st Reconnaissance in two.  Sandy Handley of Dick’s troop wrote “Our part of the convoy was cut off, held up by enemy tanks”.  ‘C’ Squadron stayed with 101^st Airborne and 52^nd Recce (Dick’s future unit) defending the corridor.  Eric Brewer only crossed the border into Holland on 21^st September.  Tony Rampling remembers going up ‘Hell’s Highway’, the nickname given to the corridor “Gerry picked the bridges out to shell so you had to cross very fast”.  They reached the air-landing zones, which were “littered with smashed up gliders, parachutes everywhere”.  Everyone took bits of parachute silk to put round their necks: “wearing this coarse uniform, it was some comfort to have a silk scarf”. 

    Dick wrote to Chotie on the 21^st from “a well-to-do surgeon’s town-house” saying “there’s only 50% officers with us now – which makes life much duller”.  He doesn’t appear to have crossed the bridge at Nijmegen yet.

            Beyond Nijmegen the Polish Parachute Brigade had dropped at Driel, just south of the Rhine opposite Oosterbeek, on 21^st September.  The next day 43^rd Recce linked up with them and 35 Poles managed to cross the river joining Urquehart’s troops.  German attacks on the Oosterbeek bridgehead were thwarted by the guns of XXX Corps with air support from the RAF and 200 more Poles crossed on the 23^rd.

    On the 22^nd September the XXX Corps lifeline had been severed at Uden (south-west of Grave) and on the 23^rd the line was cut at Sint Oedenrode (between Uden and Eindhoven).  Eric Brewer was “firing shells at where Gerry broke through” and on the 24^th he “shifted to the flank – plenty of mortar fire, shelling and spandos” (German machine guns).  Major Alexander, commander of 61^st Recce’s HQ Squadron, was killed near Uden that day.

    Meanwhile most of 50^th Division had crossed Nijmegen bridge and were engaged in the Battle of Elst.  On 23^rd they were tasked with capturing the village of Bemmel, to the east, and had succeeded by the 25^th.  Elst was liberated the same day.

            Eric Postles and Don Aiken were on the south bank of the Rhine, west of Arnhem with 43^rd Recce on the 24^th September.  315 of the 43rd Division’s Dorset infantry (Dick joined up with the Dorsets) crossed the Rhine from here to safeguard the planned evacuation of the remaining 1^st Airborne from Oosterbeek – 200 were captured but they succeeded in delivering the plans for the evacuation to Urquehart.  That night 2,000 men were successfully evacuated including 160 of the Polish paratroopers and 75 of the Dorset infantry.  Eric Postles recalls “When it became clear that the Arnhem Bridge was beyond 30 Corps' reach our squadron was moved to join 43 Division infantry where we protected their right flank as they advanced to the Waal, crossed it and helped the Airborne survivors back from the Osterbeek area.  The crossing place was just downstream from Driel and the attack took place at night using moonlight (searchlights on cloud) and Bofar gun tracer to mark the boundaries.  43 Division crossed the river and surviving Airborne troops were brought back but the cost in lives of the 43 Division infantry was heavy.” 

 

Dick Williams, our protagonist, had links to almost all the key forces in Market Garden, including his former units – 1^st Airlanding Reconnaissance, 43^rd Recce and the Dorsets, his future regiment - 52^nd Recce, the US Airborne, who he was to fight beside in Holland and the Ardennes, and his brother-in-law in the Guards.

On 25^th September the top commanders in Market Garden – Montgomery, Eisenhower and Browning (Chief of the British Airborne) stopped beside Eric Brewer to give out cigarettes, ask about their food and did they have any complaints?  The bold plan for a rapid thrust into Germany from the Netherlands was dead and had cost 15,000 Allied lives.

There is a verse in the poem ‘Destination Berlin’ (written by the commander of 61^st Recce’s ‘B’ Squadron, Major Frank Harding):

“Monty stood up in his car

Having espied from afar

Chutes in trees and gliders wrecked

Arnhem: he gave cigarettes.”

    

    Dick wrote to Chotie on the 25th September finally admitting that “we’ve been on the move all the time with practically no rest and plenty of work to be done.”  Everyone must have been writing letters since he had about a hundred to censure.

 

On 26^th September Eric Brewer was on a hill next to a canal looking into Germany.  He hoped “to be in there soon as the plan to go to the Zuider Zee has changed because the bridges across the Rhine are blown so we are pushing west into Germany.” (Actually, he was to be in the Netherlands for quite a while.)  He’d found some film and borrowed a camera so there are a few photos from around this time:

Eric Brewer is in the centre in the half-track

 

Dick wrote to Chotie again on 27^th September:

61^st Recce Regt RAC, BLA

Wednesday Sept 27^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    I posted a letter to you yesterday, but as I have a free day today I thought I’d start another, anyhow.

            I’m in a farmhouse writing this, a big rambling place with massive oak-beamed rooms – quite pleasant.  There is also the most wonderful baby you ever saw who belongs to the farmer’s wife.  In keeping with the place she’s a massive woman herself, who’s reared hundreds of children – and looks like rearing hundreds more.

            It’s raining steadily at the moment, which makes it a double pleasure to be indoors – as farmyards are always so depressing in rain.

            My friend Winsor* (‘The Duke’) has now returned, after an absence of some six or seven weeks, which makes life so much more bearable.  He started off in true form last night by taking about 2 quid from me at pontoon….

            I’ve been having a look at this demob. racket.  It appears that I don’t come off too badly.  Brinner of course is worse off, as he’s younger and has less service, so he’ll probably end up in Burma after all.  How do you come off?  I suppose I’ll have to marry you in the end, if only to get you out of the army….What a price to pay!

            I’ve written a letter to Madelaine** to thank her for the books and general kindness shown at Oudenaarde.  It was written in French with the aid of a Dictionary (my written French is pretty poor stuff), and I was quite pleased with the result, though I expect it will provoke some laughter in the family.

            Have just received your letter of the 22^nd, which I’m tacking on to this one.  It’s rather a long time in the post these days isn’t it?  Though I suppose it takes longer by having to go to your home address first.

            Very pleased to hear that you saw the Queen and Princess – bet you were thrilled.

            Congratulations on passing the course at all*** – I suppose you’ll be chucking me about when I get home again….

            It’s lovely and bright this morning – really September – though I think the Autumn will be a little tardy this year, in these parts at any rate.  It should be rather beautiful when it does come, as nearly all the roads are lined with trees.

            Mother had a letter from Monica**** recently telling her that her husband has returned to England from France with gastric trouble and ‘shellshock’ (now called ‘mental neurosis’ I believe, which is a kinder name), so I suppose he’s out of it for good.  I’d better write her, I suppose as she sent me a card on my last birthday.  Mother said she was after my address – a bad sign.

            I must close here, Darling as there’s plenty of work to be done, this sunny morn.

                        All my love, Chotie Darling

                                                                                    Dicker

*Geoff Winsor or Winzer or maybe even Windsor!

**Madelaine Gervaert

***Chotie was now a qualified PT Instructor and back at Dean's Farm, Hunt Court, Cheltenham where her Ack-Ack unit was stationed.

****Dick’s ex-girlfriend.

© Chotie Darling

 

50^th Division, with 61^st Reconnaissance, were now tasked with guarding the bridge and bridgehead north of Nijmegen, an area between the Rhine and Waal rivers known as ‘the Island’ – the new front-line.  On 30^th September a German infantry Division and seventy tanks attacked the section held by 69^th Brigade (the East Yorks and the Green Howards). The battle for ‘the Island’ had begun.

 

75 years ago - out of Normandy and across France

On 1^st August 1944 the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was still engaged in Operation Bluecoat, Monty’s drive southward on the boundary between Panzer Group West and the German 7^th Army, to the west of Caen.  Dick’s  ‘B’ Squadron was sent in to recce Amayé-sur-Seulles (west of Villers Bocage) in support of 50th Division and took an active part in its liberation by 69^th Brigade (the East Yorks and the Green Howards) despite fierce opposition.  Don Aiken writes that Eric Brewer’s Assault Troop came under fire and sustained casualties and even Eric, in his usual re-assuring letter home admitted that they “came up against some stiff opposition and were held up for about an hour”.  He also describes seeing about 120 prisoners give themselves up, many in poor condition and happy to surrender.  Eric’s Troop commander, Lt. Philip Truman, received the Military Cross for his part in the action at Amayé-sur-Seulles, which is also included in Major Frank Harding’s citation for the M.C.

Meanwhile 11^th Armoured Division had pushed forward, liberating le Bény-Bocage on 1^st August and reaching the outskirts of Vire on 2^nd August with some elements of 61^st Recce, who found the town virtually undefended.  However, 11^th Armoured were ordered east, leaving the town to the Americans.  By the time XIX Corps arrived German forces had rushed in re-enforcements and Vire was not liberated until the 8^th August.  According to Eric Brewer Lt-General Demsey, commander of the British forces, later told 61^st Recce that they’d been three days ahead of 7^th Armoured Division and had to wait for them outside Vire.

However, on 4^th and 5^th August Eric was on recce near Villers-Bocage, which had finally been liberated by the 1^st Dorsets (Dick’s first regiment) of 50^th Division.  The town was one of the Division’s original D-Day targets, almost two months ago.

Dick had a ‘rest’ day on the 4th August collecting food, ammo, petrol, etc and wrote to Chotie, who had managed to spend some time at home with her family in Poole, enjoying the sun.

Some of Roy Howard’s ‘A’ Squadron troop received severe injuries while investigating a booby-trapped building on 4^th August. Snipers, booby-traps and mines were the perils of any advance in Normandy.

 

61^st Recce had taken over ‘holding the line’ near Caumont-l’Eventé from 43rd Division (another of Dick’s former units) who advanced against fierce German resistance to secure the important high ground of Mont Pinçon, south of Aunay-sur-odon, on 6^th August.  On 7^th August the Canadian 1^st Army renewed it’s offensive towards Falaise with Operation Totalize but were halted at Quesnay (north-west of Falaise and Potigny) by the 11^th.  On the 8^th Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley agreed a new plan to encircle German forces in Normandy with American forces swinging east to meet the Canadians at Argentan, south-east of Falaise.

On 8^th August Eric Brewer wrote home to say he was ‘still in a kind of reserve’ and helping with the cooking.  On 10^th August they moved on, bringing in six prisoners, and on the 11^th August Major Harding with ‘B’ Squadron captured an important hill (Point 266), north of Condé-sur-Noireau, ‘and destroyed or captured all the enemy on the hill’, holding it until relieved.  Eric Brewer wrote “plenty of mortars, shells and spandaus".  Don Aiken says they moved to a cross-roads near Aunay-sur-Odon on 11^th August where they came under shellfire and a driver in his troop was killed.

 

Chotie, now at Shurdington near Cheltenham (her Ack-Ack unit had moved again), visited the dentist on 11^th August.

Dick wrote to Chotie again on Saturday 12th August, on a ‘rest’ day again, which “involves a vast amount of work as all the armoured cars have to be maintained, all guns taken down and cleaned and all ammo, food, water, etc replenished.  It’s a good six to eight hour job, when you consider that my crews have to do their own cooking as well.”  He was in “quite a pleasant spot…but the artillery is pretty shocking…we’re living in a continual barrage.”

 

61^st Recce’s Lieutenant Flint was awarded a Military Cross for his reconnaissance in Lénault (south of Mont Pinçon) where he and his troop encountered and escaped the enemy and then directed mortar fire on their positions.  Eric Brewer’s commander Lieutenant Truman, carried out a classic patrol clearing up ‘a spot of trouble’ near Mont Pinçon.  Regimental HQ was set up at nearby at le Plessis-Grimault, “one of the most evil-smelling places in the Bocage” – presumably due to the remains of action in the area.

On 14^th August a new offensive, Operation Tractable, was launched to close the gap in the circle between the Canadians and the US 3^rd Army and trap the remains of German 7^th Army and Panzer Group West in the ‘Falaise Pocket’.  XXX Corps (now commanded by Lt-General Brian Horrocks) advanced towards Condé-sur-Noireau with 50^th Division and 61^st Recce, to push at the base of the pocket.  Dick executed his own minor heroics during this advance when overtaking “some armoured cars of a rival regiment, halted short of some suspicious-looking grass turves in the middle of the road.  ‘We can’t get on,’ they said, ‘Mines.’  Without a word Williams threw the turves in the ditch and drove on.”

 

Dick wrote to Chotie again on the 16th August “in some very lovely country now – more open and rolling, something like the Sussex Downs though more wooded.”  He’d very nearly had his third bath since landing and did have his third beer, “which makes 3½ pints since we landed.”  

50th Division were now near Condé-sur-Noireau, which was liberated by the 11th Armoured Division on 17th August.  On 18^th August the ‘big push’ began – 61^st Recce moved forward towards Argentan with ‘the Black Bull’ (11^th Armoured Division).  East of Putanges on19th August ‘A’ Squadron’s Lieutenant Griffiths was leading his troop ‘with the greatest of boldness against forces far superior in numbers’.  11^th Armoured Division captured 900 prisoners while pushing the Germans back north of Argentan.

 

On 19^th August the Canadian 1^st Army, with the 1^st Polish Armoured Division, finally linked up with the US 3^rd Army at Chambois but were unable to hold back the tide of escaping German forces.  Approximately 40,000 Germans escaped.  More than 10,000 Germans died in the Falaise pocket and 50,000 were taken prisoner (2,000 by 61^st Reconnaissance).  Eric Brewer’s diary records that 61^st Recce pushed on through the gap taking 200 prisoners on 20^th August. They advanced 20–30 miles and were the first English boys the civilians had seen.

The US 3^rd Army took Argentan on 20^th August after eight days of fighting and waiting there for the Canadians to break through.  The Falaise Gap was finally closed on 21^st August.  61^st Recce were advancing 30 miles a day, being mobbed by the newly liberated French in the towns and villages.  On 22^nd August they were at Falaise (north-west of Argentan), now a devastated killing field filled with the bodies of Germans piled several feet high – even the planes flying 10,000 feet above could smell the dead, which included thousands of horses used for transport.

 

After a brief time ‘back at base’ 61^st recce moved to Vernon, on the banks of the Seine between Rouen and Paris, on 25^th August – the day of its liberation.

Dick wrote to Chotie on 26th August, with a few hours to call his own.  “There’s little or no devastation where we are at present, which makes things so much more pleasant.”  This also meant the locals were friendlier – Eric Brewer enjoyed a warm welcome from a couple at Vernon and Dick had met a very hospitable chap living in a barn after his house was bombed.  While they were glad to accept alcohol - hoarded and brought out to celebrate the liberation - the British forces had been instructed to refuse meals “as the French people don’t even get enough for themselves, let alone anyone else” (Eric Brewer). 

Letter written on Monday 28^th and Tuesday 29^th August 1944

61^st Recce Rac

BLA

Monday Aug. 28^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Many thanks for your letter dated the 23^rd which I’ve just this moment received. 

            Glad to hear you’re home at last if only for six days, and the prospect of a month’s course is quite a pleasant one to look forward to.  Don’t do anything too strenuous will you?  The first course I had was a P.T one* and they gave me a bending all right….

            I’ll send this to your home address and they can forward it as soon as they hear from you in Scotland.

            I imagine it’s pretty crowded at Parkstone at the moment now that the coastal ban has been lifted – mother says it’s pretty bad in Bognor.

            Sorry to hear about the pubs** – especially the Sloop.  It’s Dad’s pet grouse, of course, at present, though you’d better be in training for Scotland.

            Very sorry to hear about Adrian – I didn’t realise he was over here.

            I may have a chance to contact Ted in the next few weeks though it’s very difficult.  I spent over two hours trying to find Brinner today but without success.  Apparently he’s still at Base, Somewhere.  At any rate it’s safer there.

            I’ve had a fairly quiet time lately but can’t guarantee it will last.

            I’ve been in many villages first hand and have had a great welcome from the people.  We’re lucky this way of course – it’s one of the few compensations of being in front all the time.

            I’m very fit and still very happy here – I suppose the ability to chat with the people wherever you go helps a lot.

            I wish I could see you again, Darling, but I’d sooner get this business over, than go on leave and have to come back again.

            I think we’ve got the worst of it over but I can’t pretend there aren’t big battles to come.  We’ve beaten a complete army now, but we’ve had precious little time to rest on our laurels.  They still have armies left, but I think we can beat them also.

            I’ve just heard the good news of a day’s rest tomorrow so I’ll write some more then.

            Goodnight, my Darling.

 

Well, Precious, Tuesday has arrived after a wretched night.  I’ve never experienced such a storm as we had last night – simply torrents of rain with added accompaniment of thunder and lightning.  I got soaked through and haven’t yet dried out.

            It’s rather a pity as we’re in very fine country, as I heard it aptly expressed – country that was never meant to hear more than the song of the birds or the pop of a Champagne cork….

            Aren’t the radio programmes wretched?  We have a radio on all day (in harbour) and the stuff they pound out is chronic.  I get heartily sick of the whole thing.

            I’m writing this in a barn full of new-mown hay, very pleasant indeed.  The rain outside is pretty steady and doesn’t look like stopping today at any rate.

            I don’t suppose I can write another letter to reach you before the 6^th, so here’s wishing you all the very best for your 21^st.  As soon as you can give me the address of an account you can use I send on a cheque – ‘fraid it’s all I can do out here.

            Must close here but will try to write you again tomorrow

                                   

All my love, Darling

                                                Dicker

           

P.T.O

 

P.S.  Found the enclosed mags. in Villers Bocage some long time ago.  The magazines were quite indifferent so I just cut out the best.  The rest of the stuff were third-rate patterns.  I thought the kiddies stuff the best.  Am I giving you ideas?

                       

                                    R.

 

*Dick became a P.T. Instructor soon after joining the Army in August 1940.  Chotie attended a P.T. course at Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith, Scotland from 30th August 1944.

**Not sure what was happening to the pubs around this time but alcohol was at it’s scarcest in Christmas 1994/45 on the home front (see Christmas under Fire).

© Chotie Darling

 

On 29th August 61^st Recce crossed the Seine on a pontoon bridge and began their ‘swan’ across France towards Belgium.  According to Eric Brewer’s diary they were near to Elbeuf (by Rouen) on 30^th August, the same day that the Normandy capital was liberated by the Canadian Army.  The next night they were almost 100 miles further on near Amiens – this critical town on the Somme was liberated by XXX Corps on 31^st August after a night march by the 11^th Armoured Division.

61st Reconnaissance in Humber Armoured car at Beauvais, between Rouen and Amiens (IWM)

According to Colonel Brownrigg these were the most exhilarating days of the campaign.  They were protecting the left flank of XXX Corps but were sometimes 70 miles ahead of divisional headquarters and collected an enormous amount of prisoners.  Some were handed to the French Resistance fighters “who tagged onto us” - they took them to the woods and shot them (from Eric Postles' book).

Speed was essential – they had orders to capture the port of Antwerp in Belgium and the V1 rocket-launching sites terrorising London and the south-east.  (Eric Brewer mentions he saw a ‘Buzz Bomb’ launch site on 31^st August.)  The welcome in French villages and towns was now overwhelming and slowed progress so that often the ‘honours of liberation’ were left to the rearguard echelons.  There were sharp engagements and very little sleep – Sandy Handley confessed that one morning it was 61^st Recce’s job to wake up the Guards commander (the Guards Armoured Division with 50^th Division led XXX Corps in ‘the swan’) but they all overslept.  Monty had urged them to make every kilometre “a bomb less for England”.

 

 

On 1^st August Lt-General Patton’s US 3^rd Army became fully operational.  They swept west into Brittany conquering ‘a lot of real estate’ (Bradley) but failing to seize intact the critical western ports.  Rennes was liberated on 4^th August, Vannes on the 5^th, Angers and Alençon on the 10^th, Nantes on the 12^th and eventually, the Channel citadel of Saint-Malo on the 17^th.  Circling north to Normandy they were at Argentan by the 13^th August.

The Germans had launched a major counter-offensive at Mortain (south of Vire) on 7^th August, attempting to cut through to the coast and sever the US spearhead.  This was a disaster, thinning their defences further east so the British, including 61^st Recce, could at last push through, while Ultra (information via the Bletchley Park code-crackers) had prepared the American commander General Bradley for the attack.  Hitler demanded another offensive on 16^th August but instead von Kluge issued orders for a full-scale retreat and was instantly replaced by Field-Marshall Walter Model, who directed plans for escape through the Falaise gap.

 By now 'Pluto', the Allies undersea fuel pipeline between the Solent and Cherbourg, was operational.  Free French forces in Normandy began secretly hoarding fuel for a drive on Paris.

On 15^th August Allied Forces including the Free French landed on the south coast of France in Operation Dragoon and on the 17^th the Vichy government (except for Marshall Pétain) fled to Germany.

Chartres was liberated on 18^th August and the next day the Battle of Paris began with an uprising by the French resistance – communists led the people onto the streets while the rival Gaullists seized government buildings and institutions.  On 20^th August the US 3^rd Army crossed the Seine north-west of Paris.  Free French forces reached the centre of Paris on 24^th August greeted by a peal of bells from the great church of Nôtre-Dame and, despite Hitler’s order to burn the city, Paris was liberated almost unscathed on 25^th August.

 

On 23^rd August Free French Forces had linked up with the US 3^rd Army near Bordeaux, on the west coast of France, and the Germans retreated from the city.  In south-east France Cannes, Grasse, and Grenoble were liberated and, after fierce fighting, Toulon and Marseilles on 28^th August and Nice on the 31^st.

In Italy Florence was liberated by the British 8^th Army soon after 3^rd August, when the Germans blew all the bridges except the Ponte Vecchio.

 

With the Russian army on its doorstep the Polish Home Army began an uprising in Warsaw and was initially successful in taking control of large areas of the city.  RAF planes dropped weapons and supplies but Stalin set up a puppet Polish government in Lublin and left the uprising to burn itself out.  350 Jews were liberated from the Gesiówka concentration camp as Himmler ordered thousands of Jews from the ghetto at Łódź, south-west of Warsaw, to their deaths at Auschwitz. 

On 2^nd August almost a thousand Roma and Sinti left in the Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz were killed in the gas chambers.

In Amsterdam a young Jewish girl and her family were taken prisoner on 4^th August. Ann Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945 but her diary still tells the world the story of the Holocaust. 

On 20^th August the Allies began to bomb I.G.Farben synthetic fuel factory at Auschwitz with its enslaved labour force of Jews, British Prisoners of War and east European workers.  Primo Levi, the Italian chemist and author of one of the most famous accounts of Auschwitz ‘If This Is a Man’, survived the bombing.

The Russian army had captured Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania, on 1^st August.  They began to attack Romania on 19^th August and the King staged a ‘Royal Coup’, removing the fascist leader Antonescu and declaring war against Germany on 25^th August.  The Bulgarians also withdrew from the Axis coalition on 26^th August, becoming a neutral state while the Slovak resistance began an armed insurrection on the 29^th.

 

In the far east Chinese and American forces captured Myitkina in Burma (Myanmar) on 3^rd August but the Japanese Ichi-Gō advance into southern China continued with the capture of Heng-Yang in Hunan on 8^th August.

US Marines had seized the Japanese base at Tinian in the Marianas Island on 1^st August and by 10^th August Guam was liberated and all of the Marianas were in Allied hands.

 

While war raged around the world representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the USA met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington to agree the structure of a new international organisation for peace and security – the United Nations.

75 years ago - Briquessard and the Battle of Normandy

On 1^st July Dick’s 61^st Recce ‘B’ Squadron were involved in the defence of the British front-line from an attack by 1^st SS Panzer Corps near Grainville-sur-Odon, between Caen and Villers-Bocage.  Eric Brewer, of the Assault Troop, was in a forward position directing mortar and artillery fire on the enemy.  A General inspected their position on 3^rd July – presumably Lt-General Bucknall, the commander of XXX Corps.

Dick may also have been on, or ahead of, the front-line – Eric Postles remembers that for most of July ‘B’ Squadron was operating independently from ‘A’ and ‘C’ and troops often worked alone.  In his letter of 4th July Dick says he is “having a rest in a fairly safe area”… apart from the occasional hedge-hopping ME109 or the odd mortar bomb”.  He was in an orchard (as usual in Normandy), next to a beautiful château with a moat, and had just received all of Chotie’s letters dating back to 13^th May.

Eric Brewer was also back at base and very pleased to hand in his bike – the Assault Troop were now given half-tracks.  Tony Rampling had been right to dread the prospect of handling a a bren gun on a bicycle. Sandy Handley, also in Dick’s troop, was in a Light Humber but when this ran into a mound on patrol they couldn’t steer and were “stuck in the middle of nowhere” for 24 hours.  At dawn they watched as a British Infantry attack half a mile away was mortared by the Germans until Allied artillery opened up on the enemy.  The REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) came out to rescue them but in Bayeux they found they didn’t have spares for “these old things”.  Sandy was assigned a Bren carrier instead, which was “pretty hairy with no cover like my turret on the armoured cars”. Sandy’s Humber was repaired with a “drop off an old ambulance” and restored to him by mid-July.  German infantry relied largely on horse-drawn vehicles for transport and Anthony Rampling recalls a road blocked with dead horses in their carts near Caen.  One horse was still alive and he tried to put it out of its misery.

Another attack on Caen, Operation Charnwood, began on 8^th July with heavy Allied bombing of the city, which inflicted terrible damage on civilians and the old city while missing most of the German defences in trying to avoid the Allies’ front-line.  61^st Recce were continually cautious of ‘friendly fire’ even though they had “red and yellow fluorescent panels on display to identify us” (Eric Postles).  They also had to be particularly careful returning from patrol to their own front-line.

Dick wrote to Chotie on 9th July.  At his last location he’d “got his feet under the table” at the farm, sharing whisky and Calvados with the inhabitants, including four female refugees they were sheltering.  On 8^th July he’d managed to buy a pig, which they roasted and ate.  (Eric Postles remembers his troop helping themselves to a sheep, which they cooked in ammunition tins.)

Eric Brewer was at Grainville-sur-Odon on 9^th July, which had just been taken by their infantry.  From 10^th July XXX Corps were involved in the Second Battle of the Odon, to disrupt German re-organisation after Operation Charnwood and distract from the preparations for Operation Goodwood (which required 8,000 tanks and armoured vehicles to cross the Orne and assemble ready for the initial bombardment).  The Germans had vacated the north and west of Caen during Charnwood but still held a heavily defended position south-east of the city – the infamous Bourgébus Ridge.

50^th Division, and Dick’s former unit the 43^rd Division, took part in major attacks south from Grainville-sur-Odon towards Evrecy from 10^th July resulting in a high number of casualties and little progress.  The 50^th also attempted to take Hottot-les-Bagues (just south of Tilly-sur-Seules) on the 9^th and 11^th July – Eric Postles remembers 61^st Recce holding the right flank for the 1st Hampshires as they attacked on 11^th July.

On 12th July Dick wrote briefly that he was “having a quiet day today” and searching for a friend reported missing in action.  Eric Brewer’s letters and diary reveal that they were careful to give the impression, to those at home, that they were much safer and further from the front-line than the Recce business required.  They were also anxious about the effects of the V1 rocket bombs back in Blighty.

On 12^th July Eric Brewer had moved to a new position with active  German mortars and snipers and was there until the 14th.   On the 15^th July XXX Corps commence Operation Greenline around ​​Gavrus, Evrecy and Esquay-Notre-Dame (south of Grainville-sur-Odon) and on 16^th July, Operation Pomegranate near Noyers-Bocage (west of Grainville-sur-Odon).  They gain little ground (although 50^th Division at last took Hottot-les-Bagues on the 19th) but amassed 3,500 casualties by 17^th July - the Germans had 2,000.

On 16th July Eric Brewer mentions the surrender of “6 Gerrys”.  Sandy Handley recalled six soldiers and an officer surrendering to their troop – Dick interrogated the officer in German without success so they dismounted and searched the woods on foot.  Six more Germans surrendered.

Dick sent Chotie a postcard of a Normandy wedding in traditional costume on the 17th July and told her he was “in the pink”.  He was about to endure one of the worst times for 61^st Recce during the war – Briquessard.  This was a long narrow wood on a slope east of Caumont-l’Éventé and bang on the front-line.  61^st Recce were required to leave their vehicles to play an infantry role, taking over from the American 101^st Airborne Division ('the Screaming Eagles') in slit trenches and dug-outs.

As they took over their two man trench in the dark Sandy recalled Dick visiting them saying “The enemy is not so far away, maybe 100 yards or more, so be as quiet as possible.  Remember, he’s doing the same as you, listening.”

Mornings and evenings were not so quiet – the Germans subjected their positions to salvos of shells from Nebelwerfers , the German multi-barrelled mortars nicknamed ‘Moaning Minnies’ for their horrible screaming sound.  In return they received a barrage of artillery fire from the Essex Yeomanry to the rear of 61^st Recce.  Sandy recalls German aircraft dive-bombing the artillery in response.  One night the Recce’s Regimental HQ in the middle of the wood received a direct hit from Nebelwerfers.

Dick wrote to Chotie on 21st July complaining of the week of rain they’d just had (which put an end to Operation Goodwood) but “On the rare occasions that the sun does shine I have a wonderful view here, which tends to compensate a little for the everlasting mists which hang over the river valley I overlook.  I can’t explain the job we’re on at the moment, but it’s a pretty miserable one and we’ll all be glad when we get something else.”    A friend of his had been wounded the previous night.

The Troopers took turns to do 24 hour duty lying flat in the Listening Post – a crudely scraped-out trench for 4 or 5 men, 20 yards to the front with a field telephone to link up with the men behind.  Once when Tony Rampling was in the Listening Post they didn’t have any food so Dick crawled out, carrying a bag of food in his mouth for them and risking the German snipers.  When Sandy Handley momentarily forgot the trench drill and stood up in the open two bullets immediately whistled past his ears. 

‘Foot patrol’ at night meant crawling out on your stomach.  Roy Howard https://www.chotiedarling.co.uk/my-blog/2014/07/ss-panzer-grenadier-regiment.html  returned with an SS Panzer Grenadier jacket one night only to be sent out again another night to confirm the unit identification.  They became caught in cross-fire between British machine-guns and the Germans who used flare guns to reveal their position.  Roy escaped with a perforated ear-drum but his companion was critically wounded.

The pressure and deprivations of Briquessard were unrelenting.  Colonel Brownrigg reminisced that “For the rest of the campaign we used to judge all ‘black spots’ by reference to Briquessard.  Anything described as ‘worse than Briquessard’ stank.”

Dick wrote to Chotie on 28^th July:

61^st Recce Regt RAC

B.L.A.

 

Friday July 28th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Received your last batch of letters in very good time.  So here goes in reply. 

            Glad to hear you got the card OK – they’re the only sort we’re allowed to send, needless to say, and as you remark it was gay if nothing else.

            Hope to get a few days rest shortly when I’ll be able to write you more fully than at the moment.  Actually there’s practically nothing to write about, owing to the security restrictions.  I can’t tell you where I am or even what we’re doing.  You’ll just have to wait until we can get together again, preferably around a thick fireplace, sometime in the autumn, after a tea of hot buttered muffins…..

            What absolute rot that bloke does talk!

            There’s a slight pause at the moment for tea, which my troop Sergeant is endeavouring to brew whilst keeping himself and the smoke under cover…. The word ‘brew’ has become very popular in Army Slang.  A knocked out tank is referred to as ‘brewed-up’ etc, etc.  Also of course the old saw – “When in doubt, “brew-up” ….”

            Well, my Precious, I’ve just had some tea – bread + processed cheese and a bar of choc, and biscuits, so I’ll be alright until the morning.

            Just had three letters (from home & Diller).  Bryn had a good time on leave apparently.  Diller said he went to work on the new barmaid at the ‘Beach’.  She caught him in the act of giving her some coupons!  That sounds pretty ghastly to me, though you know how irreproachably innocent Brinner is….

            About half an hour ago I put my hand in my battle dress pocket straight on top of a razor blade which removed approx. ¼" off one of my fingers.  As if my hands weren’t cut about enough already. 

            In a very charming spot at the moment – must come here after the war*.  I’d love to come back here if only to be able to walk about as I pleased without having to duck all the time!

            It’s difficult to judge this countryside owing to the devastation but I know of  many more beautiful spots in England.  There is however a certain charm, perhaps due to the fact that things are ‘different’ in some small way, from England.  They have no timbered buildings, of course, everything being built of grey stone, very much akin to the Cotswold style.  There seems to be no deviation from this general custom.

            Wish I could have heard the last concert you saw – the old 5^th** wants a lot of beating.  Last time I heard it was in Folkestone just before Xmas.

            I fancy I’d better close here as things are warming up.

                                                                                                Dicker.

 

*Sandy Handley and Anthony Rampling did just that, visiting with other veterans in 2004. (Tony is on the left and Sandy on the right in this photo).

**Presumably Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony – Beethoven’s symphonies are mentioned in letter December 10^th 1943 and Beethoven in January 1944 letters.  The opening notes were used as code to announce the D Day landings to the French resistance on BBC radio.

The only time Tony disobeyed an order from Dick was when he was put on guard after 10 sleepless days at Briquessard.  He protested “Sorry Sir, I couldn’t keep awake” and never heard any more about it.

At last the terrible days at Briquessard came to an end with ‘the great surge forward’ of Operation Bluecoat, which was preceded by a thousand bomber attack aimed at enemy positons.  On 30^th July XXX Corps began to advance, with British VIII Corps, south-east from Caumont.  61^st Recce passed through the German positions at Briquessard ‘high with the smell of corpses’ and ‘B’ Squadron carried out a “textbook reconnaissance into Amayé-sur-Seulles”.  Unfortunately 50^th Division became stuck at Amayé, which was held by the Germans until 2^nd August.   XXX Corps, who had been ordered to quickly reach Aunay-sur-Odon, were still a few miles short after two days while VIII’s Corps 11^th Armoured Division had seized a vital bridge over the Soulevre River and taken le Bény-Bocage south of Caumont.  Montgomery sacked Lt-General Bucknall from the command of XXX Corps.

In Dick’s letter to Chotie of 31st July he has a whole day to himself, a second beer and a second bath so doesn’t appear to have been involved in the action.  In contrast Eric Brewer, who had spent the first three days of Briquessard at rest camp, was on patrol having grenades thrown at him by the Germans on the 29^th, under rifle and mortar fire on the 30^th and on recce patrol near Villers-Bocage on the 31^st.  Eric Postles was also involved in constant patrolling and had a narrow escape when they were penned into a farm by Germans and had to flee through a hole in the wall, leaving their injured behind (although they recovered them later).  The Germans had had time to heavily mine the positions all around this area and “one of the most stressful jobs was checking road surfaces where we suspected mines had been laid.  The headphones of the mine detectors cut outside sounds.  Nobody volunteered for this task ” (Eric Postles).   A breakout on the British-Canadian front still seemed impossible but the Germans had taken heavy losses of men and materials and were requesting permission to withdraw.

 

At the beginning of the month Hitler had replaced von Rundstedt with Field-Marshall Gunther-Hans von Kluge as Commander-in-Chief of the Western German Forces.  Rommel was injured in a Spitfire attack on 17^th July and Kluge also took on the defences of the western wall.  Hitler was still directly in control of the OKW (Oberkommando des Wehrmacht – Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) overseeing the Army, Navy and Air Force.  Following a failed assassination attempt by von Staffenberg, a German Army Colonel, on 20^th July Hitler’s paranoia regarding the conventional (non-SS) German Army increased.  The Gestapo arrested 5,000 suspected opponents of the regime and the Wehrmacht were all forced to adopt the Heil Hitler greeting instead of their traditional salute.  Rommel was suspected of links to the perpetrators and never recovered his status.

Allied Command was also losing faith in his old nemesis, Montgomery, who made optimistic claims that a succession of British-Canadian operations (Epsom, Charnwood and Goodwood) would take Caen and break-out of the bridgehead while in reality achieving only a cautious and limited advance.  By 20^th July Monty’s 21^st Army were at last fully in possession of Caen, the large city they had intended to take on D-Day.  On 23^rd July 21st Army split into Lt-General Crerar’s Canadian First Army (with its own separate HQ) and Lt-General Demsey’s British Second Army, both directly under Montgomery’s command.

With the capture of Cap-de-la-Hague at the beginning of the month the Americans had secured the north of the Cherbourg Peninsula and turned their attentions south beginning ‘the Battle of the Hedgerows’ on 3^rd July with slow progress and agonising losses.  By 9^th July they had taken the important road junction of La-Haye-du-Puits west of Carentan.

Although Kluge was still convinced the Allies' main advance would be in the east of France, and concentrated the fiercest of his forces there, the Americans still met steadfast defence and ferocious counter-attacks from the Germans in the south of the Cotentin.  The large city of Saint-Lô, south of Carentan, was almost completely destroyed by the time it was liberated on 18^th July.

On 24^th July the US First Army was ready to launch a major new offensive on a narrow concentrated front between Saint-Lô and Periers, to the west.  Operation Cobra (it amuses me that the Americans code-named their key initiatives after deadly beasts while the British chose horse race meetings!) began disastrously with the USAAF prematurely bombing the front-line and revealing the location of the advance, then, the next day, accidentally bombing part of the American front-line.  The attack went ahead, however, and began rapidly to gain ground with the help of ‘Rhinos’ – Sherman tanks fitted with ‘tusks’ that could break through the Normandy hedgerows.  Although the Germans stood firm to the east around Percy (south of Saint-Lô) the advance penetrated their lines in the west.  Periers and Lessay fell on the 27^th, Coutances on the 28^th, Granville on the 30^th and on 31^st July the Americans took Avranches and could turn the corner towards Brittany.

International co-operation, at least among the Allied nations was progressed at the Bretton Woods conference in the United States.  Focusing on post-war economic recovery it created the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.  The first jet engine, a joint USAAF and RAF project, went into operation on 27^th July (although the Germans had their own jet engine in the Messerschmidt Me 262 by August).  A Junkers German fighter plane that accidentally landed in Suffolk on 13^th July enabled the British to develop counter-measures for the latest German radar devices.

Although the USAAF and the RAF were now predominately involved in support for ground forces in Normandy (and had played a critical role in hindering the movement of German re-enforcements), heavy bombing of German cities still continued with the Americans attacking Leipzig on 7^th July and the RAF Stuttgart on the 29^th.  Germany continued to terrorise south-east England with the V1 rocket bombs.

In Italy the Allied front was steadily advancing north of Rome taking Arezzo (between Florence and Perugia) on the 16^th July and Livorno (on the coast west of Florence) on the 19^th.  Polish forces in the British 8^th Army finally captured Ancona, on the coast to the east, on 18^th July.

Meanwhile Operation Bagration was sweeping across Eastern Europe.  Minsk (now the capital of Belarus) was taken by the Soviets on 3^rd July and by 8^th July the Germans had lost 300,000 men in three weeks.  Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania, fell on 13^th July and the Russians entered Latvia from the south at Dvinsk (now Daugavpils) on the 19^th.  By the 23^rd northern troops were nearing the border of Estonia at Pskov (the last pre-war Russian town to be held by German forces).  Progress in Estonia was slower, although, after five months of fighting, the Germans retreated from Narva near the Russian border to take a new defensive line between Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland.  Further south the Soviets captured Brest-Litovsk, on the border between Belarus and Poland, on the 28^th July.  The Russians were now just 25 miles from Warsaw and German occupants near the front-line in Poland began to be evacuated.  On 23^rd July the Red Army had found Majdanek concentration camp, near Lublin – the first major concentration camp to be liberated.

Further east Japan called off the Imphal offensive in India on 3^rd July and, with the US victory on Saipan on 9^th July, the Japanese Prime Minister, Hidekai Tojo, resigned from office.  On 21^st July American forces landed on Guam, the largest and most southern of the Marianas Islands, occupied by the Japanese since December 1941.

The Stars and Stripes and the Russian Red Flag were beginning their mighty advance across the world.

75 years ago - beginning the Battle of Normandy

Dick was at a camp in the Aldershot area while half his Regiment, including half his troop, were waiting for D-Day on ships in the Solent.

On Monday 5th June he wrote “We’re still having quite a good time here, all things considered, though there’s very little to do and time is apt to hang rather heavily”.  He was reading books, walking in the woods and taking ‘the boys’ to an open-air swimming pool nearby.  Writing again the next day he was “up to my neck in this wretched audit board at the moment adding up masses and masses of figures” and had to “bust a couple of sergeants…for absence”.  This was how he spent D-Day.

Dick and the rest of his troop, including Anthony Rampling, were due to cross to France on D+3 (ie the 9^th June) but the sea was too rough and they were delayed.  On 10th June Dick wrote to Chotie of drunken parties – he’d been “out every night since D Day”.  The Hollywood star, Gertrude Lawrence, had given “quite a good show” at his camp.

Dick’s next letter is from France.  He and Tony went over on Tuesday 13th June (D+7) - although Churchill had made it across on a day trip the previous day.  Dick was very re-assuring “everything is fine – I’m in the pink and very happy here” although he was desperately tired, not having slept since Sunday.  At some time Dick would have heard that one of his troop on sentry duty in France had shot and killed Corporal Robert Black, confusing the passwords and mistaking Black’s Londonderry accent for German.

Tony and Dick rejoined their troop on 14^th June.  The troop members who went over on D-day had “gained a little battle experience (!) and seen some nasty things”.  They “felt like veterans compared with the new arrivals.” (From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished.)

Since D-Day (or D + 1 for Sandy) the skeleton crew of 61^st Recce had been engaged with 50^th Division and 8the Armoured in an attempt to advance between Bayeux and Caen and take the critical town of Villers-Bocage.  Despite some success, in particular taking and holding the high ground of Point 103 (la Belle Épine) near Tilly-sur-Seules, they had been held off by the legendary Panzer Lehr Division, the cream of the German Army in Normandy, and also the fanatical 12^th SS Hitler Jugend nearer to Caen.

The 7^th Armoured Division (Monty’s Desert Rats) had then been tasked with taking Villers-Bocage but were badly beaten by 2^nd Division Panzer and the personal triumphs of the Panzer ace Michael Wittman, who destroyed 25 tanks in one day.

They had also discovered the perils of the bocage countryside – small fields with thick high hedges and narrow lanes, which perfectly camouflaged defenders for an ambush.  “Recce in Normandy meant driving down a road until something fired at you” (from WW2 Talk Forum)

The stench of death was everywhere – dead cattle and horses in the fields, casualties of war or shot by the Germans in retreat, and dead men who couldn’t be retrieved by their comrades.

On 15th June 'B' Squadron were somewhere in the Crauville area (between Tilly-sur-Seules and Caumont-L’Éventé) when the carrier in front of Eric Postles exploded killing four of the troop – two had been called up with Eric at Carlisle.   On the same day Don Aiken was involved in saving the life of his wounded corporal, Sammy Benson, giving covering fire while the heroic Sergeant 'Chalky' Wells went in to bring him to safety.

“We continued to live up to our name of reconnaissance, but every day our patrols found progress harder” (from ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lt-Col P.H.A. Brownrigg D.S.O.).  Eric Brewer was back at Point 103 again from 15^th to 18^th June withstanding ‘Gerry’ counter-attacks.

Dick wrote to Chotie :

Sunday June 18th

Chotie Darling,

                                                Well, Sunday’s come around again, though it makes no difference at all as every day is exactly the same here.  I’ve put the 18^th above but it’s only a guess.

            I hope to be able to write you more fully here, as I expect to have the rest of the morning free, though we never know when we’ll be called.

            Had quite a good night – four or five hours solid sleep – the first since I’ve been here.  It takes time to get acclimatised to sleeping in the midst of the terrific artillery racket that goes on nightly.  As Dostoevsky says ‘Man is a pliable animal – he gets used to anything in time’*. 

            Weather isn’t up to much at the moment – cloudy, though quite warm.

            I manage to get quite a bit of conversation with the local peasantry.  They speak a very pure tongue – slowly and with much careful thought.  The equivalent of the West Country in England.  So far I have had no difficulty in understanding them, or they me.

            My friend Jimmy Waddell is just walking over here.  He’s been out all night and looks a little tired.  Appears he’s been sniped at once or twice but got back OK.  It’s an endless source of amazement to us to see the people going about their lawful business with a total disregard to what’s going on around them.  I even saw an old farmer milking his only cow while a local battle was being waged for his farm!

            My relieving people have just arrived so will continue this later.

 

            Just had a go at an ME 109** with the old Bren.  No luck.  First I’ve seen for days.

            Must close here as I have to move.  Give my best wishes to your people won’t you?  And tell them I’m having the time of my little life.

                        All my love, Chotie Darling

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*From the Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky’s novel ‘The House of the Dead’.

** a Messerschmitt Bf 109, a German fighter plane.

© Chotie Darling

Eric Brewer records that 61^st Recce advanced towards Grainville-sur-Odon on 18^th June but losing an Ark (armoured car?) and a carrier to an 88 gun (an anti-aircraft gun used against ground targets by the Germans) they were forced to withdraw.  Eric Postles remembers 18th June as the day they moved back a few miles and got their first mail since Nightingale Wood – he had a letter from Gladys (the girl he’d met on leave before D-Day, his future wife).

On 19^th June Tilly-sur-Seules at last fell to the 50^th Division, although intense fighting continued in the vicinity.  Eric Brewer lost five comrades on another recce in the Grainville area – one taken prisoner.

On 20^th June Don Aiken found himself in the besieged town of Caen when the driver got lost returning from the beaches with a truckload of ammunition.  Don was riding ‘shotgun’ in the rear of the truck.  Finding their way back to the Regiment the driver was killed when a German fighter plane blew up the truck in front.

Forced to withdraw from Grainville to “a rear position to be reinforced” Eric Brewer at last had a bath in a stream.  Anthony Rampling recalls that conditions in Normandy were so bad that, being on constant alert, they didn’t take their boots off for 40 days and “stunk like foxes”.

Letters home painted a different picture – Dick’s letter of 21st June is about the local people “shy but very friendly – and only too willing to converse with you, especially if you speak any French at all” - and the food; he managed to buy Camembert cheese and cider.  Eric Brewer had “at last found a farm to obtain milk” and chatted to a Frenchman of the “underground movement”.

By 21^st June 61^st Recce’s 50^th Division had suffered 4,000 casualties, the highest of any Division in Normandy.  The Battle for Normandy became something akin to the trench warfare of World War 1, with Recce units going into action alongside the heavy armour, fighting bitterly for every advance and 'digging in'.  Eric Brewer complained that he’d be a gravedigger after the war since it was all he seemed to be doing.  He was stuck at some cross roads near Grainville from 22^nd to 26^th June.  Dick was also back in action.  He sent a Field Service Postcard to Chotie on 23^rd June ( a quick correspondence device where you just entered the address and date and crossed out lines that didn’t apply eg ‘admitted into hospital’, ‘wounded’ or ‘sick’) but managed to write a letter on 24th June.  He was rapidly acquiring the local patois and had been talking to the refugees “scores of families with all their remaining belongings in one wheelbarrow”.

This was also the day the ship Derrycunihy was sunk on the way to landing 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment at ‘Sword’ beach.  180 men died including Dick’s best friend when he was in the 43^rd, the piano player Donald 'Alex' Johnston.

The next day XXX Corps renewed its battle with the Panzer Lehr as a diversionary attack for the launch of Operation Epsom, Monty’s plan to attack west of Caen and then swing round to encircle the city.  Eric Brewer and his comrades were sent out to find the German forward position for assaults by the East Yorks Regiment and, on 26^th June, found the place formerly occupied by a company of the Green Howards – their kit was still there but the 57 men had not been heard of for a week.  Eric Postles records that 10 and 12 Troop lost men that day.  The attack on Grainville-sur-Odon was stalled on 27^th June although the Allies took Rauray, Colleville and Mouen and a bridge over the River Odon.  Grainville was also in their hands the next day and 61^st Recce crossed the River Odon to Mondrainville.  Eric Brewer was relieved at last and went back to base where he found ‘B’ Squadron had lost about a quarter of their men, 25 killed and about 25 injured, since D-Day.

Dick wrote to Chotie on 29th June saying that he was having a quiet time “doing Liaison Officer to a Brigadier – quite cushy in fact”.  He appears to have been in Bayeux for about 9 hours and managed to buy bread rolls with coffee – the first bread he’d tasted since he arrived in France.

After terrible fighting to take Hill 112, the strategic high ground south-west of Caen at Esquay-Notre-Dame, Operation Epsom was closed down on 30^th June.

 

Dick and the history of the war had now collided, with the spotlight on the efforts of 2^nd British Army and 12^th US Army in Normandy.  The beginning of Operation Overlord, D-day and the landings on the beaches have been covered in the previous post.  The attempts by 8^th Armoured Division (with 61^st Recce) and then 7the Armoured to take the D-Day objective of Villers-Bocage had ended in failure before Dick arrived in France.  His men had come up against the legendary Panzer Lehr Division - which was holding the line west of Caen with 12^th SS Division and 2^nd Panzer - and the difficulties of the bocage countryside, which masked defenders, snipers and even tanks.  By the end of the month 2^nd British Army was under attack from seven Panzer Divisions, although Rommel still kept Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais in case of Allied invasion further east.

The Allies depended on their huge supplies and reserves, air support (very successful in picking off German tank convoys heading for Normandy) and their effective artillery, including Naval bombardment since much of the fighting was within gunnery distance of the shore.  The brilliant Mulberry Harbours, erected soon after D-Day, had played a key role in landing troops, equipment and ammunition; although they proved vulnerable to the stormy weather later in June.  However, compared with the Germans most of the soldiers lacked experience and Monty relied again and again on his battle-worn troops from North Africa and Sicily, including the 50^th Division. 

The Americans fought bitter battles to take towns such as Carentan (liberated on 12^th June, joining up the ‘Omaha’ and ‘Utah’ bridgeheads), key strategic road junctions or even small villages.  US troops held a line across the Cherbourg Peninsula to Barneville by 18^th June, cutting off 40,000 Germans to the north.  On 27^th June they took their key target, the port of Cherbourg; so damaged that, although it was of some use after 3 weeks, it was not fully functioning until September.

The Canadians having been involved in the disastrous first attacks on Caen (they lost almost 3,000 men in the first six days after D-Day) held their ground against 12^th SS Panzer’s attempts to break through to the sea.

By 30^th June the Allies have landed a total of 630,000 troops but suffered 62,000 dead or wounded.

Germany was also retaliating on home ground: V1 rocket bombs first reached Britain on 13^th June, landing at Swanscombe in Kent and killing six people at Bethnall Green in London.  On 16^th June, Germany’s ‘Day of Vengeance’ 244 V1 bombs landed in England.  A V1 striking the Guards Chapel during the service on 18^th June killed 119 people.

Horror continued in the occupied countries with the Heuaktion in Poland – an order, which authorised the kidnapping of 40,000 children for slave labour in Germany.  The brave Danes were resisted Germany’s imposition of a curfew with a General Strike beginning on 26^th June and the curfew was withdrawn.

In Italy the glory of the US Fifth Army entering Rome on 4^th June was soon upstaged by D-Day but the Allies in Italy pressed steadily northward up the central spine taking Todi, Terni and Orvieto on the 14^th June and Perugia by 20^th June.  To the west the Free French landed on Elba, between Italy and Corsica, on 17^th June and the island was liberated by the 20^th.

Russia had launched offensives against Finland from Leningrad and on the Karelian isthmus earlier in the month, and captured Viipuri/Vyborg, the second largest town in Finland (still part of Russia now).  The Finns eventually succeeded in stopping the Russian advance with the Battle of Tali-Ihantel, begun on the 25^th June.  However, these were deliberate distractions from the huge build-up of Soviet armies along 450 miles the German central front for Operation Bagration, launched on the Anniversary of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa.  The German 4^th Army was quickly in danger of encirclement and by 30^th June Operation Bagration had caused 200,000 German casualties.

In India the siege of Imphal was at last lifted on 22^nd June and the Japanese were forced to withdraw.  However, Japanese forces were still advancing in China. By 26^th June they were in Hunan (southern China) and had captured the American air-base of Heng-yang.

Japan was under attack from the Allies in the western Pacific with the Battle of Saipan beginning the US Navy’s Marianas Campaign on 15^th June, aimed at liberating the American’s former base at Guam.  On 19^th June the US 5^th Fleet engaged with the Japanese Combined Fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea – ‘the greatest carrier battle in history’ and a decisive victory for the Americans.

With the Allies gaining ground (or sea) on same many fronts it must have been frustrating and fearsome to be inching forward so slowly in the bocage and at such a great cost to friends and comrades.

75 years ago - D Day

This post is in memory of the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment

 and their sacrifice 75 years ago on 6^th June 1944

For nearly a year the Allies had been planning in detail and in secret the invasion of France.  Secrecy was vital to maintain the element of surprise, keeping Hitler’s defences strung along the whole of northern France and the Low Countries.  The Germans knew an invasion was coming from the build-up of radio traffic and ships but poor air reconnaissance meant that the dummy army in Kent and Sussex left them expecting an attack in the Pas de Calais, nearest to Belgium, even when Allied troops and tanks had landed in Normandy.

Eisenhower’s ‘bravest act of the war’ (according to General Miles Dempsey, the Commander of 2^nd British Army) was to send the invasion force across the Channel on the night of 5^th June.  Bad weather made a postponement of the original D-Day from 5^th June inevitable.  On 4^th June the Supreme Allied Commander received a fresh forecast that the weather might ease overnight and decided that Tuesday 6^th June would be D-Day.  The Germans, who had much less accurate meteorological reports, thought landings would be impossible between the 5^th and 7^th June; Rommel, now in charge of ‘The Western Wall’ defences, returned to Germany for his wife’s birthday and the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) even cancelled their shore patrols of the Channel.

Meanwhile in Operation Neptune almost 7,000 ships, led by the minesweepers, had set sail from ports all along the south coast of England, coalescing in a ‘spout’ between the Isle of Wight and Normandy.  From midnight thousands of paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines to seize critical bridges and guard the invaders’ routes inland.  A coded BBC message had alerted the French Resistance.  While the Navy policed the Channel either side of the spout the RAF and US Army Air Force had bombed road and rail infrastructure over much of northern France to interfere with German troop and tank movements and keep them guessing where the landings would occur.  Now, just before dawn, the Naval bombardment of the beach defences began and the Germans on the coast (units of 7^th Army west of the River Orne and 15^th Army to the east) beheld the largest invasion force in military history.

On ‘Utah’ beach, on the east side of the Cherbourg peninsula, the 4^th Infantry Division of US VII Corps landed with far fewer casualties than expected and began to move inland to relieve the paratroopers of the US 82^nd and 101^st Airborne.  To the east the defences around Vierville and St. Laurent somehow escaped the naval and air bombardments and the legendary ‘bloodbath’ of ‘Omaha’ beach began.  The 1^st and 29^th Infantry Divisions of US V Corps lost more than 2,000 and the American Rangers, who were to take the cliffs of Pointe de Hoc were decimated.  Survivors reaching the beach from their landing craft amid heavy fire found their way to the shelter of sandy bluffs or sea walls and eventually moved inland, the Rangers scaling 100 foot cliffs.

North-west of Caen on ‘Sword’, the easternmost of the beaches, the landing of British 3^rd Division was a ‘remarkable success’ but ‘they were slow pushing forward’ and, encountering 21^st Panzer later in the day, they failed to seize Caen.  The city, soon heavily defended, was not to fall to the Allies until several weeks later.

British 6^th Airborne Division had landed on their flank securing the critical connecting bridge over the Orne (now named ‘Pegasus’ in their honour) and blowing bridges on the River Dives to foil German attacks from the east.

The Canadian 3^rd Division, landing on ‘Juno’ beach, faced heavily fortified seaside villages and defences networked by tunnels but their follow-up units were able to move inland quickly through the fierce fighting of the first waves.   41 and 48 Commando, landing at the facing edges of ‘Sword’ and ‘Juno’ succeeded in connecting the beaches despite a determined advance by 21^st Panzer between the bridgeheads.

 

From 60th Anniversary - The D-Day Landings Northern France.

Our friends in 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment were destined to land on ‘Gold’ beach, between the Canadians on ‘Juno’ and the Americans on ‘Omaha’.  Eric Postles, Sandy Handley and Don Aiken boarded Tank Landing Ships (LSTs) with their vehicles at Southampton docks on 1^st June and spent the next three days in the Solent, north of the Isle of Wight.  On Sunday 4^th June they received final briefings on their landing beaches and targets inland and found out their destination was Normandy.  Eric Brewer boarded his ship on the Sunday but, though all were now prepared for action, they were delayed for another day.  The rough weather meant many were seasick and although the food was good all they were given to sleep on was a couple of burial bags as blankets!

To get inshore they had to drive onto flat-bottomed ferry-like landing craft called Rhinos.  Don’s ship lost one of the two Rhinos it was towing somewhere in the Channel.

“The 50^th Division attacking ‘Gold’, the most westerly of the British beaches, ran into their first serious difficulty in front of the fortified German positions at Le Hamel.  The 1^st Hampshires and 1^st Dorsets landed under furious fire from bunkers scarcely scarred by the bombardment and manned by the German 1^st Battalion of 716^th Division.  The British supporting tanks arrived too late to give the infantry immediate support and …very few of the Royal Marine Centaurs arrived at all” (having capsized in their landing craft).  “Three of the five landing craft bringing 47 Commando ashore struck mines…the survivors swam to the beach and regrouped to begin their advance on Port-en-Bessin” (the critical port east of Omaha beach defended by the experienced 316^th Division). “46 men and almost every wireless set had been lost.” (From ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition)

61st Recce fared even worse:

"Nearly half the contact patrols with the assaulting infantry were killed or wounded on D-Day, either on the beaches or before reaching them.  Nevertheless, they justified themselves by getting much information back to divisional Headquarters before it arrived by the normal channels and some of the patrols, whose sets had been shot-up, did great work with their weapons.”  (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lt-Col P.H.A.Brownrigg, D.S.O.)

By 9.30am the beach was secured against determined enemy resistance and during the rest of the morning the forces of 50th Division pushed inland four miles towards the town of Creully.  The battle for Le Hamel itself raged on until afternoon. (From 60th Anniversary - The D-Day Landings Northern France.)

Eric Brewer of B Squadron’s Assault Troop landed near Port-en-Bessin at 7.30 am with a bicycle (this soon got a puncture and he threw it away).  Pushing inland they got lost and seem to have ended up far behind enemy lines in the Caumont-l'Éventé area, about 20 miles from the coast, near Briquessard.  A machine gun opened up from behind a hedge, killing their carrier driver.  Eric finally found the rest of his Squadron in France on 8^th June.

Extract from Eric Brewer's diary copyright of Derek Brewer and family

 

By the time Don Aiken’s ship arrived in late morning the 1^st Hampshire’s had cleared the beach near Arromanches.  When his armoured car drove off the remaining Rhino he sank into a bomb hole leaving only the turret exposed but the Humber armoured car kept moving.  All the vehicles had been carefully waterproofed in preparation for an amphibious landing with a compound of grease, lime and asbestos fibres.  Moving to the de-waterproofing area, Don accidentally sent a smoke bomb into one of the nearby German minefields; luckily it didn’t trigger an incident – except with the British officer in charge of the beach! 

The Regiment was meant to reach a wooded hill about 15 miles inland to ‘seize and hold’ with the 8th Armoured Brigade but all the delays meant most didn’t reach it.  Don spent the night standing in pitch blackness next to his vehicle, wondering where the nearest Germans were.

Eric Postles also encountered issues with getting ashore: “The heavy seas caused problems for the ships towing Rhinos and we were late arriving at the beach.  After much effort our Rhino was linked to the ship’s ramp and my carrier was first on the ramp when the Rhino broke away.  We jumped off the vehicle and waited for the reconnection before finally getting onto the Rhino next to a bulldozer which was intended to lead us off.  We got near the water’s edge and the bulldozer which was intended to destroy obstacles drove off but disappeared under the water and we did not see the driver again.  The Rhino moved further along the beach and we all got ashore.  It was late afternoon.

There were beached ships and landing craft everywhere and we were directed to a track which led off the beach and through the sand hills.  There was a lot of enemy shelling activity and our heavy warship and rocket ships were firing over us.  There were groups of prisoners and we passed a line of British dead lying side by side.” 

Eric spent the night at the edge of a cornfield where there were a number of dead Germans.  “It was an uncomfortable night”.  (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

By nightfall 50^th Division’s 231st (Dorsets, Devons and Hampshires) and 151st (Durham Light Infantry) Brigades were just two miles short of Bayeux while the 69th (East Yorks & Green Howards) had linked up with the Canadians from Juno beach.

With the roughness of the sea and many Rhinos breaking away from their parent ships only half the 61st Reconnaissance contingent got ashore on D-day.  Sandy Handley’s ship lost a Rhino so not everyone could be taken to the shore.  He was still floating offshore near Arromanches overnight, grateful not to be one of the 50% casualties among the Recce who landed first on D Day.

Major Brownrigg, commander of ‘A’ Squadron, was also not able to land until 7^th June but the Regiment’s Commander Colonel William Mount was ashore and arranged a new rendez-vous well within the bridgehead. He was held up  reaching there by heavy machine gun fire and when Major Brownrigg called on the wireless he was told “Get off the air, I’m shooting Boches.”

All the 61^st Recce invasion squad had landed by the end of 7^th June.  Coming off the Rhino into about 4 feet of water, 50 yards from the beach, was nerve-wracking enough, even without heavy fire.  Engineers were still dealing with the underwater beach obstacles, many with mines attached.  Among the British dead the biggest Union Jack Sandy had ever seen was flying in a gentle breeze.  Later when Sandy saw a dead German by the side of the road he thought “A man the same as me doing what I was told to do.”

Despite the Humber’s engine catching fire as they drove away from the beach Sandy reached the 61^st Recce rendez-vous between Brécy and Rucqueville for the night of 7^th June and heard that 50^th Division had succeeded in taking Bayeux, the first city in France to be liberated after D-day.

 

Sources include ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor (published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012), ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings (Macmillan 2016 edition) and accounts by veterans of the 61st Reconnaissance Regiment.

75 years ago - Nightingale Wood

Writing on Saturday 1st April Dick recounted his ‘pretty cushy’ time in Scotland, visiting Glasgow at the weekend.  He’d returned to Whittlesford on 29^th March and managed to see his sister Diller on a trip to Leicester delivering vehicles.

Now it was time for 61^st Recce to move south to their assembly area for Operation Overlord (D Day), near the south coast.  Dick’s ‘B’ Squadron camped out for two months in Nightingale Wood near Romsey – part of D Day Marshalling Areas C16 and C17, inland from Southampton.  Here Dick received a new member for his No 5 Troop – Sandy Handley, from the Royal West Kents, who was to stay with him throughout the war and become Anthony Rampling’s best friend from the army.  Tony, hearing that the Assault troops were to be issued with bicycles, asked for a transfer (he didn’t much fancy carrying a Bren gun on a bicycle) and also joined Dick’s troop.

The camps were all carefully camouflaged to avoid detection by the Luftwaffe and all leave was cancelled to maintain secrecy, although Dick’s letter of 8th April shows he still had hopes of meeting Chotie before the invasion.  Eric’s Postles’ troop was granted special permission to go on leave and, returning to Wigan, he first met his future wife, Gladys Dandy.  Don Aiken managed to meet up with his brother who was with the Royal School of Signals putting up telephone lines to connect the camps and command centres. 

The Allies' deceptions in Operation Fortitude kept the Germans guessing where and when the invasion would take place – Dick and other Lieutenants spent much of their time censoring letters, like the one from Eric Brewer mentioning white bread, apples and peaches (rare treats that might have hinted he was being given special treatment as part of the invasion force?).  Dick was more interested in 61^st Recce’s latest recruit:

 

Letter written on Thursday 13th April 1944

2/Lt RK Williams

            61^st Recce Regt

NB!    A.P.O.

            England

Thursday 13^th April

Chotie Darling,

                                    Just the few odd lines to let you know I’m still alive at any rate.  Having quite a good time here, despite poor living accommodation and even worse food.  Weather is excellent, pukka spring – including cuckoos, damn them.

            As regards leave of any sort, I’m afraid it’s out of the question – however I will try to get down to your place sometime during your leave, and you should be able to get here, somehow.  I’m afraid I can’t give you anything more definite as, for all I know, I may easily be out on a scheme throughout your leave.

            I’m very tied up here as regards communications – no telephones or telegrams.  Luckily I’m able to censor my own letters, but unfortunately have to censor some forty or fifty letters every evening, which takes time.

            We’ll manage to meet somehow, never fear.

            My neighbouring subaltern came across a fox cub the other day and we’ve kept it ever since.  We procured a very wee kitten from the Quartermaster (they always have hundreds of kittens) and they live together very happy.

He, (the foxcub) is very small and covered in light down, with a very funny little face.  He keeps on going “TWEEK!, TWEEK!”.  ‘Formidable!’, as the French say. 

“That’s all for now, Kiddies – The Zoo man will be back again, etc, etc”….

Have managed to do a little sun-bathing so far, but not eno’ to worry about.

            I’ve just managed to get rid of a Sergeant from my troop, who’s been giving me a headache for months – a very poor type.

            Must close here for dinner (?).  (So called)

                                                            All my love, Chotie

                                                                        Dicker

RKWilliams

 

*The fox became the Regiment’s mascot accompanying them as far as the Ardennes.  Trooper Ernie Brobbin of ‘A’ squadron gives an account of finding the foxcub in ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’  by Ron Howard (Brewin Books 2004):

          “One particular morning as dawn was breaking, another chap and I were on motor transport guard when we heard a ‘baby’ crying and went to investigate.  The ‘baby’ turned out to be an abandoned fox cub.  The poor thing was crying after it had been left on its own.

            Neither of us had come across a fox before, as we came from mining areas.  We picked it up, took it back to camp, fed it on milk, and then made it a cage from saplings.

            The cub prospered and eventually we decided to take it with us as a troop mascot.”

The cub was adopted by Lt. Compton Bishop who kept it in his armoured car and took it to France.

Painting by Sandy Handley of the fox on a lead with 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment. The original painting is held by the Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset.

Dick did manage to get home to Pagham on Sunday 15th April, by cycling four hours each way.  He wrote to Chotie the next day with the good news that there was now beer in the mess.  On 21st April he sent her a ‘shocking photo’ of himself (see blog banner) and launched a plan to meet on Sunday 30^th April at the Haunch of Venison (in Salisbury).  This fell through when he had to cover as Squadron Leader. Major Frank Harding, ‘B’ Squadron’s future commander, wrote a poignant book of poetry about his war experience with 61^st Reconnaissance regiment - ‘War echoes over thirty years’ - including their stay in Nightingale Wood.  More prosaically, Philip Brownrigg, then commander of 61^st Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron describes the role the Regiment was to play in Operation Overlord: about 40% were to go over with the ‘first wave’ on D day itself, with the rest arriving later in June.

All round the coast training exercises to prepare for the landings continued through the month, culminating in the tragedy of Exercise Tiger on 27^th April when German schnell-boats came across troop boats and nearly a thousand US servicemen were killed near Slapton Ley in Devon.  The Luftwaffe began attacking the concentrations of Allied ships at Plymouth and Portsmouth on 25^th April while the British Navy and Bomber Command were already mining the English Channel approaches to protect the invasion fleet. On 3^rd April the Fleet Air Arm had again attacked Germany’s mega-battleship, the Tirpitz, moored in a Norway fjord, causing substantial damage.

Long-range Allied bombers attacked Budapest and Bucharest, the respective capitals of Hungary and Romania.  (The US Army Air Force also bombed the Swiss town of Schaffhausen by mistake, killing 40 neutral Swiss civilians.)  In early April three prisoners successfully escaped from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, publishing their eyewitness accounts of the atrocities from Switzerland in June 1944.  The Red Army was advancing in southern Ukraine, capturing Odessa on 10^th April and Yalta on the 16^th.

The Allies began new campaigns in Indonesia, attacking the Japanese on Western New Guinea and Sumatra.  Ichi-gō, the Japanese major offensive in northern China (aimed at eliminating the USAAF airfields now bombing Japanese territory) began on 19^th April 1944.  Much of the Chinese Nationalist Army was then heavily engaged in south China with the Salween offensive on the Burmese border.

Operation U-gō, the Japanese 15^th Army’s advance into India from Burma was held up by the heroic defences of the 15^th Indian Parachute brigade and the famous stand of the Royal West Kents, with local Assam rifles, at the hill-station of Kohima.  A memorial now stands there:

‘When you go home, tell them of us and say,

For their tomorrow, we gave our today.’

75 years ago - defending Bristol

At the beginning of March 1944 Dick and 61^st Reconnaissance Division , now attached to the 50^th (Northumbrian) Division, were at Whittlesford, near Cambridge.  Training for Operation Overlord kept them very busy – Eric Postles recalls they were given new vehicles and drove over central England running them in.  On one excursion Dick visited Bawdsey Manor, home of the top secret pre-war research on radar that became the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Dorset. 

His letter of 5th March also includes plans to meet up with Chotie during his next leave, although she hadn’t written for some time…...  When they met Chotie confessed to an infidelity, which Dick, though hurt badly, blamed on life in the services.  “It is in this state, of being so completely fed-up that you don’t give a damn what happens, that these things happen.”  Back in Whittlesford on 18th March he wrote: “You don’t need to ask me to forgive you, Chotie.  I shall always be prepared to forgive you anything – except leaving me entirely.”

By Tuesday 21^st March Dick was up in Scotland on one of the hastily arranged training courses to prepare for amphibious landings in France:

Letter written on Friday 24^th March 1944

Ayrshire, Scotland

Friday

Chotie Darling,

                                    Have just received your letter of the 19^th inst. which has been forwarded up from the unit.

            I was very pleased to see that Eric had replied to your letter and that I now have Eric’s address once again.  No excuse now, eh?

            Having a very pleasant time here doing absolutely nothing, as there seems no organisation of any sort here, and nobody worries about you.  I’m in a very cushy mess of practically every Regiment in the Army, though I’ve only met one bloke I knew before.

            I took the afternoon off and walked to Irvine* some three miles along golden sands** in glorious sunshine.  (I omitted to say that I had some three hours sleep in the afternoon on the beach.)  I then had a beer or two in Irvine and bussed back.

            Went skating on Tuesday and a dance in Ayr last night so I thought I’d have things a little quieter this evening, as I spent this morning up to my neck in the sea.***

            I’ll enclose some coupons in this letter.  If I remember that is.  What are they worth to you?

            All the pubs up here close at 8.30 pm except one in Ayr.  Unfortunately the barmaid there became much too friendly for my liking so I stay clear now.  She was a very charming little thing but obviously didn’t know her own mind.  So now I have to drink in the mess – very unsatisfactory. 

How are you behaving these days?  Being a good girl I hope.  Write and tell me all about him won’t you?  If he’s under forty I’ll be jealous, and if he’s over forty I’ll spank you.

            Must close here, Baby

                                                            All my love

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*Irvine is a town in North Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland. A couple of Combined Operations WW2 camps were situated to the south of Irvine – HMS Dundonald trained all three services in signalling procedures to and from landing craft and the use of navigational aids to assist small landing craft find their way to designated landing places on hostile beaches.  HMS Dinosaur focused on tank landing craft training. (From the Combined Operations website.) 

**Barassie beach

*** “For the landings to be successful and for breakout from the bridgehead on the French coast to be achieved the men of all three services not only had to be equipped they also had to be trained.  It was to be training like no other, rigorous, realistic and relentless and much of it took place in Scotland.”  (Originally from the website www.scotsatwar.org.uk but this link no longer works.  Can anyone help me credit the source?)  

 © Chotie Darling

Meanwhile Chotie’s job was to help defend Bristol and the Severn Estuary ports from German air attacks.  The city received its first bombing raid since 1942 on 27^th March 1944 with 139 Luftwaffe planes targeting the harbour.  13 of those planes were lost and the ‘Baby Blitz’ was unsuccessful due to Bristols’ excellent defences (my mother was always prepared to take full responsibility for this) and poor target marking by the Germans.

German planes on bombing mission

The Allies’ strategic bombing of Germany was now achieving important results, not just through the impact on targets (although cities had been devastated and much infrastructure disabled) but particularly through the loss of Luftwaffe planes and experienced pilots.  This success, due to the deadly long-range fighter planes that now escorted the bombers, was to prove critical to the eventual outcome of Overlord and the Battle of Normandy.

The United States Army Air Force attacked Berlin with a huge force of bombers and fighters on 4^th and 6^th March and the RAF followed up with a thousand plane raid on the 24^th.  Stuttgart and Nuremberg also suffered heavy air attacks by the RAF and Bomber command began strategic attacks on northern France in preparation for the Allied invasion.

The National Council for the French Resistance published its plans for the future of a free France after the war on 15^th March.  On 26^th March in Haute Savoie 10,000 German troops and French militia attacked the 465 Maquisards gathered on the Plateau de Glières , now maintained as an important monument to the Resistance.

In the Ardeatine Caves near Rome the Germans executed 336 Italians in revenge for partisans killing 35 German police.  The Allies were struggling in their attempt to reach Rome - a third attack on Monte Cassino failed on 23^rd March and the forces landed at Anzio were still held in the beachhead.  However, airfields in southern Italy were now used to support Tito’s communist resistance in Yugoslavia.

On 19^th March the Hungarian leader, Miklos Horthy, who had been secretly negotiating with the Allies, was arrested and German troops marched in to occupy Hungary.  The SS immediately began deporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.

The Russians were now very near (see Atlas of the World Battle Fronts).  On 15^th March in Poland they reached the Bug River, the boundary agreed between Russia and Germany when they invaded in 1939, and on 28^th March Soviet troops crossed into Romanian territory near the Black Sea.

Burma (Myanmar) was another critical zone in March 1944.  On 7^th March 100,000 Japanese advanced from north-west Burma into India in Operation U-Go.  Behind Japanese lines the airborne British Chindit expedition, Operation Thursday, had landed near Indaw in central northern Burma on 5^th March and the American ‘Merrill’s Marauders’ were fighting for control of Myitkina in the far north near China.  Allied forces in the far western Arakan, near the port of Muangdaw, continued to advance the southern frontier against the Japanese.  However, the Chindits lost their unconventional leader, Orde Wingate, in a plane crash on 24^th March.

75 years ago - a 'cushy' time in Birmingham

First page of letter on 61st Reconnaissance Regiment paper posted on Thursday 10^th February 1944

2/Lt RKWilliams

Royal Armoured Corps

Brandon, Suffolk

Chotie Darling,

                                    Sorry I haven’t written before this, but haven’t really had time.

            I was inoculated yesterday morning and owing to a severe shortage of officers in the Squadron I’ve had to remain on duty all the time.  I was out on the range yesterday and got pretty cold, as a consequence of which I went to bed feeling a little pallid.  On crawling out of bed this morning I found I couldn’t stand, so I promptly crawled back again.  However, I got up for lunch and am feeling a lot better now, though I still ache all over.

            Hope you managed to stay in bed after your jab, nothing’s more miserable than having to stay on duty.

            I’m going on a week’s course at Birmingham on the 15^th, luckily it won’t affect my leave.  It’s a very cushy course as students (?) stay at the Officers Club and all the instructors are civilians.  Pity Eric doesn’t still live there.  I received three oranges today – there’s an issue of three per officer in the mess.  However, like the good little boy I am, I’m sending them home to mother.

            I had a day in Cambridge last week – a lovely town.  Unfortunately it’s full of Yanks and there’s a beer shortage.  Notwithstanding these two major calamities I managed to have quite a good time.

            Apart from this one excursion I haven’t been out at all.  Unless you get at least 24 hrs off it’s not worth going anywhere.  Cambridge is the only place worth going to and that’s some forty miles or so.

            Just had a letter from Brinner.  He’s now started on Machine Gun (Vickers) which is the last phase of his training.  I also wrote to Diller to get her to change her leave, so that we’ll be home together.

            Would you let me know what time you’ll be arriving home so that I can make arrangements from this end.  (That is of course if you can get 72 hrs).

            Must close here, Darling as my arm’s giving me merry Hell.

                                                All my love

                                                            Dicker

 

This letter was written to Private B. E. Chalkley in ‘A’ Troop O.F.C. ATS, 462 Hy(M) Bty RA, Markham Camp, Easton-in-Gordano, Bristol so Chotie seems to have moved from ‘B’ Troop but in the same battery.

 © Chotie Darling

61^st Recce moved again before 17^th February – this time to Whittlesford near Cambridge.  It was here that they were “inspected along with 151 The Durham Light Infantry Brigade by the Divisional Commander General Graham and by General Montgomery.  We were also inspected by King George VI, and then by General Eisenhower wearing an immaculate midnight blue uniform.”  (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

Dick’s course in Birmingham was on armoured cars – he wrote to Chotie during a lecture on the lubrication system.  On Friday he saw a “particularly good” concert with the Russian pianist Leff Pouishnoff and the London Symphony Orchestra and met up with his sister Diller and Chotie’s friend Mary Dakin in Leicester at the weekend.  Diller was stationed there in the Pay Corps.  Returning to Whittlesford he wrote to Chotie again on 23rd February.

Whittlesford is right next to the celebrated Duxford Aerodrome, in February 1944 home to the 78th Fighter Group, who escorted the American bombers on their perilous daylight bombing raids. Britain and America were trying to force the Luftwaffe into a decisive air battle over Germany with heavy RAF raids on German cities by night and daylight bombing by the USAAF targeting factories and airfields.  Operation Argument (better known as 'Big Week') began on 19^th February 1944 with relentless bombing in vast raids of US planes, including the 78^th Fighter Group.

On 20^th February Norwegian resistance commandos succeeded in sinking the ferry carrying the remaining heavy water from Telemark (which could have been used by the Nazis to produce a nuclear bomb) to Germany.

The Russians bombed Helsinki in Finland on 26^th February (although Britain had declared war with Finland, which was allied with Germany, the US never did).  Adolph Hitler’s base on the Eastern Front, the Wolfsschanze, was now within the range of the Soviet air force so he moved his headquarters back to the Berghof in Bavaria.  However, he would not permit German troops in the Ukraine to withdraw and 20,000 were killed by the Red Army near the Dnepr River.

At Anzio in Italy the Germans staged repeated fierce attacks but although casualties were high the Allies succeeded in holding their beach-head.  On 15^th February Allied aircraft bombed the historic monastery of Monte Cassino but assaults on the mountain by New Zealand, Indian and Polish troops were held off by German paratroopers.

In the Pacific the US was successfully attacking the Japanese held Marshall, Caroline and Admiralty Islands.  They also launched their own version of the Chindits (Long-range Penetration Groups) in Burma - known as Merrill’s Marauders, these guerrillas operated deep in the jungle behind Japanese lines.  The British and Indian armies in Burma’s Arakan held their position against the Japanese in the Battle of the Admin Box.

The Allies were on the offensive and preparing for 'undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult' Operation ever taken (Churchill) – Operation Overlord.

75 years ago - 61st Reconnaissance Regiment

Dick joined 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment at the Medieval Lympne Castle in the second week of November 1942.  Before starting work as an officer he had nine days leave with Chotie at his home in Pagham, Sussex.  His first letter to her as a 2nd Lieutenant is "rather sketchy but the security angel cuts out everything worth writing – almost …."  We know from Eric Postles that 61st Recce were on coastal defence duties, patrolling between Folkestone and Romney in Kent. 

Managing to get back to Pagham on a 24 hour overnight pass on Wednesday 17^th November Dick was re-united with his brother Brin and his sister Diller, both home on leave (Diller from the pay Corps and Brin from Officer training).  He nearly got stuck at Brighton station on his way back having lost his wallet but was helped out by the local YMCA.  Around this time he also met up with Don Johnston, his old friend from 43^rd Recce (later killed in the sinking of the Derrycunihy soon after D Day).

61^st Division was also a training unit and Dick was involved in a week’s exercise in the Kent countryside in mid November.  He wrote to Chotie on his return:

Letter written on Sunday 28th November 1943

2/Lt R K Williams

‘B’ Sqdn. 61^st Recce Regt

Recce Corps, Home Forces

Sunday 28^th

Chotie Darling,

                                                I’m now back again and settled down after the scheme, which lasted for its original duration much to everyone’s disgust.

            On the whole I had quite a happy time, as I either stayed at, or passed through, several old haunts well known to the family in the old Morris Cowley* days, and coupled with the opportunity so often missed of worming my way into a vast number of period farmhouses and the like.

            The weather was excellent, cold but dry and as we stayed in one little village for three days without doing anything of military importance, we managed to get sufficiently well organised to hold ABCA*** periods and run a football tournament.  I evaded these two popular pastimes however, and mooched about a local farm until the daughter of the house asked me in for coffee and CHOCOLATE Biscuits!  Her undoubted charms left me cold, but I took a lively interest in the biscuits.  Lovely old house, with a massive oak beam over the fireplace marked 1600.

The major** came back yesterday.  He appeared quite a good type – reads Balzac, so I’m well in.

Nothing much happens here.  I’ve just finished a 48 hr spell of Duty Officer, rather a cushy appointment.  I get another 24 hr next Wednesday so I may go up to ……….. (word inked out).  There’s nothing to do here, or locally, but the snag is the fare.  It will be the second day I’ve had off in three weeks, which isn’t so good, to my way of thinking.

Many thanks for your letter, Darling, most welcome at the conclusion of an exercise.  Glad to hear you’ve got, or rather you’re getting, a rise****.  I bet you’re getting more than me after all.  After I’ve paid income tax, messing***** etc, I get the equivalent of Lance Corporal’s pay….

Must close here for dinner.

                                    All my love precious

            Dicker.

*presumably the family car from his childhood at Orpington in Kent.

**Army Bureau of Current Affairs – an organisation set up to educate and raise morale among British servicemen in World War 2.

***possibly the Regimental second-in-command, who was a Major, or maybe the Major commanding ‘B’ Squadron. Dick was one of 23 to 30 subalterns in the Regiment – commissioned officers below the rank of captain, generally comprising first and second (junior) lieutenants. Dick, as a newly commissioned officer, was a second lieutenant.

****due to her new qualification as Operator Fire Control?

*****Commissioned Officers were required to eat in the Officers’ Mess and pay a subscription fee for supplies and upkeep. They would also be expected to wear formal attire for evenings in the mess.

 © Chotie Darling

Dick, of course, was now in the regiment of the Recce Men we’ve been following.  All were in ‘B’ Squadron: a reconnaissance regiment consisted of the Regimental HQ with HQ Squadron and three Reconnaissance Squadrons (‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’) of about 150 men each.  Every Squadron had its own HQ, three Scout or Recce Troops consisting of one Recce and two Carrier sections - and one Assault or Infantry Troop.  (From ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007).  In 1943 Anthony Rampling and Eric Brewer were in the Assault troop (lorried infantry called in to overcome enemy resistance) while Dick and Eric Postles served in Scout Troops. 

 
Dick's Recce officer lanyard

Although Home Defence was still important (particularly Anti-Aircraft response) Britain was becoming more relaxed about the possibilities of invasion.  The fascist leader Oswald Mosly was released from prison, on grounds of ill health, on 17^th November 1943.  The next day the RAF began a series of very heavy raids against the German capital of Berlin, killing thousands of civilians.

In Poland as Operation Reinhard (the plan to exterminate Polish Jews) reached its culmination, 42,000 Jews working in forced labour camps were murdered by the Germans in the so called ‘Operation Harvest Festival’.  The world was waking up to the horror of the Holocaust when the dreadful atrocity of Babi Yar - the ravine where Nazis had shot and buried about 100,000 men, women and children - was revealed soon after the Soviet Army took the Ukrainian city of Kiev on 6^th November.

Wet and wintry weather was hitting both the Eastern and Italian Fronts.  In Italy the Allies advance slowed as General Mark Clark’s 5^th Army reached Monte Camino, the mountain ridges defending the main route to Rome.  The failed British attempt to take the ridge on 5^th November resulted in its nickname of ‘Murder Mountain’.  Montgomery’s 8th Army was now approaching the strategically important port of Ortona on the Adriatic coast but the Germans fiercely defended the town for another month.

In the Mediterranean Sea, Germany’s sinking of HMS Rohna, with the loss of 1,138 of the US troops she was carrying, would have been such a blow to Allied morale that it was kept secret until 1967!

Americans were engaged in terrible conflict with the Japanese in the Pacific.  1,000 US Marines were killed in the 3 day battle for tiny Tarawara Atoll in the Gilbert Islands - as well as 5,000 Japanese and Koreans - and on 1^st November the battle of Bougainville Island, east of Papua New Guinea, began and lasted until August 1945 (the end of war in the Pacific).  On 25^th November US planes based in China started to bomb the Japanese Island of Formosa (now Taiwan), contributing to a massive Japanese offensive against the airfields in early 1944.

Chiang Kai-Shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader, met Roosevelt and Churchill at a conference in Cairo http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1140364.shtml (BBC History website) on 22^nd November to confirm their strategy against Japan.  Russia had not declared war against Japan and so did not attend but the two western leaders met Stalin together for the first time in Iran, at the Tehran Conference on 28^th November, where he agreed to join the  fight against Japan once Germany had been defeated.  Roosevelt and Churchill promised that they would invade France in a second western front by May 1944.  This was to be Operation Overlord and the beginning of Dick's war in Europe....

75 years ago - Commissioned

Chotie was in Whitby in Yorkshire when Dick wrote to her on 9th October to plan his November leave.  On 13th October he filled in a preference form for the Recce Corps and staked a claim to the 61^st Recce (based on family or ‘territory’), possibly because they were by then in his home county of Kent, or maybe because they were not far from his family at Pagham in Sussex

In mid-October he had a “glorious time on exercise in the Cotswolds.  Went to Cheltenham, Gloucester, etc.” – from letter to Chotie back in Easton-on-Gordano on 23rd October.  By 26th October his plans for leave with Chotie were definitely shaping up, mainly based on the Pagham pubs.

On 30th October 1943 Dick received his commission as an officer in the Reconnaissance Corps and was appointed to the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment.  He had already served in the Recce Corps:  from April to July 1942 he was in 1^st Air Landing Reconnaisssance Squadron; then moved to the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment and trained as a Driver/Mechanic before beginning officer training in March 1943

 

We have been following 61^st Recce through the lives of Eric Postles, Eric Brewer and Anthony Rampling, who were now troopers with the Regiment on anti-invasion duties.  Eric Postles writes:

“61 Division was downgraded to home defence and moved to Kent.  The regiment was responsible for patrolling the coast from New Romney to Battle.  Our squadron was stationed in Lympne Castle next to an RAF airfield.  We did day and night mobile patrols into Folkestone and Romney.  On a clear day you could see France from the castle tower and at night flashes from the German guns shelling the Dover area.  One night we watched as a night fighter shot down a German bomber in flames.  Our fighter planes took off and returned from France very low over the castle often returning damaged and sometimes with their rockets hanging down from the wings.  On our patrols we reported to the Coastguards and coastal gun sites.”   (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

By October 1943 the threat of German invasion was low.  The Allies were advancing on east and west fronts.

After the loss of Kursk and Kharkov in July and August Hitler had at last authorised a retreat to the River Dnepr in central Ukraine, defending a line from Smolensk to Kiev and the Black Sea.  Smolensk had been taken by the Soviet Army at the end of September and on 24^th October they broke through the southern end of the line near the Sea of Azov, threatening to isolate the German Army left on the Crimean Peninsula. 

Pressed by the Allies, Franco ordered the Spanish volunteers of the Blue Division, fighting with Germany on the eastern front, to return to Spain.

Meanwhile the Allied forces in Italy broke through the German’s Volturno line of defence at Termoli at the beginning of the month and by the end of October had also broken the Barbara line to the north.  However, these had only been holding positions while the German’s built major defences along their so called ‘Winter line’ across the mountains protecting the route to Rome and to the Adriatic coast at Ortona.

Badoglio’s Italian government declared war on Germany on 13^th October.  Three days later the Nazis began to round up the Jews in Rome – 1,800 were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and murdered.  Jews had generally been safe in Italy or the Italian-occupied territory until the September Armistice and Italian people under German occupation continued to protect many.  However, almost 10,000 of the 46,000 Italian Jews had been deported by the end of the war.

On 1^st October Germany had also begun to deport Jews from Denmark but thanks to the Danish people and a German diplomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, most were already safe in Sweden – 500 Danish Jews were deported during the Holocaust and 120 of these were killed. 

At a conference of high ranking Reich officials on 6^th October Heinrich Himmler spoke frankly for the first the time of the Nazis aspiration for the ‘Final Solution’,  for the Jewish people to ‘disappear from the earth’ and admitted women and children were being killed as well as the men.  Four days later there was an uprising at Sobibor death camp in eastern Poland - of the 300 prisoners who escaped only 47 survived.  250,000 Jews are believed to have been killed at Sobibor from 1942 to 43.

Another barbarous act of the war was coming to its culmination on the other side of the world – on 17^th October the Bangkok (Thailand) to Rangoon (Burma) railway was completed, built by Asian forced labour and Allied Prisoners of War.  The cruelty of the Japanese and Korean overseers was so horrific that more than 70,000 of the enslaved workers died during the construction.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission, which was to prosecute many of the perpetrators of these atrocities, was established on 20^th October 1943.

Britain continued with the night bombing of German cities – Munich on 2^nd October and Kassel on 22^nd, where more than 10,000 people died in the explosions and fires.  Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris’s determination to destroy German cities was seen by many in Britain as just revenge for the Blitz although others have viewed it as a potential war crime. Harris seemed to believe he could bring the war to an end with bombing, avoiding the need for an Allied invasion of France.  Aerial bombardment by Axis or Allied powers, was never prosecuted as a war crime, apparently because it lay outside the scope of international conventions.

75 years ago - Defending Plymouth

At the beginning of June 1943 Dick was at the Royal Armoured Corps Officer Cadet Training Unit (Sandhurst) near Camberley in Surrey.  He went to battle camp in Snowdonia from Sunday 13^th June to Saturday 19^th (or 26^th?) June

Chotie had moved with her Anti-Aircraft battery - 462 Hy (M) – to the Plymouth area at Millbrook on the Cornish side of the Tamar.  Co-incidentally (or predicted by British Intelligence eg through code intercepts?) since on Monday 14^th June Plymouth suffered a heavy attack by the Luftwaffe with more than 70 high explosive bombs dropped on the city in just half an hour, hundreds of incendiary bombs falling on Saltash (just north of Millbrook) and phosphorous bombs falling on Mount Edgecombe Park (just south of Millbrook).  Chotie was already having ‘a lively war’. 

Luftwaffe aerial photo and map of the approaches to Plymouth and defences including Millbrook, January 1942

Dick wrote to her on a Tuesday earlier in the month (presumably 1st or 8th June ):

5731671 Officer Cadet Williams RK

77 Troop ‘B’ Sqdn

100 (Sandhurst) Octu RAC

R.M.C. Camberley, Surrey

Tuesday

Thanks very much for your letter and photo*.  It’s quite good don’t you think?  I’ve got a God awful photo of my troop taken the first day we had here.  (Actually I haven’t yet got one – it’s on the way).  We had one taken at Blackdown and that was so horrible that everyone refused to buy one.  I paid for mine and am still hoping to get my money back…. 

            I’ll send you one of the Sandhurst ones when they arrive.

            I’m writing this during a Gas lecture under pretence of writing notes so I have to keep stopping and pretending to look interested.  I don’t think I’m kidding this bloke, though.

            Well, how do you like Plymouth**?  You appear to have struck it lucky in getting such frequent changes of location.  I always seemed to stick for months in really horrible places.  Brinner had ten months at Basingstoke and I can’t think of much worse than that.  Mind you move Eastwards next time.  Somewhere about Lilliput*** would be rather handy or even Chichester or somewhere like that.

            (It’s a murderous job trying to write on one knee watching the lecturer with one eye and trying to appear reasonably attentive.)

            I get quite a nice time here on Sundays as all O/D’s**** draw cycles to go to church in Camberley.  Needless to say no one goes to church.  For my part, I repair to a certain YOCH I wot of and there drink gallons of tea (no sugar ….), smoke a pipe or two, and read ‘Country Life’ ‘Tatler’ and ‘Field’ until about noon when I lazily mount the crate and trundle back to my present abode at approx... 2mph.  However, we make up for it during the week, especially in PT which consists of pretty bloody runs of about 3-4 miles over obstacle courses in battle order.  Quite fun when you get used to it.  I shall have to use pencil from here as I’ve run out of ink.

            Life here, however, is quite pleasant on the whole though I hope to get transferred to an Infantry OCTU before I finish here.  Recce’s all right but I prefer the old infantry.

            Diller as you know I expect went to Leicester for initial training.  I bet it’s shaking her.  I went to Leicester once from Branksome***** if you remember but wasn’t impressed.  Good huntin’ country.

            Read Rose Macaulay’s ‘And no man’s wit’******, also Noel Langley’s 'There’s a porpoise close behind us’ (re-read).

            Plenty of swimming here, nearly every day in fact – I’ve got quite brown (-ed off…)

            I’m supposed to be going home this weekend for a few hrs.  Only wish I could get to Plymouth but it’s really too much.  I could have made Bristol I think.  However you may move this way soon. 

            I was slung on a charge last week!  Late on parade – but spun the Squadron Commander a yarn and got admonishment – cushy.  I’ll never make it again though, at any rate not with the same bloke – a Grenadier Guards major.  All the officers here are either Grenadier, Irish or Welsh Gds.  No Scots or Coldstreams. 

            It’s now Tuesday evening and as I have a few minutes before dinner I’ll round this letter off.  We’re on parade again at 9 o’clock for a night march….

            It’s been alternate sun and rain here all today, which is a good thing, for this place gets pretty dusty, also the rain helps to fill the swimming-pool.

            The library here contains the Encyclopedia Britannica and Oxford so I’m quite happy to spend a few weeks there every now and then.

            Our troop officer goes by the name of Brixey – Battle-mad Brixey – who’s really very decent and very cushy.  The Guards Officers here nearly all wear long puttees, the old style, that is with service dress slacks.  Very comic appearance until you get used to it.

            I’m afraid this letter’s rambling on in my usual inimitable style (?) ….

            (I’ve put your photo on my chest, furniture not anatomical – looks very good).

            I’m very lucky in having Brian & Chunky as room-mates as we never seem to fight although we argue incessantly of course.  Chunky being a Londoner hates the country period houses, beer, smoking, in fact all the luxuries of life.  Brian being Irish and a pianist in the bargain is often moody and sometimes says hardly a word all day.  He’s over six feet, about fourteen stone and will make a brilliant soldier.  Plans to stay in the army after this show.

            Chunky’s married but being ultra-modern has no children.  Brian says he’s going to get married on his next leave.  I believe I told you he was a ham before joining-up, and was a Captain in the IRA for two years.  Nice people…..

            Warrant Officers here call us Sir and we call them Sir so everyone’s happy.  Occasionally the Sqdn Cmdr or someone dines with the troop which means about an hour and a half in the mess making conversation over really horrible coffee.  Happily I smoke and get rid of the coffee to Brian who eats like a horse.

            Well, Darling I’ll close here as I’ll have to post this before Dinner and the stunt tonight.

            Hope to see you soon, Chotie Darling

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

    PS. Sorry half is in pencil but no-one has any ink at the moment I want it.

*See group photo of ATS from Bristol .

**This letter was addressed to W/242328 Pte Chalkley B.E.

ATS OFC ‘B’ Tp, 462 Hy (M) AA Bty RA, c/o GPO. Millbrook, NR Plymouth       

***a little village by the Harbour in Poole

****Officers of the Day or Officer Developers?

*****Dick was stationed in Branksome from September 1941.  See To Branksome

****** Rose Macaulay’s ‘And no man’s wit’ is a novel based on the Spanish Civil War. Noel Langley’s ‘There’s a porpoise close behind us’ is set in the backstage world of London theatre.

 © Chotie Darling

 

On 11th June 1943 Allied planes prepared for their first invasion in Europe, Operation Husky with the bombing of Sicily but also bombed Greece, Sardinia and northern Italy to continue the deception of Operation Mincemeat.  On 20^th June the RAF adopted the tactic of ‘shuttle bombing’, with planes leaving England to bomb Germany, reloading in North Africa and bombing Italian territory on return.  The Allied airforces also implemented the Pointblank Directive of co-ordinated bombing – the Americans flying ‘precision’ bombing by day and the RAF ‘saturation’ bombing at night.  The German city of Cologne was ‘saturated’ on 29^th June leaving almost 5,000 dead.

‘Radar' was officially adopted as the term for ‘radiolocation’ but remained very secret until the end of the war. The Admiralty at last changed their communications code – Naval Cipher 3 had been decrypted by the Germans in March 1942 leading to tragedy for the Allies in the Atlantic.

De Gaulle trumped Giraud by forming a French government-in-waiting (le Comité Français de la Libération Nationale) to avoid occupation by the other Allies or a communist take-over in the event of an Allied victory.  However, his Conseil National de la Résistance leaders were captured, including Jean Moulin on 21^st June (he died from torture without revealing information) and the communists began to increase their influence in the resistance.

Leaders of the Polish government in exile, including General Sikorski, were killed in a plane crash on 4^th June – a convenience following the discovery of the Katyn massacre that led to many conspiracy theories.  Following the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto Heidrich Himmler decreed that all Polish and Soviet ghettos were to be liquidated.

On the other side of the world the Allies, led by General MacArthur, began Operation Cartwheel – an attack on the strong Japanese base of Rabaul on New Britain Island, New Guinea, through capture of the surrounding islands and bases – on 30th June 1943.

75 years ago - Defending Bristol

On 6th April 1943 Chotie moved to Markham Camp at Easton-in-Gordano (east of Bristol and the River Avon and south of the important port at Avonmouth).  She joined ‘B’ troop of the 462 Heavy (M) Anti-aircraft Battery as a radar operator or 'spotter'. Easton-in-Gordano also had rocket firing or ‘Z’ sites and it may have been these that terrified her on her first night as ‘Ack-Ack

Rosemary Stewart was ‘B’ troop’s Lance Corporal and she remembers Barbara Chalkley as the only girl who insisted on using eye lash curlers (with boot black if she couldn’t get mascara) before going on parade.

Chotie's ATS Anti-Aircraft unit that defended Bristol in 1943. Chotie has ringed her face at the right-hand end of the second row from the back.

 

Dick had written to Chotie on 28th March while home at Pagham (Sussex) for a few hours.  He’d ‘passed out’ of his first 3 weeks of pre-OCTU training at Aldershot: “ie the hard graft and get it much cushier for the next six – nearly all theory” and his sister Diller was also home prior to enlistment.

He wrote again on 11^th April:

Same address

Sunday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                Many thanks for your letter and the news of your change of address.  Hope you prefer it to Oswestry, - at least you’re a little nearer home ….

            I shall be here for the next seven months or so – at least in this neighbourhood I suppose.

            ‘Fraid I don’t know Bristol – all the blokes in my room at Dover came from this most antique of ports, and, needless to say, consider it the model town of the whole country.  The Clifton Suspension bridge is considered one of the chef d’oeuvres* in the structural engineering world.  I also know a BA who lives at Clifton, hails from the varsity.  That about finishes my knowledge of the town.  Glad to hear you’ve made a friend there.  Always seems to help matters.

            I’ve dropped for Guard Commander for Tuesday next so I’m spending the weekend blancoing etc.

            I start on wireless tomorrow – for a fortnight then a fortnight gunnery – then leave and Sandhurst, maybe…

            I believe I told you there’s an RA** crowd here (ATS).  Always seem to be doing predictor stuff.

            (Have stopped writing to have chat with bloke who’s hobby was mountaineering – very interesting.  Another bloke here – the medico - says his greatest ambition in life is to become a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron!  Nothing like aiming high, is there?  He’ll probably make it.)

            We’ll have to arrange something about my next leave.  You may be able to get a 72hr or something.  I’ll let you know all details when they arrive.

            Had two days out driving last week.  Went to Brighton on Thursday and Oxford on Friday.  Saw Gloucester*** arriving through Oxford in his Rolls.  (One of his Rolls).  Also went through Bicester, Aylesbury, Windsor Great Park, etc.  Made quite a change as I don’t really know this area.

            The country round here is pretty marvellous but the Army of course have got their hands on most of it.  There are literally hundreds of period houses, mostly Tudor cottages which have been used as weekend hide-outs, I should imagine.  It makes me wince every time I see the military in them.

            I’m reading (in brief snatches) Gabriel Chevallier’s ‘Clochemerle’, which is a rather licentious tale of life in a French village.  Very amusing.

            I’m boring you again I suppose so will close here.  Will let you know of any developments as regards leave, etc

                                                All my love

                                                            Darling

                                                            Dicker

P.S.  Excuse envelope – it’s all I have.

* ‘chef d’oeuvre’ – French for masterpiece

** RA – Royal Artillery

***Presumably Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester and third son of King George V. He was appointed potential regent by his brother George VI should he die while his daughter, the future Elizabeth II was a minor.

© Chotie Darling

 

Meanwhile our friend Eric Postles was in the Chilterns and had been joined by Anthony Rampling in the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment – Dick’s future unit.

 

History was with the Poles in April 1943.  On 12^th April German radio announced the discovery of the remains of nearly 15,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia near Katyn in Russia.  The massacre had taken place in April 1940 but was denied by the Soviet Union until 1990.  It caused a diplomatic crisis among the Allies.

On 19^th April German troops stormed the Warsaw Ghetto and met with fierce resistance.  The Polish Jews managed to hold out for another month as the Ghetto was destroyed by fire and flood – those that survived were sent to the Treblinka death camp.

In North Africa the Allies were approaching victory as their forces from the east and west met in Tunisia on 7^th April. Allied planes from African air-bases shot down a record number of Luftwaffe planes on 18^th April but over Germany the RAF and US Eighth Air Force were suffering huge losses.

One of the most famous successful attacks on an aircraft was the US destruction of the plane carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the Commander of Japan’s Imperial Fleet, shortly after he’d ordered the greatest Japanese air strike since Pearl Harbour against Allied bases in the Pacific on 17^th April.

Hitler was busy giving pep talks to his European allies to keep them in the war, particularly Italy.  Britain and America had agreed at the Casablanca Conference that their next step after Africa would be the invasion of Sicily but the US were not yet convinced they should advance into Europe via the Italian Peninsula before attempting to cross the Channel.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

75 years ago - Chotie trains for Ack-Ack

On 3rd February 1943 Chotie began training to be a ‘spotter’ on the Anti-Aircraft gun sites at Park Hall Camp, Oswestry in Shropshire.  Before her posting she had 48 hours leave and was able to see her family in Poole.

Dick was stuck in Dover, which was still suffering air raids as the anti-aircraft guns attacked planes coming in over the Channel.  He now sported his Good Conduct tape for “two years undetected crime”.  He wrote to Chotie again on 24th January : “I suppose you’ve discovered that writing letters is just about the last thing you feel like in the services”. 

(I’m glad he did write letters – this blog wouldn’t exist without them!)

before taking part in the Kent Exercise Hammer II, returning on the 29th.  At the beginning he’d filled out a Recommendation form for Candidates for officer Training Units and this was endorsed by Lieutenant Colonel Crawford on 30th January.  By then Dick was taking this seriously with evening classes in French and German and participation in the Post-War Reconstruction Committee.

At the beginning of February 43^rd Recce was Section Training with a cross-country run and a day on ‘Battle procedure – Withdrawal’.  Writing on 4th February Dick knew Chotie might be training on the artillery sites in North Wales, where his family originally came from.

Chotie did not warm to Park Hall Camp where “life was grim”.  “We did full military training with a Sergeant major on the parade ground.  God, it was just like prison – food so awful and the tea implanted with bromide to stop us getting passionate.”

Dick’s letter of 7th February had been ‘opened by an examiner', maybe at Dover because of Dick’s officer prospects or perhaps at Oswestry to check the correspondence of new recruits.  I doubt there was anything that would get either of them into trouble (Dick was attending evening classes, reading French, listening to classical music and trying to play the Warsaw concerto – although he did refer to ‘spit and polish’ as “Heluva waste of time altogether”

43^rd Recce commenced Troop or Squadron training on 8^th February.  From 10^th to 14^th February Dick was undergoing officer section tests with the War Office Selection Board at Brockham Park in Betchworth, Surrey and on 14^th February his recommendation was approved.  Not knowing this there is no mention of the Board in his letter of 16th February - just family gossip and more about his friend Alex Johnston (who was to be one of 214 men killed when the ship transporting 43^rd Recce to Normandy hit a mine off Sword beach in June 1944).  However, when Dick wrote again on 25^th February he did have news:

As usual

Thursday

My Darling,

                        Many thanks for your letter received yesterday.  Glad to hear you’re still alive & kicking, even though rather over-worked….

Well, Precious, I have got an item of news this time, as, since last writing to you, I’ve been on and passed a War Office Selection Board for Commission.  It will mean a long and arduous task ahead but with proverbial luck and good management I see no reason why I shouldn’t be successful in this respect.

            I am now waiting to go on a pre-OCTU course, which may last any time before eventually getting to an OCTU.  After that it’s about six months of merry hell before getting the old commiss!

What a game it is,,,I had three marvellous days on the Board, as all the time you’re there you’re treated as an Officer – even waited on at table by ATS….

            Marvellous old Georgian House and Estate* has been loaned to the W.O. for this purpose and the owner had the decency to leave all his furniture there.  The pictures alone were insured for £120,000!

            You spend three & ½ days there doing just about anything the human body can do – and more, - intelligence tests, exams, interviews with Brigadiers, Colonels and psychiatrists etc.

            First question the last mentioned asked me, was “How many women have you slept with?”….

            Shook me – rotten.

Most of the paintings I knew – several of Manet, Monet, Cézanne etc. so I had an interesting chat with the Brigadier and visiting woman M.P.  Apparently the owner used to buy still life & his wife, the nudes.  Some of the nudes shook us …..All excused like strip-tease, under “ART”.

            I’ll let you know any further developments should they arise.

I wrote to and had a long reply from Benetti** the fellow at Hove.  Sent me a letter full of arias, and invitations to stay with him.  The bloke’s a genius on arias.  Hope to look him up on my next leave, which brings me to a sore point. 

I’ve had the wretched thing cancelled indefinitely!  Heaven knows when I’ll get it.  However one can’t talk of commissions and leave in the same breath I suppose.

Saw ‘In which we serve’*** this week.  Wasn’t very impressed I’m afraid, though Captain’s wife’s speech was rather brilliant.

            Must close here Darling

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

*Brockham Park, Betchworth, Surrey.

**See letter of 3rd September 1942

***Patriotic British war film – ‘the story of a ship’ – directed by Nöel Coward and David Lean and starring Nöel Coward. Celia Johnson played the Captain’s wife.

© Chotie Darling

 

The major event of February 1943 was the end of the battle of Stalingrad on 2^nd February.  By 13^th February the Germans’ withdrawal extended to Kharkov, the former capital of the Ukraine far to the east (which had been taken by Operation Barbarossa in October 1941).  Rostov-on-Don, the ‘Gateway to the Caucasus’ near the Sea of Azov, was re-captured by the Russians on 14^th February.

As news of the defeats in Russia leaked out Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister attempted to rouse the morale of the German people with calls for ‘Total War – Short War’ but during his speech he mentioned the eradication of the Jews.  By the end of the month the German wives of Jewish men had begun to gather in Berlin to protest against the deportation of their husbands to concentration camps.

In France the introduction of the ‘Service du Travail Obligatoire’, forcing French men to labour in Germany, was bolstering recruitment to the resistance forces.

Rommel inflicted heavy losses on the Allies in Tunisia during the Battle of the Kasserine Pass, the first major clash between German and American forces.

By the end of February the US was in control of the Pacific Solomon Islands having taken the central Russell Islands.  British Special Forces in Burma, the Chindits, were now fighting behind enemy lines but the Australian commandos who had continued resistance to the Japanese were finally forced to withdraw on 10^th February.

Meanwhile Eric Postles and the 61st Reconnaissance Regiment were back in England to take part in Exercise Spartan.

   

75 years ago - Driver Mechanic, Mortar Troop

On 21st August 1942 Dick (a Francophile and fluent French speaker) wrote to Chotie horrified at the list of French celebrities published as traitors for collaboration with the Germans.  Some of the boats from the disastrous raid on Dieppe had left from the Sussex coast and the county had received attention from the Luftwaffe – Dick’s mother was shopping in Bognor Regis shortly before the Odeon was bombed and Dick, who “saw most of the action in the Channel” was “machine-gunned in the streets”.  On 29th August he got very drunk with some French-Canadians, who may have been involved in the commando raid, carried out by mainly Canadian forces.  He was still enjoying other delights of Brighton with frequent visits to the cinema, as well as the ballet.  He seems very keen to become engaged to Chotie in his letter of 30^th August, but as far as I know there was no engagement.

‘Polyfoto’ of Chotie just before her nineteenth birthday.

On 2nd September Dick passed his trade test as a Driver Mechanic with good results. He wrote to Chotie the next day to let her know he would soon be back in Dover and wish her a very happy nineteenth birthday. He’d also visited the opera and made a new friend, the Italian Benetti.

On Tuesday 8^th September, back with 43^rd Recce he wrote again:

5731671 Tpr Williams R

A/TK Troop, HQ Squadron

43rd Recce Regt,  Recce Corps,

Armed Forces

Tuesday

My Darling Chotie,

I'm in a lecture at the moment, so I'm writing this in my notebook under pretext of taking some notes…  I got your letter this morning - for which many thanks.   Hope you can read this scrawl but I never could write on my knee.  Glad to hear you celebrated your birthday in style - wish I could have been with you.

            (The bloke here is a yawning on about internal combustion engines - very dull after six weeks of it.)

By the way - in your last letter but one, you told me about your ‘change of employment ', but it was, if you remember, in the form of a postscript, which I missed of course, at the first reading.  When reading it again at a later date (a very sound habit of mine), I came across it, and needless to say, would have congratulated you in my last epistle.  Anyhow - nice work.

            (I very much doubt whether you can make head or tail of this scrawl.  I've got a job to understand it myself - but persevere, Darling.) 

I have to keep answering questions all the time to this wretched man - a Sergeant from the Ordnance Corps.  Up to now, I've managed to keep just one jump ahead of him.  He's not really very bright - typical of the R.A.O.C.*, but writing a letter as well has its snags.

I've been enquiring about my leave, and may get it on the 16th i.e. next Wednesday (a week today), but it seems rather doubtful.  What can you manage if I do?  I'm afraid I can't say definitely, because the Squadron Office don't know themselves.

I've been put on fire guard for a week (!) which means I work evenings as well.  I haven't been out since I've been here.  Not that there's anything of interest.  I went out on an exercise yesterday morning, and passed through some marvellous villages, would have delighted Frances B. Young**.

Glad to hear you met Jones.  Where is he stationed these days, or didn't he tell you?  Did I tell you that Brinner was on a course in North Devon?   

Are the old Dorsets*** still with you?  It would mean that they've been there a year now.

I've got a cross country to run this evening after tea, a Devil, isn't it, seeing that I haven't done PT of any sort for seven or eight weeks.

My two Scotch friends have gone on leave to bra’ wee Ayr, and left me disconsolate, although they are both in ‘A’ Squadron, and I don't see much of them.  (The lecture has at last ended, 1½ hrs, so I'll finish this tonight - maybe...)

Well, Lulu, after the lecture I heard I'd been transferred from the Anti Tank Troop to the Mortar Troop****, and having seen the Troop Commander about my leave, feel more confident about the 16th - but remember it’s still not definite.

This mortar job appears cushy - driving - but not quite so cushy in action.

Well, Darling, I must close here with all my love,

                always yours, Precious

                                your loving

                                            Dicker

P.S.  I mentioned our “engagement” to the old folks at home in my last letter.  I haven't yet had a reply ... keep your chin up, Lulubelle..

*Royal Army Ordnance Corps – responsible for supplying weapons, ammunition and equipment to the Army.

**A Frances B. Young wrote a biography of Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (an Elizabethan writer) but the origins of this reference are obscure.

***Dick’s original regiment (see Chotie Darling Part 1 ‘The Blue Cockade’) last heard of at Branksome in Poole.

****A Reconnaissance Regiment consisted of one HQ Squadron and three Reconnaissance Squadrons. Mortar Troop was one of the four Troops in HQ Squadron (with Signals, Armoured Tank and Admin) and used 6 x 3” mortars. Mortars are portable. Fixed to the ground they are used to fire small bombs in a slow high arc into the enemy at close range.

 

In September 43^rd Recce received orders to mobilise complete with re-inforcements, which presumably would include Dick. There were Brigade exercises ‘Break in’, which Dick may have been involved in and ‘Break out’, which he would have missed while on leave.

Later in September the Sunday Pictorial (now the Sunday Mirror) published an article on the Recce entitled “The First Thrilling Story of Britain’s ‘Reccies’ – our Secret Army is Ready”:

“The men of the Reconnaissance Corps have taken on one of the toughest jobs in the war – the spearhead of our attack on Germany. They are as elusive as guerrillas, fast as scouts, tough as commandos…..every one picked for brain as well as brawn…everything is improvised, time reducing, hazardous…an army which will roam behind enemy lines…their job, to spy on the enemy a close quarters…every scrap of information they get will be fought for” etc.

(From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’  by Roy Howard, courtesy of the Sunday Pictorial, now the Sunday Mirror.)

 

Back in Dorset Chotie had “a change in employment” – since she was in Beales’ knitwear department in June 1942 perhaps this was when she went to Plummers, the employment she recalled after the Land Army episode? Certainly her last civilian job before January 1943 was as a window dresser at Plummers (Chotie called herself a “Display Artist”).

Luftwaffe attacks continued with 5 people killed by a bomb not far from Chotie’s home in Parkstone on 11^th September.  In the Channel planes from Warmwell sank two armed trawlers on 9^th September and 21 people died when a famous Poole flying-boat, the Clare, caught fire over the English Channel the 14^th. A new aerodrome that was to play a critical role on D Day and in Operation Market Garden was now under construction at Tarrant Rushton.

Poole’s Small Scale Raiding Force successfully obtained captured German wireless operators and Naval codebooks from les Casquets lighthouse in the Channel islands on 2^nd/3^rd March but their founder and leader, Major Gus March-Phillips was killed in another raid on 12^th/13^th September on a beach at St Honorine in Normandy, later better known as ‘Omaha’ (from the D Day landings).

 

On 3^rd September 1942 a National day of Prayer was held in Britain for the third Anniversary of the Declaration of War.

Germany began a major offensive in Stalingrad on 13^th September with orders from Hitler that the entire male population of the city should be eliminated. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)   Fierce Russian resistance and cunning was eventually to save the city but Stalingrad became a legend for the huge numbers killed on each side – possibly 750,000 troops and approximately 40,000 civilians.

On the other side of the world thousands of Japanese soldiers and US Marines were killed on one day, 12^th September, in the ‘Battle of Bloody Ridge’ over the airfield on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

75 years ago - Leave at Pagham

At the beginning of June 1942 the German Army advanced on the Crimean Peninsula (in the north of the Black Sea) and battled fiercely to take the well defended port of Sebastapol.  In the Atlantic the Allies were haemorrhaging ships and supplies at the mercy of the U-boat wolf-packs.  British code breakers at Bletchley Park were struggling to decipher the Enigma upgrade, which they called “Shark” and the Germans had cracked the Admiralty code (Naval Cipher 3).  In contrast US code breakers deciphered signals from the Japanese Navy to reveal a huge task force had set sail to attack the Pacific US base on the Midway Islands.  By 7^th June the US Navy had won a decisive victory, critical to the war in the Pacific.

In Africa the Germans were again on the attack.  On 21^st June Rommel’s troops captured the critical Libyan port of Tobruk (which had been gallantly defended by Australian troops under siege for most of the previous year).  The Allies retreated as Axis forces swept into Egypt taking thousands of prisoners at Mersa Matruh.  Churchill, in America for talks with Roosevelt, was devastated by the fall of Tobruk.  However, he obtained an agreement that US troops would be involved in an invasion of French North Africa (Morocco and Algiers) called Operation Gymnast (and later Operation Torch).

 

In Dorset, where Chotie lived (and was again working at Beales department store in Bournemouth) bombing attacks continue.  This time the Royal Navy's explosives factory near Poole was saved by decoys on the heathland at Arne on the night of 3^rd/4^th June, although Poole was hit by a number of incendiaries causing serious fires.  Mr Whittaker, a volunteer firefighter (and the future father-in-law of Chotie’s bother Jack), recalled throwing a number of smaller devices off Poole Quay into the water.  There were other lucky escapes – most of the RAF petrol supplies for Dorset and Hampshire were held in the Hamworthy RAF depot and although they were blown open, the vast million gallon slick didn’t catch fire.  A large bomb hit the Sona, a Naval headquarters ship moored at Poole Quay but didn’t explode until after adjacent buildings were evacuated.  On 6^th June it was Bournemouth’s turn to receive the attentions of the Luftwaffe – almost 500 properties were damaged in an attack on the railway line.

Dorset, with its central Channel position and proximity to Cherbourg, continued playing a critical role in Britain’s war effort, despite the loss of Telecommunications Research Establishment.  RAF Hurn (now Bournemouth Airport) was used as a base to fly SOE (Special Operations executive – spies!) to France, as well as supplies for the French Resistance, while a small aerodrome established north of Sherborne was to become the Fleet Air Arm station at Yeovilton (RN Fleet Air Arm Museum website).

 

In the British Reconnaissance Corps nomenclature changed on 6^th June adopting the cavalry terms of troops, troopers, squadrons and regiments (the army’s reconnaissance role had traditionally been discharged by the light cavalry).  Already in 61^st Recce (the unit Dick fought with for most of the Western Europe campaign), Eric Postles was training in Northern Ireland for the rest of 1942.

 

Dick, still training with the 1^st Air Landing Squadron, was based at Bulford on Salisbury Plain.  He was granted 10 days leave from 10^th June and went home to his family at  Pagham, Sussex.  Ironically, 1^st Air Landing went to train on the Dorset Coast at Kimmeridge while he was away.  Back in Wiltshire Dick was sick with bronchitis.  By now he must also have been diagnosed with temporary hyperglycaemia (“sugar in the blood”) and was awaiting transfer from the Airborne. Although he was not diabetic the risk of possible problems meant he was one of the many weeded out at this early stage of training (otherwise he could have been involved in the brave fiasco of the bridge at Arnhem , which gave eternal fame to the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron.  He wrote again to Chotie on 28^th and 29^th June:

Letter written Sunday 28^th and Monday 29^th June 1942

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

Recce Corps, Home Forces 

Sunday

My Darling,

                                                                        Thanks for letter with all the news.

             I've started writing this letter without much hope of finishing it this evening. 
However, the fact that I've started it is certainly a move in the right direction.  It is such a devil of a job to find anything to write about in this God-forsaken dump.

            I went out this evening but came back after half an hour or so - there being nothing whatsoever to do.  The Garrison Theatre, although a very good show only has the one programme for the week, and once you've seen it, it's no use going again the same week.  There's a play on next week, - “While Parents Sleep”, which I've seen, - but I shall go again, as of course it will be a different cast, etc.

            I've been sick for the last week with a sore throat which developed into bronchitis or so the M.O. said.  Personally I didn't agree, but also didn't argue as it gave me a cushy time for a few brief days - no P.T. etc, of course.

            I managed to go into the nearest town (?)* on my day off, yesterday.  It boasts some very excellent pubs – the “George” Hotel and the “Bell” being very
famous in Georgian days.  The beer however tasted very flat - perhaps because you were not there with me.  I had no one to talk to about Herne Bay and the various professions which help to make the social system what it is.  Just imagine what you'll have to put up with when we are married... but perhaps you'll see H.B. for yourself and perhaps I'll have a profession...

            I haven't yet heard from home and am getting a little worried on that score.  I hope Mother’s all right - but maybe I'll get a letter tomorrow.  There seem to be so many worries that separation brings so cruelly in its wake.

            Does this letter seem very morbid, Darling?  I don't want you to think that
I'm too browned-off**.  After 2 years in this Army I think I can stand anything. 

             I'm going on a three days scheme on Wednesday, so I won't be able to write of course - so don't be over anxious if you don't get a letter for some days.

            It's nearly lights out, Chotie Darling so I'll say Goodnight my Precious, and write some more tomorrow.

            Well, Lulu, it's now Monday Lunch-time so I'm writing a bit more. 

            It's terrifically hot today - and we have to wear respirators on Monday morning. Was I exhausted!  I'm now trying to get an hour's relaxation before going on Parade this afternoon.

            I may go to the Old Garrison to-night and see this wretched play - that's if I can get out in time. That's one of the troubles here; even if there was anything to go out for, we rarely get out before Seven pm or so - which is rather late.

             Well, Darling, by the time you get this letter, I’ll be on this stunt so I hope to write again next Saturday or perhaps Sunday - and I'll say bye, bye for the present, and remember, Darling, I still love you, very very much.

                                                All my love, Chotie Darling

                                                                                 Dicker

*Amesbury

**Dick must have been disappointed to be transferred out of Air Landing after only a couple of months.  (After training in Tunisia from April 1943 1^st Air Landing Squadron went on to be involved in the invasion of Italy near Bari in September and Operation Market Garden in September 1944, when the elite 1st Airborne were sent in to defend "a bridge too far" at Arnhem with disastrous results.  (Dick was among the ground forces racing towards Arnhem.)

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Introducing Eric Postles

The stories of those who survived fighting with 61^st Reconnaissance have brought to life Dick’s wartime experience.

Eric Postles was born on 8^th September 1922 and lived in the village of Burscough in Lancashire.  His parents, Mr and Mrs H. Postles lived at 7 Moss Nook, Burscough bridge, Nr. Ormskirk, Lancashire. His war years began 75 years ago:

 “When men and women reached 19 years of age they were conscripted and, unless you were in a reserved occupation, you were called up for the forces or munitions work etc.

I had a medical for the forces at Wigan an on 15^th January 1942 I, along with Harry Parr* from the village and Dennis Crumbleholme from Ormskirk, reported to the Castle at Carlisle as part of a big intake of men from north-west England for the Reconnaissance Corps, a newly formed corps to provide regiments to recce for Infantry Divisions.  I became 10602580 Trooper J.E.Postles.  The role of the Reconnaissance Corps was to gather vital tactical information in battle.  Our badge was a spear with flashes of lightning on either side and the words 'Reconnaissance' on a scroll beneath.  The Corps lanyards were green and yellow and on top of our sleeves we wore the word ‘Reconnaissance’ in yellow on a green background, the Divisional sign and beneath that a bar of green and yellow.  Similarly our vehicles were recognised by the number ‘41’ on a green and yellow square and the divisional sign on the front and rear.  We wore forage caps, later changed to khaki berets and then black berets when we became part of the Royal Armoured Corps.  We also changed our steel helmets to ones similar to those worn by the airborne troops, which gave more protection. 

Our pay was 1 shilling and 9 pence a day but shortly after joining it rose to 2 shillings and 6d and 6d was paid in towards a gratuity given at demobilisation.  After an IQ test I was allocated to 61st Division Recce Regiment.  The Divisional sign was a blue square with inset red diamond.  Harry and Denis went to 59^th Division Recce Regiment in Ireland.

My regiment, also in Ireland, was moving to a new location so instead of joining them at the outset we went by train on 18^th January to No 10 I.T.C. (Kings Own Scottish Borderers) to do our basic training at Berwick-on-Tweed.  The camp was on the cliffs next to the sea.  It was bitterly cold and snowed heavily.  There was a lot of visible enemy air activity off the coast although the camp was never attacked. 

(Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

*Harry Parr joined the 59 Division Recce regiment.  In July 1943 he “was killed on an exercise in Kent when his heavy armoured car turned over and he was crushed by the gun.”

75 years ago - Invalided out of the Land Army

“I left Beales to become a Land Army girl, age seventeen, after a tiff at home.  A lovely farm at Church Knowle in the Purbecks.  Miss Grace, the farm owner, let me live in her beautiful cottage under Creech, the highest point in the Purbecks.  Walking across fields in early morning, the mist fell in between the hills like small lakes, quite awesome.  Also awesome was my cycle ride from Corfe Castle station to Church Knowle, on a moonlit and part cloudy evening.  How ghostly Corfe Castle looked.

The Land Army was not for me.  After too much rich food I suffered a bilious attack and hours of mangold pulling, milking cows and trekking across fields took its toll.  Dad took great pleasure in saying I had been invalided out of the Land Army much to my annoyance.  Beryl* joined at a later date and made quite a success of it.” (From ‘Chotie’s Story’) 

*Beryl was Mum’s younger sister, ‘a success’ in the Land Army. 

Winnie Lawes and Beryl Chalkley, Chotie's sister, in the Land Army.

 

Reputedly my mother lasted three weeks in the Land Army before she was ‘invalided out’, always a source of much amusement in our family.  Dick’s posting to a location so near to her home may have had some influence on her desire to leave the rural idyll of Purbeck.

 

There are no letters from Dick between 7th October 1941 and 20th April 1942, (the Missing Winter) when records show he was transferred from the Dorsets to 1st Air Landing in the Reconnaissance Corps.   

The British 1st Air Landing Brigade was formed on 10th October 1941.  On 27^th October Lord Louis Mountbatten became Head of Combined Operations and appointed Frederick Browning as commander of the Paratroops and Airborne Troops, which on 31^st October became the first Airborne Division.

On 15th October the Nazis initiated Operation Reinhard, the plan to systematically murder all Jews in land under German control.  In France there were large-scale ‘punishment killings’ of civilians in retaliation for the assassination of German military commanders by the Resistance.

Churchill was still hoping that the USA would enter the war in support of the Allies – on 31^st October an American warship was destroyed by a German U-boat while escorting a British convoy.

75 years ago – Somewhere in England

The siege of Leningrad, which was to last until January 1944 began on 8^th September 1941.  The Germans also captured Kiev in Russia on 19^th September, carrying out the notorious massacre of Babi Yar there.  More than 33,000 Jews were killed – the largest single mass killing of the Holocaust.  At the beginning of October Hitler began his attack on Moscow.

Meanwhile Dorset and the Hampshire border were used for the filming of 'The First of the Few', the story of the Spitfire, starring Leslie Howard and David Niven and featuring pilots from RAF Command.  Niven had left Hollywood to rejoin the  Army at the start of the war and, although he did some work for the Army Film Unit, he also commanded ‘A’ Squadron of the secret GHQ Liaison known as ’Phantom’, which specialised in front-line communications.  ‘A’ Squadron were based on the south coast behind Poole Harbour in Dorset working with ‘V’ Corps (part of Southern Command) for the defence of Hampshire and Dorset. 

Also in September Dick’s unit, the 70th Battalion of the Dorset Regiment moved to Bournemouth while its companies guarded RAF Ibsley (the main location for the film above), RAF Hurn, RAF Warmwell and the cliffs at Canford (where Chotie was later to live). 

 

Chotie, now aged eighteen, had joined the Women's Land Army.  Dick, who’s enjoying the Autumn countryside in Hampshire, writes to congratulate her but then, in his next letter, reveals that his HQ Company is moving to the Branksome Chine area in Poole on the weekend of 20^th/21^st September.  Although this must have been frustrating, with Chotie now moving out from Poole to a farm somewhere in Dorset, Dick also seems intent to “go elsewhere”.  He writes to Chotie at Church Knowle (where she’s working on the farm near Corfe Castle in Purbeck and living in Miss Grace’s little cottage at Cocknowle) saying he “should be out off this punk crowd in a month or two”.  His family also has plans to move from Poole back to Herne Bay in Kent, where they lived when Dick was a child.

On 7^th October Dick had a medical, prior to his transfer, passed in A1 condition and wrote Chotie his last letter for some time:

Intelligence Section

HQ Company

70th Dorsets

Branksome

Hants.

Tuesday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            Just a few lines to let you know that all is well, and that I still love you, EVERYTHING.

            I'm now feeling much better and though still on the sick list, hope to be OK again in a few days time.

            I had a letter from Brinner (NO not Monica*, Darling...) who appears to be enjoying himself.

            I do little or nothing all day with Eric, which gets pretty boring after a while.  He had a parcel today and is, consequently, feeling quite cheerful, and sends his love (brotherly).

            I was medically examined this morning re transferring, and was categorised A1. - not that it makes any difference.  I'm afraid there's no news, of course, as nothing seems to happen.

            Marjory, as I hear from Diller, who still corresponds, has now found her true love (etc), and may now cease to cause me sleepless nights.  It's about time she had a change of front and policy.  That's the only snag of going back to Herne Bay**.  But at any rate we hope she's married by then and in safe hands.

            This pen’s horrible to write with.  Needless to say, it’s Eric's!  He has everything on the thin side.

            I've managed to find Cocknowle on a large-scale map - so I now know whereabouts it lies.

            As regards next Sunday, I'll borrow a bike from Somewhere in England and be around sometime about 3 pm to 5-30.  At any rate, I'll write again before then.

            Well, Darling I must close here as it's time for tea, and I must rush to post this.

            I managed to get a Dorset Brooch, which will do, I hope, until I get into a Genuine Regiment when I'll send you another.

                                                                        Bye, bye Darling

                                                                                    All my love

                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                Xxxxxxxx

 

* Dick’s former girlfriend – see letters of 12^th November 1940 and 31^st March 1941

** Dick’s family were planning to move back to Herne Bay from Poole

 

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago – Not much of a Birthday

The Atlantic Charter, a joint statement of mutual goals for the post WW2 world, was signed by Britain and the USA on 14^th August but America had still not joined the war.  On 25^th August British and Russian troops invaded Iran, then known as Persia.

At the beginning of September Jews in Germany, like those in Poland, were forced to wear the yellow star.  Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration camp in southern Poland, began the murder of prisoners using gas. By the end of World War 2 over 1.1 million men, women and children had lost their lives there.

In Dorset R.A.F. Hurn welcomed the fighter aircraft that were to become the secret Telecommunications Flying Unit (later the Radar Research Flying unit) linked to the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers, near Swanage.  This was the top secret centre for scientists working on Britain’s radar warning system.

By 17^th August Dick’s section of the Dorset Regiment based at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport seem to have been getting restless.  Dick’s friend Bill Ede ‘deserted’ the Intelligence unit and there were a number of court martials.  Dick appears to have been given his 7 days leave at the end of August since there are no letters until September when he sent Chotie a card for her eighteenth birthday:

 

Letter posted on Saturday 6^th September 1941

Intelligence Section

HQ Company, 70th Dorsets

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport

Hants.

Darling Chotie,

                                    Just a few lines, Precious, to wish you very many Happy Returns of your Birthday.

            I'm afraid you won't get this missive until after the sixth* as I haven't had one single moment to spare since I've been back.  Also of course it's the hell of a job to get anything posted out here in the wilds.

            Anyway, Darling, as you put it once before, “Here's wishing you everything you wish yourself”, which is, I think, easily the best way of expressing myself.

            Unfortunately I haven't yet been paid this week, as they wouldn't pay me at Brockhurst, and pay parade was over when I arrived up here. 

I had to do a 24 hr Guard at Brockhurst as soon as I was back but I hope to be able to get a bracelet in Gosport or Pompey*** when I can get there.  Brinner’s** still got the residue of my cash, but said he would send it on.

            Poor Chotie ... I'm afraid it won't be much of a birthday for you, but doubtless better times are coming.  Don't forget to tell me all the latest when you write, Honey.

            I'm dying to know what’s happened re the Land Army, etc.

            If you see Brinner, tell him to let me know all his news, (also to send some cash!)

            Well, Darling I must close here, as I have to see the Intelligence Officer.                                                                          

                                                    All my love Darling

                                                                                    ever yours

                                                                                                Dicker

PS. Don't worry about anything, Precious, - we'll pull through all right.

 

* Chotie’s 18^th birthday

** Dick’s younger brother Brian

*** A name for Portsmouth

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - The Intelligence crew

By June 1941 the Allies were on the attack again – bombers from Dorset Warmwell aerodrome raided German held Cherbourg in France.  America (still not yet in the war) froze all German, Italian and Japanese assets in the US and evicted all the Axis consulates.  Hitler, however, was looking in another direction. On 22^nd June 1941 he launched Germany’s surprise attack on Russia, Operation Barbarossa.

Meanwhile Dick, now a Private once more, was in the Mechanical Transport Section of HQ Company at Fort Brockhurst, Gosport.  On 19th June he narrowly missed seeing Chotie during a brief visit to Bournemouth and Poole. He was restless and keen to volunteer for a new elite corps - the parachutists (the Special Air Service was founded on 1^st July 1941 and the Parachute Regiment on 1st August 1942).

Dick seems to have been granted his seven days leave at the end of June and, thanks to Operation Barbarossa, which had removed some fear of an imminent German invasion, may have been able to go bathing with Chotie again on the re-opened section of beach at Sandbanks. The West Dorset coast, though, was far from peaceful with air attacks on Chideock and West Bay and, on 9^th July, the Battle of Lyme Bay.  German schnellboots attacked an Allied convoy sinking a tanker, four freighters and an armed trawler that was acting as escort in the Bay.

Dick didn’t join the SAS or the Paras - at least there is not record of this.  By 7^th July he had moved to the Intelligence section:

Saturday 12^th July

FAREHAM SERVICES INSTITUTE

Intelligence Section

HQ Company

70th Dorsets

Gosport

Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    Having just been to the flicks and finding myself at the above address, I thought I’d write you to let you know what news there is and that I arrived back safely but very late.  The trains were all over the show at So-ton and I had to go all the way to Romsey, from Totton, and then back on the same train to So-ton.  When I got to Fareham the last bus had just gone, and consequently in the company of several others I had to walk (!) to Brockhurst - about six miles!

            And not one car passed me all the way.

            In the interests of National Economy I am using both sides of this note paper.   

This Intelligence game is proving to be a cinch, ---- all to do and plenty of time to do it in.  It is in fact, just my vocation.

            We've just been to see ‘ Honeymoon for Three’ - quite amusing.  I was going to see ‘Rebecca’ again but it was on in some vague suburb of Pompey*, and consequently I changed my mind.

            I went to the Coliseum again last night.  Annette was there again – strip-tease.  I regret to say I got hopelessly tight afterwards.  There were four of us, and I've no idea how we got back again and believe it or not, I was by far the most sober of us all.  After an hour's steady drinking, it developed into a competition, and we started on Brandy and Chablis.  Gertie (Kirkwood) was crawling about under the table before long, and Welsh, a bloke from Plymouth Grammar, looked decidedly ill. Billy Ede has lived most of his life in France & Germany and is consequently rather hardened. After that we got split up and Bill and I later found the others in Gosport trying to climb a pile of sandbags.  I managed to get to bed, but got up again about midnight and had a cold shower which sobered me up considerably. 

            I'll never forget that night.  We're all on Intelligence.  What a crew. I had the devil of a hangover this morning, but luckily it's Saturday so there's ---- all to do.        

            Well, Darling, there's no news as usual.  I hope you managed to get back all right.        

            I've written with some pens in my time, but I've never seen the likes of this one.  The ---- nib keeps getting crossed.        

                                I must say bye bye now Darling as I have to get a bus back to Brockhurst.                                                                                   

                                                                                    All my love,

                                                                                                Darling,

                                                                                                            Dicker

Je t’aime encore de tout mon coeur**.

*Portsmouth

**French - "I love you always with all of my heart"

© Chotie Darling

 

75 years ago – Christmas Deserters from Corsham

Air warfare continued over southern England and in Dorset German planes and spitfires came down on land and at sea. By December the Warmwell Dorset airbase had lost 26 pilots.  On 13^th December Poole’s heathlands were set ablaze by incendiary bombs on Hamworthy but when Montgomery came to view ‘Project Fougasse’ on 20^th December, 'Operation Sea Flame' was less successful at setting the sea alight at Studland.

Fights among the Young Soldiers in Wiltshire also continued, although discipline was apparently tightened up.  Dick, continuing to ‘try for a Commission’, was the youngest Corporal in the battalion. He was badly lovesick but there was to be no leave to see Chotie in December. The company (he was now in 'A' company of the 70^th Dorsets) left Chippenham to guard Corsham aerodrome – a miserable place. While changing the guard,after a raid on the aerodrome, Dick walked into a spitfire in the pitch black but at least he wasn’t shot by one of the guards – a recent "morbid" accident! By Christmas many of the Young Soldiers had made a bid for freedom:

 

Wednesday 25^th December 1940

Corsham, Wilts

Christmas Day

My Precious Darling,

            I had to write straightaway, to try to thank you for the lovely lighter you sent for the 25th. Darling, it lights! Nothing can stop it lighting - not even a young hurricane. I've used it on guard - and believe me the wind howls round here - and it lights first time every go!

            Darling, it's just what I've wanted for years. You know how many matches I use! Thank you ever so much Cho, Dear. Remind me to give you a big kiss when I get home. When.………..But I'm still hoping.

            I thought about you all over Christmas Darling. It made me so mad to think that I couldn't send you anything, not even a Christmas card. Poor Eric's in the same boat and Pete. We haven't seen a shop of any sort for nearly three weeks. I've been to Bath twice since we've been here but each time the only thing open were the pubs.

            The latest is that all passes to Bath have been stopped as the Chief-of-Police has banned us from the town! The same applied to Chippenham. The Boys beat up every town we get near!

            I've been on guard all day (Christmas) and come off tomorrow morning. It's now about 9.30 pm., and as usual I'm writing this by the lamp in the Guard Hut. I managed to wangle Eric on this guard so I've had his company all day, which is a relief. We had quite a good dinner, which included Beer & Cigarettes.

            Pete has been in bed for 2 days with a so-called gastric stomach! He's really no more ill than I am, but you know what he is! Needless to say however, he made a rapid recovery on Christmas Eve.

            Owing to present conditions I can't say just what's going to happen to me. Let me explain. Out of the whole battalion (A,B,C,D & E Companies.) which is approx 850 men, there have been over 250 deserters in the last fortnight! Which only goes to show what the conditions are like!

            Now, everyone over 20 can get a transfer to another Regiment - and believe me, there are plenty over 20 who have put their age down to 18.

            Lieutenant White our Officer in Charge is being replaced as from tonight by a Captain. This means I have to start all over again as regards a commission! What a life!

            The Orderly Officer has just come up with Beer & fags (!) so I have altered my opinion of the Army since writing the last sentence.

                        Well, my precious, I must close soon as the Ord has to be accompanied around.

                                                            Darling, I must see you soon as I love you so madly that I just can't go on without you.

                                                                            Goodnight, Cho Darling

                                                                                Your adoring

                                                                                                Dicker

© Chotie Darling, 2010

75 years ago - Choosing Friends

At the beginning of October Dick had his 7 days leave at home in Parkstone (Poole, Dorset) and met up with Chotie.  On the 3^rd October he’d been appointed a Full Corporal and he was already angling for a commission.

Parkstone was seeing plenty of action - enemy planes would have been frequent by day and by night, heading inland over the Dorset coast or occasionally bombing Dorset ports and towns. The Battle of Britain was also frequently fought in Dorset skies and many German and British planes crashed into Dorset’s land and sea in autumn 1940. (See David R. Privett’s account of a wartime childhood in Poole on the BBC People's War website .)

 

Back in Bemerton Dick was still with his Dorset friends, Eric Kessler and Pete (despite rumours of a move to Basingstoke and even joining up with the Hampshire Regiment!) but since they were privates and Dick was an NCO (non-commissioned officer) this friendship was not encouraged:

 

Tuesday 22nd October 1940

Bemerton

Tuesday evening

My Darling Cho,

                                                            Thanks for the letter which I got this morning.

            Well Darling to get down to business, I find that with reasonable luck I’ll be able to get home on Sunday.  The point is Honey, that if I can get a pass all day in Salisbury I may just as well come home, and it will save you a look of trouble & expense.  Also I don’t like the idea of your travelling back all that way in the dark.

            There is some truth in what Mummy warns you about, even if you don’t believe it… Mind you, I’m not saying you can’ take care of yourself, but after all you’re only a lickle baby although you’re the most adorable chubby baby that ever lived.  I tremble to think what could happen to you, Sweetheart, and I hate taking those kind of risks.

            I was doing Battalion Orderly Sergeant all day last Sunday which is some job, & I don’t mean maybe.  It means being on all day from réveillé until about 11pm, with one worry after another – but for all that, it’s good experience.

            Incidentally, I was choked off the other day, pretty severely.  I bet you wouldn’t guess what for? (No, Precious, it wasn’t women!)  It was for associating with private soldiers vis. Eric & Pete.  I’m no longer able to go out with them, and should I meet them in the N.A.A.F.I. or anywhere, they have to address me as Corporal and not the now familiar ‘Dicker’. What a life!

            The latest news as regards moving is back to Dinton which suits me admirably – that is, it’s b…..y awful but much preferable to Basingstoke.

            We had a dance here last Monday.  I’d had nine pints at the Conservative Club before I got there, so had a pretty good time on the whole.  The women were a little better than usual but have no fears, Darling, as there isn’t a woman living who could take me away from you, (and that includes Bergman*…)

            Well, Chubby, I must close now, loving you more than ever.

                                     Je suis à toi pour la Vie,**

                                                                Your adoring,

                                                                                Dicker

P.S. I terrible sorry about you’re cold. It’s just like me to forget all about it until the end.  I hope you’ll forgive me Darling and get better soon.

            all yours

                    Dicker

                    xxxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxx

                    All for you! (when I come home)

 

* Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish film star.

** “I am yours for life.”

© Chotie Darling, 2010

75 years ago – “Birmingham Urchins”

At the beginning of September 1940 Dick was back at Bemerton, a Lance Corporal and a PT Instructor but without friends.  Toni, who was in ‘D’ Company with Dick, had moved to Dinton when Dick went on the PT Instructor course at Tidworth and by the end of August George and ‘Hughes’, who were in ‘G’ Company, had also gone to Dinton.  On the night of 4th/5th September Dick was woken by ‘a veritable rain of bombs descending around’ on Salisbury Plain – the London Blitz started two nights later on 7^th September.   Later that month Dick was hearing of 'a lot of action around Parkstone' where Chotie lived.

Having made two new friends, Lance Corporals du Rose and Gammage, he also made an enemy – Company Sergeant Major Gurd – and they narrowly escaped trouble on a few occasions.  Dick was already fed up with PT and pinning his hopes on a commission.  In these September letters Dick begins to mention his close friend Eric Kessler.  There were also some interesting acquaintances from Brum…

Posted on Wednesday 18th September 1940

Bemerton

Wiltshire

My Darling,

                                                                                                       What’s happened to you!  Haven’t heard from you for ages.  I thought you must at least be pushing up the daisies by now.

     Well Darling, I’m still fed up (as usual) and trying hard to get a transfer.  Du Rose, Gammage and myself are still being chased by the RSM.  My God, what a life we get.  It’s just an existence.

            He managed to get du Rose on two charges in the same day last week, but Eric, who is almost a BA put up a lawyer’s defence and the cases were dismissed.  It was a narrow shave, though.

            I’d rather hoped that we would have been stripped, in which case I should have reverted and gone back to the ranks.  At the moment none of us care either way.  If du Rose would, I know I should.

            I’ve been reading rather a lot, having enjoyed immensely Adrian Bell’s ‘Corduroy’ and having fought, I think rather unsuccessfully, with James Cabell’s ‘Jurgen’.  I also read a Penguin (these are all penguins) entitled ‘Murder at the ‘Varsity’ ’* in which the murderer, an elderly scholastic University Lecturer, has a passion for Rabelais! – which I suppose only goes to show what Rabbi can do for you.              

        I hope you will excuse this scrawl but as I write less, so my écriture** depreciates.  I’m afraid I get duller and duller in my present company.  My former touch with ‘Les Belles Lettres’ now seems to elude me.  I often misquote Shakespeare.  An unpardonable sin.  However, I rival University Dons on the ‘Immortal Bard’ when half tight; so perhaps it’s not as bad as I make it appear.              

            At present I’m sleeping in du Rose’s tent with six Birmingham urchins – and what amazing blokes they are.  Nothing seems to get them down.  They grumble about everything one moment, and are exceptionally cheerful the next.  Their language is amazing.  They all appear to live for “tabs” (cigarettes) and kypher (skirt) and come back to the tent late at night and recount all their luck and experiences until the early hours.  Needless to say it’s all very interesting.

        Du Rose is something of a swimmer.  He is the present Midland Champ and has swum against Wainwright*** a score of times. 

 

        It’s now Tuesday afternoon & I still haven’t heard from you.  Mother wrote on Tuesday last but I only received the letter on Monday.  It had gone all the way to Warmwell although it had the Bemerton address. 

        Well Darling I must close now, still loving you more than ever    

                                                    Your devoted

                                                                        Dicker

PS Write soon.

PPS. I’ve just received your letter.

                        All is forgiven!

                                                            Dicker

* Adrian Bell was an English rural journalist and farmer – ‘Corduroy’ recounts his early experience of farming.  James Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction.  His best known book ‘Jurgen’ was the subject of an obscenity trial soon after publication.  ‘Murder at the ‘Varsity’ ‘ is by Richard Wilson Webb, and English detective writer.

**French for handwriting.

***Norman Wainwright was a British Olympic swimmer.  At the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney he was in the gold medal winning freestyle 4 x 220 yards relay team.

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

19^th September 1940 – the German Fleet assembled to bring their troops to Britain for the invasion was dispersed.

75 year ago – Lance Corporal Williams at Bemerton

 

75 years ago Dick was a soldier at Bemerton on Salisbury Plain and had started training to be a PT Instructor.After a month in the Army he’d gained his first stripe, becoming a Lance Corporal, which must have been testing since there were already 'a large number of deserters'. ‘

 

 Dick had 48 hours leave on weekend of 27^th and 28^th July 1940 and met Chotie.

Sunday 28^th July 1940 was his nineteenth birthday.

 

6^th Dorset’s

South Wilts

Cricket Ground

Bemerton

NR Salisbury, Wilts.

My Darling Chotie,

                                            I’m writing this on Monday evening, my first opportunity to write since regaining Camp, which I’m trying to do in almost total darkness in the NAAFI*, in the company of Hughes and George. There’s really nothing to write as there is of course no news. I feel terribly flat. We must get really moving on our next meeting. We seem to waste so much time…

            I was told tonight that I am going on a fortnight’s P.T. course at Tidworth, which I believe is somewhere near Salisbury. Could you let me know where this is, (ie look it up on a map or something?)

            I’m afraid I have to turn in now, but will continue tomorrow.

 

            It’s now Tuesday dinner time. There’s still no more news. I have been on P.T. all the morning and I’m rather fed up. I’m certainly going back to the ranks after I become proficient.

            I had a yarn with the Instructor who appears to be rather pleased with my going on this course.  He imagines I’m going to come back and teach him something. He must be nuts. Still there’s no harm in thinking.

            I have another two squads to take this afternoon, what a life! I’m not missing much however, as all the boys are trench-digging.

 

             It’s now Tuesday evening. I write a little every time I get a moment to spare.I really must thank you again for this super writing case. It certainly gives me inspiration.

             I must close now darling, as I have to slip this down to the Post Office without delay.

                                         Bye, bye darling

                                                        Your devoted

                                                                            Dicker

P.S. Je t’aime encore de tout mon coeur même plusque la vie.**

 

*NAAFI – Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes – official trading organisation of HM Forces i.e. the canteen.

** “I love you always, with all of my heart, and more than life itself.”

 

Dick was appointed Lance Corporal on Monday 29^th July 1940.

 

 

On 31^st July 1940 Dick’s medical form stated he was in A.1. condition.

 

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010.

Across the Rhine by moonlight - Thursday 29th or Friday 30th March 1945

As usual.

Friday 29^th (sic) Mar

Chotie Darling,

                                    I’m writing this in a windowless ‘brewed-up’ house with half a gale blowing but having so much spiritual warmth I’m not unduly cold.  My cushy post has gone with the wind and I’m now back on the job again.

            Received your letter form yesterday.  Glad to see you can manage a walk on the beach on occasion – makes a change anyhow.

            Do you know what regiment Edie’s husband was in?  There’s always a chance I may know him as we get a pretty fair knowledge of Recce types.

            The cutting you enclose is of Ralph’s* school – it’s the junior school to Dulwich .

            If Nan wants to write anyone, she can write

                                    Lt. Geoffrey Winzer

                                                49 Recce Regt**

                                                            BLA.

I’m sure he’ll reply - instanta! – with pleasure.  Just mention my name!

            Thanks very much for scrounging the choc for mother.

            The ‘tache is coming along but it’s dead slow….

            Enclosed find a German fashion (?) mag.  I’ll send some more if you’re interested.  There seem to be plenty about.

            I’m still struggling through the Aunts’ letters.  The one I wrote Averil was returned as I put the wrong address!

            You might send some more tabac – I’ll send a cheque when I get some ink in my pen…

            Thanks for the tie, Darling – I’ll have to soak it in tea to tone it down a bit!

            Nothing very thrilling to write about – so I’ll close here.

                                                            Your loving husband

                                                                        Dicker.

*Dick's uncle.

**Geoff Winzer, Dick’s friend in the 61^st Recce who was injured in the Ardennes had obviously joined the 49^th (West Riding) Recce instead of the 52^nd (Lowland) Recce when the 61^st was broken up.  The 49^th were the only reconnaissance regiment in NW Europe not involved in Operation Plunder.  Instead they were river watching along the River Waal in the Netherlands for the first three months of 1945, harassing the Germans on the opposite bank.  (From ‘Only the Enemy in Front Every other beggar behind…’ The Recce Corps at War 1940-1946’ by Richard Doherty, Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd 1994)

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick may have already crossed the Rhine when he wrote this last letter.

“We crossed over about three in the morning on March 29^th by the light of a full moon and took up a position near Mehr*.”  (From ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946.)

 

“The ‘Recce’ moved over the Rhine under a full moon in the early hours of Good Friday, 30^th March, 1945; crossing on one of the various pontoons and bailey bridges built in record time by the Royal Engineers.  Mile after mile of vehicles queued for the limited space on the roads, therefore it was before the regiment was concentrated near the town of Mehr, just a few miles east of the Rhine, ready to take part in what was becoming a rapid advance into Germany.”

(From ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001)

 *Mehr is between Rees and Xanten, on the west bank of the Rhine

 

After the Rhine crossing there was the push across Germany.  “Resistance was patchy, but it was the recce troopers who were the first to run into the occasional pockets of Nazi diehards, and nerves were tested by the thought that these final days would be a particularly cruel time to die.”

(From ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007)

Traffic - Saturday 24th March 1945

By 24^th March over a million men were waiting to attack across the Rhine.

 

Trevor Whitfield, who was with ‘C’ Squadron of 52^nd Recce wrote:

‘The rest of the Regiment was given the administrative job of getting the leading battalions and regiments from their concentration area up to the river bank.  This job was organised from a tented camp in the woods at Sonsbeck* by 12 Corps HQ.  The weather was delightful and the birds were singing in the woods and could be heard in the intervals of the barrage.'

*between Kevelaer and Xanten.

(From ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946.)

 

52nd (Lowland) Div Recce Rgt.

RAC BLA.

Saturday Mar. 24^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    I’ve received your parcel Precious, for which many thanks.  It must have cost a fortune!  I’ve had to work out a roster for the pills and things.

            Well, my Darling, I’m in a smashing billet away from my troop in charge of about 20 miles of road as Traffic Control Officer.  Imagine it, armband and all!  I look quite a dog….

            I’m afraid it won’t last for long though – it’s much too cushy for that.  I’m with two other subalterns who share my simple taste in living so we’re really very happy.

            The farm is situated in rolling pine forest land with about half the countryside under the plough.  Where there’s an absence of pines there’s a mass of heather, and with the really hot weather we’ve been having here for the past week the scent from them is overpowering.

            I’ve been out walking this evening with a captured shotgun having a crack at the odd rabbit.

            There’s also a swift flowing river some 300 yds from the farmhouse, so we sit and laze on the banks when we’ve nothing special to do, and talk a lot of rot of course.

            I was sorry to hear about your tooth trouble.  I hope it’s  better now.  Touch wood,  I haven’t had any for years.  I’m sorry to say however that the Doc has been checking up on my inoculations and he’s been chasing me around with a damn needle.

            What do you think of the news?  Brinner* is mixed up in it somewhere but I haven’t mentioned it in my letters home.

            Hope you’ve settled down to routine again after all this time. For myself, I’m right back in the groove – rut! 

            Nothing else to write about, so I’ll close here.

            What Branch of the National Provincial? Parkstone?       

                                                Goodnight my Darling

                                                Your ever loving husband

                                                                        Dicker.

 
*Brinner must have been in the 5^th (Hackney) Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment Royal Berkshire regiment who assisted the 15th Scottish Division across the river (the same Division Sandy Handley had been assigned to for the Rhine crossing ). The 5^th Battalion of the Berkshires remained in Xanten until peace was declared and for the rest of the year carried out garrison duties. (From Unit History: Royal Berkshire Regiment.)

© Chotie Darling

Spring in Yorkshire

Letter Form from Chotie written Friday23^rd March 1945

W/242328 Pte. Williams B.E.,

“B’ Troop. O.F.C. A.T.S.,

462 Hy. (M.) A.A. Bty RA.,

Fort Godwin,

C.  G.P.O Easington,

Nr. Hull, Yorks

Friday 23^rd March 1945

My darling,

                        Have just returned from a lovely walk along the beach.  It is decidedly better up here, now that Spring is here and, if we have any warm weather, well, I shall not grouse.

            Edie, came with me, the girl whose husband is in the Recce.  She has just returned from seeing him, in a hospital in Surrey, as he has come back wounded in the leg.  Rather badly too, so things are not very happy with them.  I do hope that he will soon be better.

           

I am enclosing a cutting I found in the paper today.  Surely, it’s your Uncle’s school, isn’t it?

           

Nan is insisting that she gives us a wedding present, darling.  Probably, a table lamp – won’t it be nice? She was quite thrilled about the boys who wanted to write to her.  I am hoping to get a pass next week, to go home with her.

            I have managed to scrounge some choc. so I am sending it to your Mum.  Also a ration card that I did not use.  Just to help things a bit.  Must write to her tonight.

           

This is very brief, my dearest, but I will write again tomorrow.

            How’s the ‘tache growing.  Must be, at least 4” long before you come home, - make it soon, precious.

                        All my love, darling

                                                Chotie x.

© Chotie Darling

The Other Bloke -Tuesday 20th March 1945

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

20th Fri – Wrote Brinner & Cho.  Letters from mother, Cho & Bryn.

 

52nd (L) Div Recce Rgt

RAC   

BLA.

 

Tuesday March 20^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Have just received your letter per Bryn along with others from mother, etc.

            I can see my name in ‘News of the World” headlines, ‘writing to his AWOL wife’ – what a shocker you are!  Really I can’t think why I have anything to do with you….  I expect you’re back with the fold again now, which probably isn’t too pleasant. 

            I’ve settled down again, after nearly getting’ ‘done-in’ by a shell which killed the other bloke I was with.  Awful business. However I’m way out of it now with a cushy old job which I hope will last some weeks anyhow.

            I’m living in a cottage – at least 300 years old (having evicted the ‘civvies’), which is really quite pleasant as the weather has been excellent for the past few days.  I’ve spent the past 48 hours painting signs (of all things for an officer (?) to indulge in!).  Imagine me in shirt-sleeve order, smoking the old pipe and humming airs from “Rigoletto*”!

            I’ve just written Bryn, just to prove to him I am still alive, and give him what dope – I can – not much!  He seems much happier with the Berks** than at RAU’s*** which I suppose is understandable.

            The countryside around here is really lovely in the pastoral sense (nothing majestic about it) - very much like Kent.  Some very charming farms, and a very well-fed populace.  Children (girls and boys) wear long black stockings and the little girls have the inevitable plaits – and big blue eyes.

            The ceilings are so low in this place that even I have developed round-shoulders and a permanent stoop.  My bedroom is about 10ft by 6, and the bed completely fills it.

            I’ve had about fifty eggs since I came back – all presented by the locals – and pork galore.  I’ll soon be thinking about my figure….You’d love it here.

            I’ve been on to the Orderly Room ref. the allowance but of course they haven’t any of the pukka forms left so I’ll just have to wait until they turn up.  In any case we’ll get the “back-pay”.

            (Break for Supper….)

            Well, darling, I’ve had some eggs and chips, and it’s pretty late so I’m off to bed.

                                    Goodnight, my Darling

                                                            Dicker

P.S. Have you cashed other cheques yet?  I enclose Rita’s.  Where do you want allowance paid to?!?

 

*Giuseppe Verdi’s Italian opera concerning the licentious Duke of Mantua, his jester Rigoletto and Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda.

**Presumably the Royal Berkshire Regiment.

*** Regional Administrative Unit?

© Chotie Darling

Kevelaer

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

19th Fri – Kelvaer (Kevelaer*?) Staging Camp.

*between the Rhine and Maas rivers, north of Geldern.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC March 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 19^th Place MENZELEN:            2 casualties                          Weather – Fine

Strength - 905 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns                 

‘ ‘B’ & ‘C’ Squadrons move to new areas i.e. ‘B’ at 955335. ‘C’ at 023274.’  Still shelling in area.

 

‘From 19-23^rd ‘B’ & ‘C’ Squadron preparing staging area for incoming troops in connection with Operation Plunder.’

‘A’ Squadron meanwhile, were training for a special role with 1^st Commando Brigade under Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset and ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001.)

 

Meanwhile Sandy Handley had had problems with his teeth:

"Shortly, in March ’45 we moved up to the River Rhine.  I had a bad toothache.  I reported sick and went on a small Daimler scout car, known as a Dingo, back to Corps HQ for an Army Field Dentist.  This was a journey of 20 miles.  As usual I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the Dentist (compared with facing Jerry).  However, I needn’t have worried.  I had the tooth extracted (no pain).  I was relieved to get rid of the ache.

We returned to our Unit and we were told we were moving up the Rhine’s banks.  Some of the armoured cars came under the orders of the 15^th Scottish Division."

(From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy etc 1944 – 1945’, unpublished.)

Lieutenant Peter Evans - Wednesday 14th March 1945

‘C’ Sqn 52 (L) Div Recce Regt

BLA.

Wednesday 14^th Mar.

Chotie Darling,

                                    I’m with the unit once again, Darling, and have settled down to the old routine.  Luckily, I’m in very cushy billets (no windows – but everything else is OK!) and managed to have a party last night – just four Bolshie subalterns.

            Weather is holding quite well and I’m not being overworked so life is really pleasant enough.

            There are plenty of horses around so I do a little bare-back stuff pretty regularly.  Anything for a change.

            Made friends with a subaltern in the Squadron by the name of Peter Evans*.  He’s about 6ft 3 and goes about 16 stone, and has an Orson Welles** touch about him.  He wears his hair an atrocious length – long black curls peep out from under his beret.

            He’s married and lives in Suffolk somewhere – doesn’t give a damn for anyone, from the CO downwards.  He also has an endless store of anecdotes and witticisms which endear him to me.

            Incidentally, Darling I’ve shaved my moustache right off!  Honest!  I reckon I look much better without it.  I now look eighteen instead of thirty-five….  I think I’d better grow another before I come home again, or I’ll be dodging the old rolling-pin….

            There’s not very much to write about, I’m afraid.

            I had a letter from Ronnie yesterday.  He’s quite cheerful and is now doing Liaison Officer to some Corps or other.  A pretty steady job but not much excitement.  He’s almost sure to end up in Brussels – they always do.

            Must close here Chotie, and try to write some of the aunts!

                                    All my love, Darling

                                                            Dicker

 

*Lieutenant Peter Evans received the Military Cross as ‘a fearless leader, calm and cunning in battle’.  In September 1944 ‘he led a most daring patrol’ into no-man’s land between the Maas and the Waal, capturing one SS man and two paratroopers and killing several other Germans while sustaining no casualties for his side despite heavy fire and lack of cover.  In November 1944 he led his troop of 12 to engage with 40 Germans landing in North Beveland (on the Scheldt Estuary) and all the enemy were captured or killed. (From citation in ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001.)

Peter Evans was also a leader of the troops that made ‘the almost copybook advance to the River Rhine at Ginderich. (From ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946.)

**Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer and producer who had made his first film, the signatory ‘Citizen Cane’ in 1941.

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

14th Wed– Supper with Peter Evans.  “Hullo!”

15th Thurs – Supper with Peter Evans.  Wrote Audrey.

 

Don Aiken’s troop had an unhappy experience with the horse riding:

“March 1945
After a few happy days at home, I bade a tearful farewell and returned to my Unit.
The whole force was now intent on pressing on into Germany. After some heavy fighting on all fronts (because the Germans were desperate to prevent us doing so) we, the leading troops at that time, eventually succeeded in reaching the Rhine.
The Infantry were then brought through to hold the line and we were pulled back about a mile from the river. We settled in the cellar of a cottage and awaited our next mission, which we knew wouldn't be long because of the intense and heavy build up of men and equipment in preparation for a crossing.

During a lull in the gunfire one of the lads in my troop spotted a horse in a paddock alongside the cottage, and decided to ride it. He mounted the horse and had a great time trotting around. Then came a single shot (probably from a German 88 mm. anti-tank gun) which blew his head off.”

(Extract  republished from 'From the Rhine to Civvy Street' by kind permission of Don Aiken)

 

Ginderich, Germany

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

13th Tues – Gilderich (Ginderich) resting.  Letter from Ronnie.

Photo labelled Ginderich March 1945

(See The Daimler Fighting Vehicles Project for more information on the car).

 

Second Letter written Tuesday 13^th March 1945

Tuesday 13^th Mar.

My precious,

                                    I do hope you find the enclosed alright.  Margaret sent the Ovaltine tablets*, for you, with lots of love.  That T.C.P.** is awfully good for cuts or spots and anything – I always use it.

Just now, I feel pretty wretched – specially as it’s our Wedding Anniversary.  This afternoon I had a tooth out - it took two dentists about half an hour to do it.  Mr Harris & Mr Dunman – I think you know them.  You see, last night I had some of Mummy’s home-made toffee, unfortunately, and it removed half this wretched tooth & its stopping, so I had to have the rest extracted.  Cost me 6 shillings too!

            When I returned from the dentist, there was a letter from my unit.  My leave is granted providing I can send a certificate of confirmation from your Officer in Command that you will be in England for 14 days and I can be with you.  So I’ve had that.

            What I intend doing now is to make out I received the letter tomorrow afternoon and ring them up, just to see how things are.  Probably get charged or something in any case.  They have enclosed a terrific sheet of ration coupons - I think I’ll use them.

          

Ted’s brother is coming down for the week-end.  He has been moved to a factory near Southampton so it’s quite handy for here.  I was hoping to see him, maybe I will - -

            Poor old Mary & Dil, going back tomorrow.  I should by rights too.

           

I do hope, my darling, you are quite well.  Have a good time with Bryn, if possible.  Take care of yourself, & eat up all these pills & things – then I’ll send you some more.  I could not get any glucose, but those halibut things are pretty smash!

            All my love, precious, for ever & ever,

                                                Your loving wife,

                                                            Chotie

P.S.     I was going to enclose this with the parcel I hope you will soon receive, but Margaret says you must not put letters in with parcels.  She should know!

 

*made from milk, malted barley and wheat flour

**an antiseptic

***probably halibut liver oil, a fish oil product taken for vitamins A and D.

 © Chotie Darling

‘C’ Squadron reaches the Rhine

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

On 10^th March ‘C’ Squadron were ordered to advance to Menzelen (south-east of Xanten) and secure Gest and Ginderich in the Wesel pocket, the bulge of the Rhine opposite Wesel.  The enemy were now retreating across the Rhine and no opposition was met at Menzelen, although a number of prisoners were taken.  There was more resistance around Ginderich but, with infantry arriving to back them up, a force from the Squadron reached the bank of the Rhine and established an outpost.  Here they were able to observe hundreds of Germans on the east bank, working furiously to construct minefields and trenches. The enemy were rapidly bombarded by Allied artillery ensuring these defences were never completed.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset and the Reconnaissance Journal Vol.1. No 4 April-June 1945.)

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

9^th Fri –  Travelled overnight Calais – Bourg Leopold.

10^th Sat – Met Brinner – spent day with him at B.L.

11th Sun – Day at Bourg Leopold with Brinner

Leave!

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5th – Leave!

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

The Regiment at last left Afferden.  ‘A’ Squadron, after difficulties on the road due to craters and mines, reached high ground early on 3^rd March. ‘B’ Squadron pushed on through in front of them achieving their own objective and then ‘C’ Squadron; who arrived at Twisteden (now in Germany, between Afferden and Geldern) without opposition. Six prisoners of war were taken.  The Regiment then remained at Langstraat unable to move because of unpassable roads.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset)

 

 

On March 3rd 53rd Reconnaissance Regiment, on the central axis of the Rhineland offensive, made contact with the Americans reaching Geldern from the south. Canadians Divisions advanced through the Hochwald Forest and took Xanten, a town close to the Rhine.  Allied troops closed in on west bank of the Rhine opposite Wesel but were met with fierce enemy resistance.

 

 

Home at last

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for February:

28 Wed – Arrived home on leave.

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

On 28^th February ‘C’ Squadron disposed of a small enemy recce patrol from the south of Afferden, emerging from the water of the anti-tank ditch to be met by a Bren gun.  Recce parties of 45 Commando arrived to take over the Regimental responsibilities but these orders were suspended until 2^nd March.

Under the German mortars

23^rd February 1945 – flood water from the Roer dams recedes and Operation Grenade, the American advance to the Rhine, is able to proceed.  Hitler had not allowed German forces in the Rhineland to withdraw. This stubborn German resistance proved costly with losses of c.400,000 men, including 280,000 prisoners, by the time the Allies had crossed the Rhine.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 23^rd   Place AFFERDEN:                                          Weather – Fine        

‘Still holding line and being mortared and shelled.  ‘A’ Squadron less 1 Scout Troop and Assault Troop with u/c (under command?) 3 Platoons of 6^th Highland Light Infantry took over from ‘B’ Squadron at REMPELD.  ‘B’ Squadron coming into reserve.’

 

Date 24^th   Place AFFERDEN:         1 casualty                          Weather – Fine

Strength - 922 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns       

‘Still spasmodic shelling and mortaring. 7 reinforcements arrived.’

 

Date 25^th to 27^th        Place AFFERDEN:     6 casualties            

Weather – Fine on 25^th, Dull on 26^th, Fair on 27^th.

‘Nothing to report except intermittent enemy mortar fire and own retaliation fire.  Total casualties seven wounded.’

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

'A counter-mortar officer working in the area said that German mortar positions on that front outnumbered the total mortars believed to be held by the entire German army.'

(From ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946.)

Afferden

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 19^th     Place AFFERDEN 8038:             2 casualties              Weather – Wet

Strength - 932 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns                

‘Quite heavy shelling and mortaring in whole area during night.  No casualties but ‘A’ Squadron lost a white scout car which was set on fire.  One OR (Other Rank) killed, and Captain Hedley, 2^nd in command ‘B’ Squadron slightly wounded by snipers.  ‘C’ Squadron took over from 1 G.H. (Green Howards?) in AFFERDEN.’

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 19th March 1945:

Corporal Thomas Thomson (age 25)

and is laid to rest in the Milsbeek war cemetery near Gennep.

(See Roll of Honour for Milsbeek and Ottersum and photo.) 

We will remember them.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 20^th Place AFFERDEN:          3 casualties              Weather – Wet

Strength - 929 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns                

‘Again shelling and mortaring on Regimental front.  ‘A’ Squadron has three casualties by mortar fire.’  155 Brigade Operational Instruction No. 2 attached.

 

Date 21^st  Place AFFERDEN:          5 casualties              Weather – Fine

Strength - 924 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns      

‘Still holding line and being mortared and shelled at intervals during day.  5 casualties including 2^nd in command of ‘A’ Squadron, Captain Hathaway.  3 stragglers* attached.  Prisoner of War taken by ‘B’ Squadron.  Future Operations Order issued.’ 157 Brigade O.O. No:10 attached.

*Stragglers are personnel (or vehicles, ships, aircraft) that have become separated from their unit, column, or formation without purpose.

 

Date 22^nd Place AFFERDEN:          1 casualty                 Weather – Fine

Strength - 923 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns

‘Still holding line and being mortared and shelled as yesterday.  ‘B’ Squadron 1 fatal casualty.’  52 Recce Regiment Ops Instr No:2 attached.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 22^nd February 1945:

Trooper John Greathead (age 21)

and is laid to rest in the Milsbeek war cemetery near Gennep.        

(See Roll of Honour for Milsbeek and Ottersum and photo.)

We will remember them.

 

(See also James McQuarrie’s of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers at Afferden.)

Stuck on the Siegfried line

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 17^th Place HEYEN (Heijen, between Gennep and Afferden)7640:

Strength - 934 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns                 Weather – Fine        

‘After crater filled ‘C’ Squadron moved into AFFERDEN having cleared the GENNEP – AFFERDEN road 8038.  ‘C’ Squadron secured road running EAST out of AFFERDEN but held up at 808384 by bridges blown.  Royal Engineers unable to get up to repair as under heavy fire.  ‘A’ Squadron passed through ‘C’ Squadron on the AFFERDEN-REMPELD ROAD but held up by craters.’  52 Recce O.O. No: 12 attached.  155 Brigade O.O. No:17 attached.

“Finally we reached Afferden and were confronted by a great anti-tank ditch…at right angles to the Maas and our line of advance.  The flooding of the river had turned this into a formidable water obstacle.  The main Nijmegen-Venlo road which hugged the right bank of the Maas stood out like a great causeway through the water …it was very badly cratered and under constant observation from enemy positions about two hundred yards south of the town.”

The flooded Anti-tank ditch was a western arm of the Siegfried line, Germany’s famous ‘Westwall’ defences.  It was guarded at the east end by Kasteel Blijenbeek, a Dutch castle manned by determined German paratroops.  The village of Afferden afforded little cover from their relentless shelling since most of the cellars were flooded.  Front-line troops of the Regiment lived in enemy built bunkers near Rempeld or Afferden Wood (Broedersbosch Plantation).  The wood provided concealment and its sandy soil quickly absorbed rain but also lent silence to enemy patrols and ‘made the task of digging and maintaining dug-outs exasperatingly difficult’.  The trees, exploded by shells or mortars, added flying shards of wood to the missile projectiles.

Casualties accumulated under the relentless bombardment of the German defences while assaults on the Kasteel cost more lives and many tanks. Eventually, towards the end of February the strongpoint was eliminated by heavy bombing, courtesy of the RAF.

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for February:

17 Sat - Wrote Ronnie

 

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

 

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

 

Date 18^th Place HEYEN:      Weather – Wet        

‘’C’ Squadron still held up and unable to get round because of flooding.  Whole Regimental area under water.  Attack laid on for ‘B’ Squadron plus 1 Company 1G.H. (Green Howards?) to pass through ‘A’ Squadron, hook left and clear area 834383 and 810384 but cancelled by Division.  New Orders for Regiment make Regiment responsible for AFFERDEN and eastwards to 824388 and to pin point as many enemy troop, mortar and gun positions as far as possible. ‘C’ Squadron responsible for AFFERDEN to road and track junction 812388.  A lot of mortaring, shelling and sniping in whole Regimental area.  ‘B’ Squadron responsible for 812388 to 824388.’

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset; ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946 and ‘Mountain and Flood : The History of 52nd (Lowland) Division’ by George Blake; Jackson, Son & Company 1950.)

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for February :

18 Sun – Time spent in Boxmeer

Into the fray again

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment joins the advance of Operation Veritable.  General Eisenhower later commented that this "was some of the fiercest fighting of the whole war" and "a bitter slugging match in which the enemy had to be forced back yard by yard".

On 14^th February the 52nd (Lowland) Division had moved slightly north and were put in the right of the British line. Its Reconnaissance Regiment crossed the Maas using a new bridge at Cuijk, now occupying the east bank of the flooded river and advancing south on the extreme right of Veritable.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 15^th Place BOXMEER 7640:

‘Advance parties left to recce regimental area near GENNEP (on the other side of the Maas, north-east of Boxmeer) 8045. Recce elements 95 US Division arrive to take over from Regiment.’  157 Brigade O.O. No 9 attached.

 

Date 16^th Place BOXMEER:         1 casualty              Weather – Fine

‘Regiment arrives in GENNEP area.  ‘C’ Squadron moved GENNEP – AFFERDEN (south of Gennep) road but held up by road block and large crater on road with flooding on either side.  Enemy position just SOUTH of road block opened up and registered 1 killed. ‘C’ Squadron patrolled all night but enemy withdrew.’

Gennep was a 'shockingly ruined townlet' recently taken by the Black Watch (51st Highland Division).  Dick was presumably here before 'C' Squadron 'struck out on the difficult road to Afferden' on 16th March.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library at the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset; 'Mountain and Flood: the History of the 52nd (Lowland) Division by George Blake; Jackson, Son and Company 1950 and ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007.)

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for February:

16 Wed  - Wrote Brinner.

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 16^th February 1945:

 Sergeant Walter Everson

who is laid to rest in the Milsbeek war cemetery near Gennep.       

(See Roll of Honour for Milsbeek and Ottersum.) 

We will remember them.

Sandy joins the 52nd

9^th February 1945 – Operation Veritable was to have been accompanied by a pincer advance from US forces to the south, between Venlo and Roermond on the Maas and along the Roer River. However, the Germans blew the dams along the Roer river, flooding the area and delaying Operation Grenade for two weeks.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945 – Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 9^th Place BOXMEER

‘RHQ with ‘A’ Squadron (reserve) at BOXMEER.  ‘C’ Squadron at SAMBEEK (immediately south of Boxmeer) 7739 with one Platoon medium machine guns under command.  ‘B’ Squadron at GROENINGEN (slightly further south) 7835 with one Platoon 4.2 Mortars under command.  One Dutch Company at VORTUM (between Sambeek and Groeningen) 7837 and the other at ST. ANTONIS (north-west of Boxmeer) 7138 in reserve.  Nothing to report all day.’  52 Division O.O. (Operations Order?) No:7 attached.

Dick was presumably at Sambeek with ‘C’ Squadron.

He was joined by Sandy Handley who became his batman ( Anthony Rampling pers. comm.):

“When I got back to Izegem after my UK leave I was posted to the 52^nd (Lowland) Recce – Belgium February ’45.  They were in Holland at Boxmeer, not too far from the Rhine.  Fortunately for me the whole of the troop* I was in with from Normandy were posted to the 52^nd Recce so it wasn’t too bad.  A lot of the 52^nd Recce were Scots and Newcastle men and their first involvement on the continent had been in the Walcheren Islands. 

Now we had Daimlers.  I was assigned to a heavy Daimler (15 troop) still as a gunner operator.  I now had a Besa 7.92 machine gun and a 2 pounder gun and 2 smoke dischargers.”

*i.e. Dick’s Troop in 61st Reconnaissance.   Not including Anthony Rampling, however.

(From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945 – Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 11^th Place BOXMEER:

Strength - 935 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns                 Weather – Wet

‘No activity on Regimental front. 21 Carriers arrived from Re-ordnance Centre’. 52 Recce Regiment O.O. No. 11 attached.

 

Date 12^th Place BOXMEER:             Weather – Wet

' ‘A’ Squadron took over from ‘C’ Squadron.  ‘C’ coming into reserve.'

12^th February 1945 – British and Canadian forces advancing in Operation Veritable capture Kleve, a town in western Germany between the Maas and Rhine rivers, east of Nijmegen and the Reichswald Forest. The town had been the location one of the pair of Knickebein radio transmitters sending beams across Britain for the Luftwaffe to locate night bombing raids early in the war.

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945 – Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 13^th Place BOXMEER:                 Weather – Fine

‘Spasmodic shelling on front and in BOXMEER area.  Otherwise NTR (nothing to report).

 

Date 14^th Place BOXMEER:                 Weather – Fine

‘Still some shelling.  Patrolling carried out by Assault boat as far as main stream.’

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

52nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance

Chotie Darling

 

Dedicated to the memory of my mother

and all those who hold the forever young of war in their hearts.

 

Part 4        Only the Enemy in Front  

 

Chapter 15      52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment

 

On 7^th February 1945 Dick joined the 52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment.

Dick’s 1945 diary for February:

7 Wed  - Joined lowland.

 

Comrades from 61st Recce were with him; at least three complete troops of reinforcements. Don Aiken records:

“I had been posted to the 52nd.Reconnaissance Regt. which was the Recce for 52nd. Lowland Scottish Division. We were given the 'MOUNTAIN' shoulder flash to sew on our tunics, along with the St. Andrew's Shield.

They were a Division which had been stationed in Scotland for a long time, training for mountain combat in preparation for a possible invasion of Norway. However their first slice of action came when they left England about 2 months after 'D' Day to capture some islands off the Dutch coast. There probably wasn't a mountain for a hundred miles.”

(Extract republished from 'From the breakout to the Rhine' by kind permission of Don Aiken)

The Scottish lowlanders had trained in mountain warfare ready to fight in Norway.  The Divisonal symbol was a shield of St Andrew with the word MOUNTAIN written below.

When the Allies abandoned plans for a Norwegian campaign, the 52^nd Division were trained for an airborne role and were to have participated in Market Garden landing at Arnhem while the Recce regiment, which had disembarked in Normandy earlier in September 1944, formed part of the ground troops for ‘Garden’.  From 21^st September 52^nd Recce worked with the 101^st US Airborne to hold the narrow corridor from Eindhoven to Nijmegen ('Hell's Highway') and were on ‘The Island’ when 61^st Recce arrived there on the 24th of September .

The 52^nd Recce then moved to confront the Germans on the Leopold Canal in northern Belgium before rejoining their Division for the assault on the River Schelde with the First Canadian Army.  As the Allies gradually advanced in South Beveland and Walcheren to clear the Scheldt estuary and gain free access to the vital port of Antwerp, the Recce Regiment were tasked with cutting the German escape route across North Beveland and Schouwen and spent most of November on North Beveland.

After a short break at Schinnen, north-east of Maastricht, German advances into the Ardennes in December brought 52^nd Recce close to the German border at Schinveld, north of Brunnsum and near Geilenkirchen.  The Regiment remained here defending the British 2^nd Army right flank until 11^th January when they moved back close to Maastricht at Valkenburg.

Operation Blackcock, to clear the ‘Roer Triangle’ (between Roermond and Sittard in the Netherlands and Heinsberg in Germany) was a heavy engagement in freezing conditions for the 52^nd (Lowland) Division. 52^nd Recce advanced through Höngen and then Havert, north-east of Sittard. The Division eventually took the German town of Heinsberg on January 24th.  After an uncomfortable time guarding the Wurm river line against counter-attack the regiment moved back to Schinveld on 5^th February as the thaw set in.

 

The Regiment then moved rapidly north to Boxmeer (“a tedious and exhausting journey”) where three complete scout troops (156 officers and men) from 61 Reconnaissance joined the 52^nd as re-inforcements.  52^nd (Lowland) was now holding the line along the west bank of the Maas at Groeningen, Samboek and Boxmeer.

 

(From ‘This band of brothers – a history of the Reconnaissance Corps of the British Army’ by Jeremy Taylor, White Swan 1947, ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946 and ‘Only the Enemy in Front Every other beggar behind…’ The Recce Corps at War 1940-1946’ by Richard Doherty, Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd 1994)

 

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC February 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 7^th  Place SCHINVELD (north of Brunssum in the southernmost part of the Netherlands, near the German border east of Maastricht.) 7364.        

Strength - 935 men, 167 tanks/armoured cars/guns                 Weather – Wet

‘Advance parties left for Boxmeer (south of Nijmegen on the River Maas – about 100 kilometres north of Schinveld) 7640 and Regiment moved night 7/8 to take over from 3rd Division Recce Regiment.  150 other ranks and 6 Officers joined from 61^st Recce Regiment as reinforcements as per new organization.’

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

On 7^th February 1945 the Germans blew the floodgates in the Ruhr preventing the imminent advance of the Allies west of Cologne and forcing most of the British Second Army into a ‘holding phase’.  However, Canadian forces advanced from the north and the US Ninth Army from the south to clear the area west of the Rhine.  

'Shocking Country'

On 11^th January La Roche-en-Ardennes south and east of the River Ourthe is captured by XXX Corps’ 51^st Highland Division.  On the other side of the Ourthe US 1^st Army clears the area of enemy.

At Bande (between La Roche-en-Ardennes and Rochefort) 1^st Canadian Battalion, who were working with the 6^th Airborne, discover the bodies of 34 civilians massacred by German troops on Christmas Eve.

 

Colonel Brownrigg continues his account of the deeds of Lieutenant Spreag:

“The next dayLieutenant Spreag, now with Lieutenant Abercrombie, walked 20 miles through shocking country beset with mines to contact the British Divisions to the north.  When they reached the Airborne Brigadier* he was so impressed that he at once offered them jobs.  By the end of their two-day two-man operation they had walked over 50 miles.”

*Possibly Brigadier Edwin Flavell of 6^th Airlanding Brigade or Brigadier James Hill of 3^rd Parachute Brigade or Brigadier Nigel Poett of 5^th Parachute Brigade who were involved in the Battle of Bure (see Senior Officers of 6th Airborne Division with Field Marshal Montgomery .)

 

On 12^th January – British and US forces link up in Roche-en-Ardennes.

The US 1^st Army capture villages a few kilometres north of Houffalize and establish a bridgehead near Malmedy.

‘Despite the snow, the cold, the landmines and the roadblocks, as well as German defensive actions, the British troops continued their advance and hampered the withdrawal plans of the German troops, trying to escape from the pincer movement of the Allied armies.’

(From The British in the Battle of the Ardennes and Brits in the Ardennes.) 

Horseriding through Saint Hubert

On 9^th January 21^st Army Group advances again and 6^th Airborne Division retake Bure.  US 1^st Army approaches nearer to Houffalize and US Third Army is counter-attacking towards Houffalize from the south.

 

On 10^th January the advance of British XXX Corps continues and 6^th Airborne Division take a number of villages east of Rochefort moving towards La Roche-en-Ardennes and Saint Hubert.

The US 1^st Army prepare to attack on a broad front east towards St Vith as well as continuing for Houffalize.

(From WW2-net Timelines and Brits in the Ardennes.)    

 

Lieutenant Laing of 61st Recce’s C Squadron returns to Val de Poix (south of Bure and east of Saint Hubert) on 10^th January.  After losing an armoured car he patrols forward on foot to establish the enemy is still there.  They withdraw the next day and, to continue pursuit and maintain contact, Lt. Laing rebuilds a bridge and clears mines and booby traps. (From Lt. Laing’s citation for the Military Cross in 61st Recce Battle Honours.)

Colonel Brownrigg describes other heroic feats by 61^st Recce:

“Towards the end of the campaign, frost, mines and blown bridges made further advance impossible except on foot.  We were asked to investigate Saint Hubert (west of Bastogne), which was strictly in the American boundary.  Lieutenant Spreag, on his first operation as troop leader, started by carrier.  When that was blown up on a mine he transferred himself to a horse (first time on horseback).  With two Belgian woodsmen he rode to the outskirts of St Hubert, then straight through it.  The Bosches had just left.  That night the BBC reported that British Armoured cars had entered St Hubert, and the next morning the Corps Commander* sent a liaison officer to congratulate us on being the first to enter St Hubert, and would we please never go there again, as the Americans were not pleased.”  (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lieutenant-Colonel P.H.A.Brownrigg D.S.O.)

*I’m not sure who this was because Wikipedia says that during the Battle of the Bulge Lieutenant-General Horrocks was temporarily relieved of his command by Montgomery because he had become ‘nervy and difficult with his staff’ (source Nigel Hamilton).

Friendly Belgians - Monday 8th January 1945

Sandy Handley continues the story of 61^st Recce in the Ardennes:

“Later in the Ardennnes the snow came and curtailed any reconnoitring.  It was bitterly cold but now and again we managed to stay in an empty house for shelter or sometimes occupy a spare room of a friendly person’s home.  We found the Belgians so friendly and fortunately by far a most could speak English.” 

(From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)

 

 

61^st Recce Regt

RAC. BLA.

Monday Jan 8^th.

Chotie Darling,

                                    I wrote you yesterday, but on reflection found it wasn’t much of an effort so, as I have a free evening today,  I thought I’d tear up yesterday’s meagre missive and start again. 

            It’s very cold here and there’s still plenty of snow about, though not very much has fallen during the last few days.  We’re in another village now – a very charming little place, about the size of Blandford.*  The people, needless to say, are all exceptionally kind to us – I did all the billeting for the Squadron and found no difficulty in fixing up everyone.

            I’m living with a very charming family who do everything they possibly can to make things as pleasant as they can be, under these circumstances.  They press me to have all meals with them but of course I decline most invitations.

            These “middle-class’ houses are quite pleasant but lack the ‘lived-in’ appearance of the English home.  For example many of the ‘dining-rooms’ I’ve been in have tiled floors and everything very much in its place.  Against this however, the people in the £1,000 per annum class have really beautifully furnished houses and a much better conception of interior decoration then we have.  The house I was in at Iseghem falls into the latter class, where the Sintobins collected paintings and furniture.  They also collected albums of Mozart recordings, but I digress….

            I read in your last letter that Margaret’s baby is getting on well.  I’m afraid I haven’t really had time to write her, but I will try to do so as soon as possible.  I hope you’ll send her all my best wishes when next you write.  I still haven’t managed to contact Ted, and now of course with this weather he’s miles away as they can’t use his sort of unit** in this snow.

            Well, my Darling, I’ve just received your letter of the 3^rd.  Glad to hear you got the cheque – hope you can cash it without too much trouble.  No, it’s not the letters that get behind so much as the parcels – they’re deadly.  I haven’t had any tobacco for weeks and weeks and mother sends some very regularly.  I’m now smoking cigarettes again which makes me very crusty.  Always grumbling aren’t I?

            No, again, I haven’t seen Madeleine, though she sent me a very nice letter at Xmas.  Once more I’m afraid I haven’t found time to write her.

            I must say, you’re a very naughty girl for getting all these charges*.  I’ll write your C.O. suggesting he spanks you.  That measure may prove beneficial.  Alternatively I could send him my copy of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’****…

            I haven’t had any news of Bryn since hearing that he was recalled from leave to go to Barnard Castle*****, which mother told me in her last letter.

            My uncle, whom I believe I told you about before, died on Boxing Day.  He was conscious until Xmas Day and able to recognise my Aunt.  I can’t say I feel any pangs at his passing – though I haven’t said a word to mother on the subject.  He hated Dad like poison and that was always enough for Brinner and I.  He was always reckoned to be ‘so clever at figures’ but the old man used to make him look like a two year old.  However, mother as ever turned the other cheek and went up to Nottingham to console her sister.  She learnt that my cousin Dennis (“Denner”) is now a Lieutenant with the R.A. over here.  His sister Doremy (‘Dommer’) is in the WAAF.

            We must certainly come here after the war darling.  The countryside is really very lovely and the food…!

            I’m afraid I must fall out with you over “Greenery Street”******.  I must have been in a very happy mood when I first read it, as on re-reading it some short time ago I found the whole thing to be mere sentimental canting.  However, it’s of no importance….

            Have I told you about Geoff?  He’s had his first operation and was waiting for the second when he wrote.  Says they’re pumping him full of penicillin.  Frank Harding  (the Squadron Leader) has been flown to England after a spin in the same hospital as Geoff following his jeep crash on Xmas Day.  Apparently the frontal (forehead) was fractured – which may be serious.*******

            There doesn’t seem to be much to write about, Chotie – nothing I can tell you anyhow, and that, restricts my writing by about 90%.

            I’m hoping to see you again soon Darling – keep your fingers crossed, won’t you?  You’re very precious, you know.

                                                All my love, Baby,

                                                                        Dicker

 

*Blandford Forum is a market town in Dorset.

**Ted Lewis, Chotie’s brother-in-law, was in a tank regiment in the Guards Armoured Division.

***Mum told me every time she was made Corporal or Lance Corporal she was ‘busted’ and put on a charge. She went AWOL (Absent without Leave) to meet Dick just before D Day and I think there were a number of other misdemeanours.

****Shakespeare’s somewhat misogynistic play.

*****a northern market town in Teesdale, County Durham.

******a novel of domestic happiness by Denis Mackail.

*******Major Frank Harding, MC survived until 3^rd June 1981. He was a staunch supporter of the Old Comrades Association, often speaking at dinners or official visits re-treading the footsteps of 61^st Recce in Europe.  He published a book of poems ‘War Echoes Over Thirty Years’ in 1970.  Colonel Brownrigg wrote on his MC citation:

‘The success of Major Harding’s squadron has been very largely due to his own example.  He has never spared himself, and his cheerfulness in any difficulty or danger has been a great inspiration to his Squadron.  It would be hard to overestimate the value of this officer’s work to the regiment.’

© Chotie Darling