Embedded Files
I know that when I have revisited a battlefield, either the landscape has mysteriously shifted or my memory has played me false. At Briqessarde, scene of fierce fighting in Normandy, surely the wood was on the left of the stream, not the right? And what has happened to those nearby hills that overlooked us?
Despite this, I hope that these memoirs reflect the essential truth of my experience. Certainly, I have made no attempt to falsify or to gloss over things I would rather have forgotten. The same cannot always be said of official histories or the memoirs of Generals. If the reader sets down my memoirs with the impression that I acquitted myself with exceptional credit or heroism, then I have sadly misled the reader.
Much of what follows will be boring, except to students of military history. Especially towards the end of the campaign in north west Europe, the sequence of sharp skirmishes, determined rearguard actions by the enemy, and the resumption of the advance, must sound repetitious, as indeed it was. The general reader is encouraged to skip these passages.
Some of the events recorded, and many of the place names, will evoke echoes among those who lived through the war. To younger readers, the names of such places as Alamein, Tobruk, and Benghazi, will sound as dry as the fine dust to which they were reduced. Though the memory of the Normandy landing has been kept alive by book and film, few to-day will have heard of the more precarious landing at Salerno. To us there will always be a strange magic in the names of places where we fought together with our comrades. I have stood in tears in the memorial chapel to the Durham Light Infantry in the majesty of Durham Cathedral, reading the list of battle honours in which my regiment shared.
There are also names of military formations which constantly recur and which cannot now evoke to others the resonances that reverberate in the author's memory. Chief among them is the Seventh Armoured Division, the legendary Desert Rats, in which I had the privilege to serve. And the elite of that Division, the Eleventh Hussars (the Cherrypickers), whose exploits in Libya were matched only by those of the Long Range Desert Group. As to the enemy formations, although the names of some SS Units live on in infamy, no-one to-day will remember our familiar foes, the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, or the elusive 90th Light. These dry names and numbers conjure up proud or disquieting memories that I cannot hope to convey to the reader.
The same is true for the names of the weapons so frequently mentioned — particularly those of the enemy. To read of encountering an 88 millimeter gun, or a group of Tiger or Panther tanks, in the path of our advance — this cannot convey to the reader the thrill of excitement and fear engendered by the first warnings of looming death and destruction radioed from the leading armoured cars ofthe Cherrypickers.
Finally, there is one overwhelming shadow that I can have no hope of impressing on the reader, even if I were to repeat it on every page. We look back now on a war well won, and the survivors are enjoying a peaceful old age in the security of a Britain, no longer a great power, but still - with all its imperfections - a free democracy. For most of the period of these memoirs, this seemed an improbable outcome. Until the autumn of 1944 we did not know whether the war would be won. And those of us who were fighting were never sure of surviving the hazards of the battlefield: there were times when it seemed unlikely.
Unlike that of 1914-18, our war did not wipe out a generation, but many died, including two of my dearest friends, Brian James and Michael Brett. I must now be the only person to mourn them. To you, airmen Brian and Michael, with love and sadness, I dedicate these memoirs.
I have therefore relied mainly on my own memory. Some events may have been misplaced in space or time, for memory plays strange tricks. After a time, we are recalling, not the event, but its memory, or the memory of a memory. Errors creep into the chain. There is a training exercise designed to show the importance of sending written orders in the heat of battle. The squad is lined up a few yards apart and a message is given to the first soldier, passes successively by word of mouth to the end of the line. The usual joke about this, dating from the 1914-18 war, is that ‘Send me reinforcements, I am going to advance’ ends up as ‘Lend me three and fourpence, I am going to a dance’. In practice, the distortions are much greater. I wonder if the chain of memories gives rise to similar errors.
These are recollections of my war service in the infantry (briefly) and the artillery from 1940 to 1945. There are a few memories recorded at either end of this period. The memoirs were written in the years 1994 to 1996, and revised in 1999. Much must have forgotten in the intervening half century.
Where possible, I have checked the military background with war histories, official and otherwise. I kept no diary — it was forbidden - and no letters home have survived, except for an uninformative Christmas card of 1943. In any case, soldiers’ mail was censored and we were warned never to give any clue as to our whereabouts or activities. Letters from the front which I have seen in the Imperial War Museum express concern with the safety and welfare of family enduring the dangers and hardships of the home front and give little news of the writers.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse