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Letter from Lt Alasdair Gordon, 3 Scots Guards
Letter from Lt Alasdair Gordon of Right Flank Squadron, 3 Scots Guards, following the Battle of Winnenkendonk
315264 Lt DAS Gordon
3rd Bn Scots Guards
BLA
Sunday March 19th, 1945
My dearest Mum,
I have three letters to thank you for, all of which arrived in the last week. In your letter of March 4th you asked two questions – do you remember them? The first I answered myself in my last letter. The answer to the second is yes.
We are now sitting back on our bottoms waiting for the next stage of proceedings and spending most of our time getting the tanks in good order and resuscitating German cars for our own use. The junior officers of the squadron now have a resplendent Mercedes-Benz to go visiting in, such as would put Montgomery and his Rolls Bentley to shame!
I hope the doodlebugs and various V weapons have eased off again by now.
Yes, on the first occasion the tank I was in was bogged and hit and things were very hot, so I gave the order to bale out. They were even hotter outside as they were using what they call Nebelwerfer or we call Moaning Minnies on us; they are multiple rocket mortars which make a bloodcurdling moaning noise as they come at you. However, apart from a bit of a shaking we all got away allright.
The second time – only two days later – I was leading troop in an attack on a small town (Winnekendonk); when I was crossing a wide open piece of ground a tp of SP antitank guns opened up on us. I was hit five times in quick succession, but luckily nothing came right through although the turret was unmovable and the engine was put out of action. The tank on my right was brewed up (caught fire) and the crew (including Pipe Major Smith also from Skye) were machine gunned as they tried to get out. I pressed my local smoke which for a short time gives a very thick smoke screen – waited for it to thicken up then gave the order to abandon tank again. By this time the third tank of the troop has thought discretion the better part of valour and had abandoned tank and gone for cover. I got out of the tank quicker than I thought humanly possible, took a nose dive out of the tank and lay down by the bogies while spandau bullets went overhead with a ping-ping-ping-ping noise. I crawled to the ditch beside the road much better than I ever thought possible at Sandhurst! The rest of the crew got into a slit trench, which I had overlooked. Later on when things had died down a bit we took the tp Cpls tank and went on to the objective.
Now that we are static again and some way behind the line looting has become a serious offense, so we now have to live on army rations again, although I must say that we do very well and now have a squadron mess.
The weather has been superb, really hot and sunny, but today it is cold and raw.
Much love from Alasdair