C. Operation Pistol C2

OPERATION PISTOL C 2

----------------------

Report by Cpl. Hill G.C.

We dropped on the night of 15/16th Sep at 23.55 hrs at

Q 410420. The plane was going from south-east to north-west. The

stick was dispersed and I contacted S.Q.M.S. Alcock and Cpl. Hannah.

Search parties were sent out for the rest of the stick and Fawthorpe and

Edwards found Capt. Scott and Lieut. Grumbach, as well as Edwards and

Cockburn.

The planes did not return, as arranged, to drop the panniers

to a signal of D for Drop.

The party consisting of the following, then set off:

Capt. Scott. S.Q.M.S. Alcock

Lieut.Grumbach Cpl. Hannah.

Cpl. Hill.

Pct. Fawthorpe. (The remainder of S.Q.M.S.

Spr. Edwards. Alcock's stick had not made

Pct. Cockburn. contact at that time.)

Capt. Scott told S.Q.M.S. Alcock to go round the D.Z. once more

to look for the remainder of his party.

As our party was complete we then moved off on our own. Capt.

Scott was absolutely crippled and could not carry his kit as his ankle

was very badly sprained. His kit was shared amongst the stick, but in

spite of this he had a terrible time when he moved and I don't know how

he managed to move at all. We marched to the railway at Q 445427 but

Capt. Scott could not cross it, so we returned to the dike which we had

crossed and which appeared to be a suitable lying-up place.

On the way there we picked up another of S.Q.M.S. Alcock's

party, Pct. Marczak, who was seen by Pct. Fawthorpe.

We all slept that night, and in the morning at about 06.00 hrs

Bancroft and Wheeler also joined the party. They had been heard by Capt.

Scott who recognised their voices and whistled to them.

The party was by now nine strong and we lay up all day on the

16th in the same place. Capt. Scott then decided to move into the wood

at Q 423408; we stayed there and it rained heavily all night. In the

morning we moved deeper into the wood to Q 435405. During the night about

twelve trains passed by on the railway, and during the day two small

passenger trains passed.

Capt. Scott's leg went black up to his knee and his foot and

ankle were badly swollen. Fawthorpe bandaged it up with some sticky tape.

On the night of the 17/18th, Fawthorpe and Lieut. Grumbach,

together with Marczak, went to find out the name of the nearby village

as we knew we were in the wrong area. The people in the village were

frightened and would not answer. The party returned and another wet

night was spent in the wood.

We found out later that the name of the village was Hazenbourg.

On the 18th recce parties went out and found fortifications

being built in the shape of tank traps and slit trenches from Q 435400 to

Q 437390. A pillbox was seen at Q 423436, built to face north and west.

The morale of the fortification workers was very high and they kept us

awake at night with their singing.

That night we moved to Q 382392, and lay up there during the

day of the 19th. Rations were getting very low and we had little more

than the 24 hour escape ration left. During the day Capt. Scott

decided to split the party into two as follows:

Capt. Scott. Cpl. Hill.

Lieut. Grumbach. Pct. Fawthorpe.

Pct. Cockburn. Pct. Marczak.

Pct. Edwards. Pct. Bancroft.

Pct. Wheeler.

Capt. Scott was to go north and my party south. Capt. Scott intended

to blow the three railways to the north and my party was to blow those

to the south.

That night we moved down to Q 330331 to watch the railway.

We watched it until nightfall on the 20th and saw no traffic whatsoever.

The rails were rusty and we laid no charges.

On the 21st at 03.00 hrs we moved to a wood south of Benestroff,

Q 285325, with the object of looking for petrol dumps. We did not find any.

Also during the day we recced the single track railway to the west which

was also rusty. This line was observed until nightfall but,as there was

no traffic, again no charges were laid.

On the morning of the 22nd we moved to Q 225305, and during the

day we recced the roads to the west and north, but saw very little transport.

One convoy of about 20 trucks seen by Fawthorpe seemed to be an ordnance

unit moving.

On the evening of the same day we moved to the wood at

Q 175308 to observe our last railway target. By that time we had been

two days without food, having refrained from entering a village for food

where there was transport, and we wanted to blow our targets before

contacting any civilian. The farm La Moulelette was recced but Germans

were seen moving in and out.

Bancroft and Fawthorpe were feeling very weak so we found an

empty farm at Q 170299, previously occupied by German troops. The

villages of Burlencourt and Dedeling were occupied by the enemy. The

railway was still rusty.

We stayed at the farm until morning on the 25th but were

unable to dry our clothes which had been soaked for over a week. We

then moved to our last objective, the recce of gun sites near the front.

We proceeded south-west along the road to the level crossing

at Q 134275, and then along the railway to avoid the river. We then

went down the northern side hoping to reach the American lines that night.

Fawthorpe managed to cross the river but fell in while doing

so. He saw some suspicious lights and recrossed the river to rejoin the

party.

We then recrossed the railway and moved West of the farm at

Q 111260 and ran into the American barrage. German guns also opened up

and the party doubled, zig-zagging to the farm at Q 118248, but did not

stay as it appeared to be occupied. We moved off to a bush near the

road and lay up in good cover.

During the night there were horse patrols which passed within

a yard of the party on the road to Morville-les-Vic.

On the 28th we spent a miserable day in the pouring rain.

Fawthorpe was still soaking from his ducking of the night before. Soon

all were soaked to the skin and had no food whatsoever. Occasional

vehicles passed on the road and at about 12.00 hrs troops came down the

road from the village, marching in aircraft formation. They were about

200 strong and apparently moving into the line. They were Germans and

looked 1st class troops with good clothes and equipment; they had an

American ¾ ton truck with them.

That night I decided to make for the farm we had passed the

night before, and try to get dry. This we did and stayed there the night

in an open barn covering a haystack.

The next morning, two people appeared just as Fawthorpe was

wringing a chicken's neck. Thinking we were Germans they made a terrific

fuss. Our interpreter found out that they were Polish, and after some

talk they prepared some food for which we paid a large sum. They bought

the food at black market prices and we paid them in francs, telling them

they would get it back when the Americans arrived. The woman was very good

and brought us food every day, even when Germans were in the yard below

the loft to which we moved.

The German troops were mostly Ukrainian and used to scrounge

what they could from the farm which they used every day while we were

there. We were lucky not to be found.

We stayed there until the night of the 2/3rd October, and

during that time we did recces at night of the gun positions and also

made a general nuisance of ourselves by cutting telephone wires between

the various gun sites. We noticed that a great deal of the enemies guns

were moved by horses, and that they moved very frequently, each gun had

an alternative position about 500 yards away.

On the night of the 2nd we did not intend to leave and were

cooking a meal in the German cookhouse, as we were in the habit of doing.

After the Germans had left our morale was improving with the additional

food we were getting. Unfortunately a considerable number of Germans

moved into the farm that night and we had to move out quickly. We

proceeded south, hoping to contact the Americans and pass on our inform-

ation about the guns, which we could see were giving the Americans

considerable trouble.

We waded the river at Q 099211, dodging Germans who were moving

about in their forward positions the whole time.

We contacted the Americans at 22.45 hrs on the 3rd October. In

the morning I went up to their forward positions in a tank and gave exact

information as to the enemy's gun emplacements and alternative positions.

The Americans were very pleased to get the information as the

guns were holding them up.