Not Flag or Fail Page 2

  I suppose I should be grateful, most chaps die doing that manoeuvre.

  Anyway the next day I’m in front of the Station Commander. I explain what had happened and ask if I could do another flight with my instructor to get my confidence back. I’m told to wait outside whilst he and the instructors discuss it.

  After about half an hour I go back in but it’s no use I’m told I can either go home, or be commissioned as a Flight Lieutenant in the stores. In other words I had got my ‘bowler hat’.

  Well I don’t know about you Alan but my idea of getting back at Hitler for what he’s done so far and what we know he’s going to do if he gets the chance, does not include handing out gas masks and chittie’s so I went home and a week later joined the artillery as an ordinary soldier, the rest you know.” With that he fell silent.

  Around about midday we stopped for a break outside a town called Denain, here for the first time we saw some bomb damage, there were craters in the road some burnt out cars and half of the town’s buildings seemed to have sustained some damage.

  Ronny spoke to the locals and it seemed that earlier in the day several bands of marauding Stuka’s had, had their fun bombing the buildings and shooting up the villagers a lot had been injured and more than twenty had been killed.

  What sort of people are we fighting? I wondered as I tucked into a bully beefy and pickle sandwich which had been provided for us along with the ubiquitous mug of tea but this time with the addition of a slice of sponge cake, my but the army looked after us.

  Lieutenant Davies came over to see us accompanied by a Captain who he introduced to us as Captain Roberts. He was to be the battery’s new Adjutant. It seemed that our previous adjutant, Captain Harrington had been recalled to Battalion HQ but not in Mons where it was currently situated, but back home in England, in Aldershot.

  Captain Roberts gave us the usual pep talk about what he expected; he was a man in his early 40’s and seemed a bit out of his depth. His uniform was well cut but seemed fairly new and after a few minutes I could see the lads starting to lose interest, Fishy coughing to disguise a yawn. Fortunately they moved on to the next crew before anyone actually nodded off. “Bleeding hell, another blooming plumy sod.” said Fishy, as we watched them walk away.

  We started away again just after two o’clock and were making good progress on the journey until just outside the village of Bouchain. Everything seemed to go suddenly very wrong. We had changed over drivers after the break, I was still in the passenger seat but now Fishy was driving with Ronny, Harry and Jack all in the back, no doubt playing cards.

  Our column was 17 vehicles long and we were seven from the front. The first we knew that something was wrong was when a khaki tailgate flew across our line of vision, followed in rapid succession by a blinding flash, a terrific bang and a hail of debris as the truck in front of us exploded into pieces!

  “Shit!” shouted Fishy. “Do it later!” I shouted, grabbing my rifle, “Pull over now.” Fishy didn’t need telling twice; he dropped down a gear and gunned the truck towards the side of the road, heading for a clump of trees about fifteen yards away. We stopped with a jerk as the bumper struck the bottom of one of the trees and the truck stalled.

  “Everybody out,” I shouted, “follow me.” I glanced behind and was relieved to see all four of my crew running behind me for the cover of the trees and better still training had done it’s job they had all brought their rifles.

  There was a drainage ditch about four feet deep in front of us I jumped down into it, and was followed seconds later by the rest of the crew. We all aimed our rifles out of the ditch and now for the first time felt safe enough to try and see what was happening. The entire column had stopped in various attitudes up and down the road; it looked as if all of them, other than the truck in front of us, were unscathed. There was however little left of the damaged truck. It was burning and it was sickeningly obvious that there was no one left alive inside. In fact there wasn’t an inside, just black smoke and flames licking around the chassis.

  “What should we do Bomb?” said Jack Hampton who was the youngest of our crew and probably had the whitest of the five faces peering out over the ditch, although without a mirror I couldn’t see my own.

  “Just stay quiet a bit Jack eh, let’s waits to see what we’re up against here?”

  To be honest I couldn’t understand what had happened. There were no planes about and surely if the truck had been hit by artillery then there would have been more shells to follow? I looked all around; there were no enemy infantry about.

  Slowly the realisation dawned upon me the truck had hit a land mine. Five other trucks had passed the spot with impunity, but fate had decided that Bombardier Willis’s and his crew should be the one to fall foul. So this is what war must really be like, I thought it’s not very fair.

  “Stay here.” I said easing myself out of the ditch. Remembering the training sessions back at Aldershot, I did the Indian crawl across to the cover of our truck where from underneath I was able to look up and down the road where nothing stirred? About twenty yards away in the bushes I could see Jock Scott and his crew tucked down behind some bushes. It struck me that if anyone did want to attack us no one was looking behind. All of Jock’s crew seemed to have their rifles and as I didn’t fancy getting shot by any of them I gave a whistle. Eventually one of the crew saw me and waved, I crawled and shuffled across to them.

  “What d’ye reckon Alan?” Jock asked as I arrived next to him. “I think maybe they hit a landmine, what do you think?”

  “Aye I’m thinking the same my sen, I think we need to be making contact with the other crews though d’ye reckon it’s safe ta stand up?”

  I thought for a moment before I replied “I think who ever planted that mine is long gone but whether it’s safe to stand up depends on if any of our own are so keyed up that they want to shoot at anything that moves.”

  “You lot stay here and just keep ye heeds down, Alan ye can come with me but for God’s sake stay low!” Jock adopted a crouching run and I followed suit. We ran towards the road and jumped down into another drainage ditch at the side of the road and although only a couple of feet deep we were able to gain some cover. The big advantage of the ditch though was that we were able to follow it along the side of the road and we were soon in contact with various other crews As we looked around, heads began to pop up all about us. Lieutenant Davies appeared with his pistol drawn with the new Adjutant at his side. He looked across at us and shouted to us. “Blue troop over here!” we doubled across to him “What’s happened Sergeant Scott?”

  “Well Sir, Bombardier Willis’s truck has been blown up, I’m afraid there’s nay survivors, it looks as though they’ve struck a mine.”“Bloody shit “Lieutenant Davies said his face reflecting genuine pain.”

  “Any other damage Sergeant?” said the Adjutant looking around him. “Not that we can see sir.” Jock replied.

  “OK then I propose to go down and have a look sir,” said Lieutenant Davies, addressing the Captain, “if you want to get the men grouped together, we’ll report back when we’ve had a good look around. Sergeant Scott, Bombardier Hibert you two come with me.”

  “Yes excellent carry on Lieutenant.” mumbled the Adjutant as we walked slowly away.

  We walked cautiously towards the burning truck, four charred bodies frozen in deaths tableau. The driver slumped over the wheel, a figure, where the passenger seat should have been, leaning out of the door, the two in the back thrown together by the explosion, to the corner of the truck bed.

  As we moved closer to the site, the air smelled of petrol, cordite and a sickly sweet smell that I was later to learn was the smell of roasting flesh.

  In front of the truck was a crater about four or five feet across and two to three feet deep. The truck had obviously been lifted and thrown backwards by the force of the explosion. Oddly, the gun, which was being towed by the truck had become unhitched, but looked to be unaffected by the carnage.

&nbs
p; We followed the Lieutenant’s lead and got down into the ditch at the side of the road.

  “Ok chaps, let’s have a walk down the ditch here, keep your eyes open and see if you can see any signs of any other mines on the road. We should be safe enough, there’s enough people back there watching our arses, or at least I hope they are. Stay alert; the bastards may also have planted some anti personnel devices, even down here in the ditch.”

  Captain Roberts had sent down another group of three, led by Lieutenant Clarke, of Red troop, who worked in the other direction to us. It must have taken us about an hour to ascertain that there were no other mines in our immediate vicinity, during that time, either the adjutant or one of the other Lieutenants had organised for four graves to be dug and blokes from another troop who hadn’t known the dead blokes too well had been given the job of removing the charred remains from the burnt out truck, wrapping them in ground sheets and placing them next to the graves.

  In addition once we had made a very thorough check around the area, another truck had pulled the wrecked truck clear of the road. One of the other troops had organised a brew and some two hours later and four men less, we drank our tea and awaited our next instructions.

  The troop Commanders, having finished their discussion, got us together and the Adjutant addressed us all. He seemed more confident now, as he explained to us that the plan was to conduct a short funeral service for our dead comrades and then to move on. Explaining that we did not have the time to have the road swept for mines and that if we were to make our next rendezvous in time, as dangerous as it was, we just had to press on.

  As the troop Commander of the dead crew, Lieutenant Davies made a short speech about the four blokes we’d just lost and then read a passage from the soldier’s prayer book. He gave the word and the bodies, still wrapped in the groundsheets were lowered into the ground. The graves were quickly filled in and marked, and then we all returned to our waiting vehicles.

  It was just before 17.30 when the column set off again, and to give him his due, the first vehicle behind Mickey Moore was still that of the Adjutant. The remainder of the drive to Douai took just under three hours. We made no more stops and in our truck not much was spoken in that time, we were all pretty tense wondering, naturally I suppose, if we were destined to suffer the same fate as Willis and his crew.

  When we reached the outskirts of the city we found that the MP’s had set up a check point. They directed us down the main road into the town to join other parts of our battalion who were in the yard of a bottling plant just off the main town square.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We spent three nights and two days in the town of Douai after which together with “B” battery we had moved out to our present position. We were now dug in, on the edge of a small wood, just outside the town of Marquion, overlooking the main road to Douai.

  All of our guns were spread out, just inside the edge of the wood, our trucks were parked more securely further inside. There was about twenty or thirty yards between each gun, depending on the fall of the terrain and behind each gun all of the crews had dug out shelters of various sorts and dimensions. We had dropped lucky in this respect, as right behind our gun position was a natural crater about five feet deep, twelve foot in length and seven foot across. We had found some substantial lengths of fallen trees inside the wood and had used these to build a roof over approximately eight foot of the hole, we’d then used smaller twigs and branches to form a sort of thatch, and finally we pilled about two foot of good Belgian soil over all of it. We had even found a length of abandoned old cast iron drainpipe that we had incorporated as a chimney, enabling us to use the stove in there. As a finishing touch, we had covered the open end with a tarpaulin, making the whole thing very snug.

  Things were very quiet here so the main use for the shelter had been as our sleeping quarters but nonetheless we were quite proud of it and it had attracted quite a few comments, most of which were derisory but we laughed them off in our cosy hide.

  Even though we could often hear shellfire and at night see the flashes from explosions, we were unaffected. Life in the few days we had been here had been generally pleasant enough, reminding me at times of the scout camps I’d enjoyed only a few years before.

  The spring weather was typical, with some wet mornings giving way to some warm afternoons. We had eaten well, thanks to supplementing the Army diet with local fare, bartered for usually in exchange for cigarettes but best of all we were in a routine. Soldiers liked routines, you knew where you were with routines; surprises you could keep them.

  So you might understand that we were not over happy when, just before the time for inspection, we saw Lieutenant Davies and two other Lieutenants from the other battery, pile into the Captain’s Austin 10 staff car and head off down the road towards Douai. For us this could mean an inspection by a Lieutenant from another troop or worse, by one from another battery who would definitely be out to gain points at our expense.

  In fact no such inspection took place; Jock Scott was called over to the command tent and returned to tell us to stand down until told otherwise. It was a fine day but we were obviously not allowed to, nor were we inclined to leave the cover of the trees, all our exploring so far had been carried out after dark.

  So we took the opportunity to do those little jobs, like washing socks, writing home, getting a haircut or maybe just taking a nap.

  The day was starting to cool down and dusk was fast approaching when our officers returned. The remaining officers who hadn’t been on the trip were called to the command tent where they remained for half an hour or so eventually coming out and returning to their troops. Lieutenant Davies gathered our entire troop together in a small clearing, just behind the C crew gun. Our troop was now down to C, B and D crews since last weeks incident.

  “Ok chaps this is what’s happening” said the Lieutenant, he had a cigarette in one hand and a broken branch in the other. Using the stick, he drew an oval in the dirt with a curved line next to it.

  “This is our wood and this is the road from Douai to Arras. At around lunch time tomorrow tanks of the guard’s armoured brigade and infantry support will be making a push towards Arras,” he moved the stick to show the direction.

  “They will be coming right through our lines; our job is to be ready to move up to support them, or to cover their retreat if things don’t go well. We are in a good position here to do either, so it looks as if we are going to see some action at last. You’ll be seeing plenty of me I’ll be at your side with one or other crew whatever happens, so good luck to you all. Unless there are any questions I suggest you make the most of your free time I’m betting things are going to get pretty busy.”

  “Can I ask a question sir?” said Fishy.

  “Of course Gunner Thomas, ask away.” replied Lieutenant Davies.

  “Well sir, how many tanks are going and just what’s at this Arras place, is that where the Germans are?”

  “Good questions. Ok, we expect about eighty tanks and as many as three infantry battalions, so this road’s going to get pretty, bloody, busy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some movement start tonight, perhaps to a mid-point between here and Arras. This, by the way, is only about fifteen kilometres away from where we are now. To answer the second part of your question, what’s at Arras? It is basically the Jerry spearhead, consisting of several Panzer brigades, a fair bit of infantry and we’re told several parachute brigades, so in short, a formidable enemy. Our job is to drive them back, or at the very least stop them coming any nearer. Ok if that’s all chaps, carry on and I’ll see you later.”

  With that he walked back towards the command tent.

  Extra guards were posted due to the enemies close proximity but fortunately our crew were not involved. So heeding the Lieutenant’s warning, we made the most of our free time. Thinking we may be awakened early by the infantry divisions passing through we decided to make an early night of it and around about 21.30 hours we got settled down for the nig
ht in our dugout.

  It turned out the Lieutenant had been wrong, nothing disturbed us until at 06.30am, Harry decided to answer a call of nature, which as we were all so tightly packed caused most of us to wake up.

  An hour later we were all washed shaved and dressed and we had tinned bacon sizzling away on the stove and the water on for a brew.

  Nothing much happened then until about 11.30 when the first of the infantry divisions began to appear.

  Marching down the road and whistling Tipperary they were not, this was modern warfare and these blokes were being ferried at speed by the RAOC in their Bedford QL three tonners.

  The procession seemed never ending and the noise increased as empty trucks started to come back in the opposite direction on the way to pick up their next load of passengers. This was a big operation, three thousand men needed to be moved quickly to where they were most needed.

  This movement was continual but started to slow down in its intensity after about an hour or so. Then we heard another even more unfamiliar sound as the tanks came down the road. They were led by half a dozen cruisers, followed by the rest which were the more common lightweights, all speeding down the road towards Arras.

  We watched them go through, with more than a tinge of pride. This must give Jerry a bloody nose, this should stop him, we thought, waving to the tank Commanders as they stood smartly in their turrets.

  Just before 14.00, the road had become quiet again, we waited expectantly for some sign that the battle had started. Then off over to our right, we heard the sound of our own 25 pounders, as our field guns opened up with a barrage. They were too far away for us to be able to see any muzzle-flashes, but it sounded good to us on this fine, spring afternoon. Occasionally we heard sharper cracks, which we guessed were made by smaller calibre guns, probably from the tanks. We could also see different coloured very lights which I guessed were telling the infantry troops to move backwards or forwards, or both? Really we hadn’t got a clue what was going on and judging by the activity outside the Command tent, neither had our officers, who were pacing up and down, occasionally lifting their field glasses in the general direction of Arras.