LETTERS FROM DEREK BELLAMY

Derek Bellamy was a wireless-operator in B Squadron 9 RTR, and his period of service with the 9^th was from 1943 to 1945. On the last day of 1996 he was in his local library at Swaffham, Norfolk, and saw to his astonishment a copy of Tank Tracks. He contacted Peter Beale through Sutton Publishing, and the result was an exchange of letters between Derek and Peter.

Derek’s letters contain very interesting memories of his time in the army generally and with the 9^th in particular. The letters have been slightly edited, and have also been enhanced by the inclusion of photos of some of the people he mentions. Unfortunately the only picture of Derek himself is from a photo of the whole of B Squadron, and its quality is much below what one would like. However, it does put a face to the name.

The sequence of letters was as follows:

30 Dec 1996: Derek sees Tank Tracks in Swaffham Library

1 Jan 1997 : Derek writes Letter 1 to send to Peter when he knows his address

2 Jan 1997 : Derek writes to Suttons to ask for Peter’s address

5 Jan 1997 : Derek writes Letter 2 to send when he receives address

7 Jan 1997 : Suttons send Derek’s request and address to Peter

7 Jan 1997 : Suttons write to Derek to tell him what they have done

13 Jan 1997 : Peter receives Suttons letter and writes to Derek

23 Jan 1997 : Derek sends Peter his letters of 1 and 5 Jan plus Letter 3

28 Jan 1997 : Peter responds to Derek’s letters of 1, 5, and 23 Jan

2 Feb 1997 : Derek sends Letter 4

There was no more correspondence, and regrettably Derek died in his late 70s, not long after writing the letter of 2 Feb 1997.

Letter 1, 1 Jan 1997

15 Ash Close

Swaffham, Norfolk

Dear Peter Beale,

Yesterday I was in the public library in this small town – to enjoy a little warmth on a bitterly cold day, if the truth were told – when, to my utter astonishment, I saw your book ‘Tank Tracks’, and then the sub-title, ‘9^th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment at War 1940-1945’.

To see so many familiar faces after 53 years was a rather moving experience. You must have spent a great deal of time in piecing together the story; many of the incidents that are recalled in this account have a familiar ring. I remember you very well; I have frequently ‘thrown you one up’ as I passed you in the camp.

On page 18 mention is made of Brian Marchant’s arrival at Hall’s Place and his reception when he entered the Nissen hut. I, too, came from the 58^th Training Regiment in 1943 and was also confounded by the stark difference. In fact, because I walked in a soldierly manner ( I couldn’t unlearn the 58^th regimentation in a trice) I received from Sgt Nuttall, the cook, a sobriquet that stuck to me for the rest of my time with the 9^th.

As I approached the counter for my food, he announced for all to hear that ‘rigor mortis’ had set in; that I was standing in a vertical stance made no difference. The nickname was eventually abbreviated to Rigger, and then to Rig. Soon the origin of the name became lost in the mists of army existence; but the name stuck.

I shall re-read the book more slowly; but I have already seen the name Sammy Linton mentioned. The unheavenly twins, Sammy Linton and Jack Shepherd; if you found one, you found the other, a couple of rogues but somehow loveable. I used to run a sort of bank; I didn’t spend a lot of cash at Hall’s Place ( how could you?), and a few chaps used to run short of money before payday. Two of my regulars were Sammy and Jack; and I never lost a single penny from them or anyone else.

Poor Ken Virgo, such a brave man. At Hall’s Place he used to have nightmares and walk in his sleep. Did you know this? He used to shout and behave quite strangely.

The tank park at Charing. I seem to remember that on one occasion ‘Terry’ Terrington had left a shell ‘up the spout’ of the six-pounder (to balance the gun’ when the shout went up “Tea Break!” Terry forgot everything and streaked off to the café that was, I believe, owned by the Red Dean (Hewlett Johnson), and at whose establishment one could buy super sandwiches and cups of char. On our return to the tank park strange things had taken place. Some troop officer had popped his head into the turret and spotted a cocked striker at the breech of the gun. Did that troop officer ‘prove’ the gun before he dropped down to pull the trigger? He did not. The tank on the other side of the concrete apron was side-on to Terrington’s tank. What a mercy that the shell removed only one of the tank’s bogies.

Do you remember the incident? I can recall a bit of banter on the truck going home to camp. ‘They can’t charge you, Terry old lad, because the gun wasn’t bleedin’ proved before it was ****ing fired’.

Yes, I recall I was doing a tank park guard one night. At one point I slid down into the driver’s seat of one of the tanks, lowered the hatches, and slumbered. I was aroused by voices calling for the guard. Slowly, inch by inch, I raised half of the hatch (noisy bloody things, weren’t they?) and waited for the voices to recede. Then, softly, softly, I rose from the depths, quietly dropped to the ground and marched smartly to the sound of the voices. My explanation of my eagerness to investigate a noise, and hence my absence, was accepted and all was well.

I wasn’t a very good soldier – obedient and willing – but not a very good soldier. I could see so much humour in the situations. For instance Len Saxton (wounded at Colleville on 29 June 44), who was in the same hut at Hall’s Place, always became ‘stick man’ when he paraded for guard duty at HQ. He spent endless time in preparing, polishing, and burnishing boots, and in pressing his battledress. His mother used to press his trousers and tunic and send them by post in time for his guard duty.

On the evening of his duty other fellows would lift him bodily on to the back of the three-tonner (driver ‘Sandy’ Sanders was a great help here) so that Len didn’t have to flex his knees and thereby destroy those razor-sharp creases! But it was all worth it. Within the hour Len was back all smiles, and ready to return the uniform to Mum for the next guard. Hilarious.

When he was hit in the groin by a bit of shrapnel at Colleville he shouted out: ‘What about my old man – is it alright?’ After the war I visited his home in Balham where his people ran a greengrocery business; very pleasant people.

Your experiences were indeed hair-raising. The terrible affair at Brettevillette on the recce shocked everybody. I had served a spell on the half-track with the fitters as a wireless-op, and had got to know Sgt Nicholls and Cpl Dyer quite well.

I recall that at that time our morale was very low because we realized our tanks were grossly under-gunned, and that the German Tiger and Panther were vastly superior with their squeezed 75mm and dreaded 88mm. I remember a knocked-out Panther being towed into the area and left about 200 yards away. One of our tanks then fired shot at it to prove that the Panther’s armour could in fact be penetrated. All we saw was our AP shot ricocheting off – no penetrations.

At this time I had rejoined a crew. I cannot remember the names of the driver and co-driver, but the gunner was Eric Bunce. Shortly before my sudden exit from Normandy I was lying beneath the tank at night with Lieut Stone. He asked me at one point: ‘How long do you think this is going to last, Bellamy?’ He was such a pleasant man; no histrionics, nothing gung-ho about him.

On 13 August 1944 I was preparing a fire for the ‘nosh-up’, and had my head well over the petrol fire flames while they were taking hold, when there was an explosion and it blew up in my face. Beneath the fire there must have been hidden a phosphorus bomb and the fire had ignited it.

Back to Bayeux, then on to a Dakota, then to Swindon en route to Grantham Hospital. I didn’t rejoin the squadron until just before Christmas 1944 at Geilenkirchen. The first officer I met was Lieut Peter Bracewell whom I knew as a trainee at the 58^th. I had been retarded twice because of injury and illness; started with intake 39 and finished with intake 42.

I do hope you will forgive me for rambling on like this; I’m sure you will. Gronau over the Dutch border was a magical kind of place. I remember knocking bricks out of a wall with a German Schmeisser pistol we had found somewhere. All those refugees flooding back home! Those twisted railway lines from the Allied bombing!

I left the squadron at Mettingen to join the Intelligence Corps. I eventually finished my army service as a sergeant with 273 Field Security, which had by then become 51 Intelligence Team in Nienburg an der Weser. I was demobbed in April 1947 – and I didn’t want to go home one little bit.

Your book is so well edited and beautifully indexed. This particular copy has already been well read, judging by the lending stamps. In fact, from 17 August 1995 until 21 January 1997, the return date for my loan, there have been 30 entries.

Before I end this letter, there is one incident at Hall’s Place that was amusing. In the Nissen hut someone used to snore like a hippo. It used to wake me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I had a top bunk at this time, and it was summertime. It was before the introduction of the jerry cans, and we were still using the four-gallon square petrol tins. They had many uses, didn’t they? One day I took an empty tin back with me to the hut and placed it out of sight under my pillow on the top bunk. In the middle of the night the snoring started. In the darkness I sat up slowly and took the petrol tin from behind my pillow and aimed it at the chimney of the stove in the middle of the hut. The noise was shattering. The snoring ceased, the whole was roused and investigations began in the darkness to find the source of the noise. While all this commotion was in progress I went to sleep, the only one in that hut with an easy mind.

Well, I do wish you well. Do you know who fired that gun in the tank park at Charing?

Sincerely yours, Derek Bellamy (Rigor mortis)

Letter 2, 5 Jan 1997 Swaffham, Norfolk

While waiting to get your address in Australia from your publishers I thought I would add a little more. I do this assuming you have the time and interest to read it; presumably you are now retired and about the 75 year mark.

My arrival at B Squadron in 1943 wasn’t particularly easy, because my voice must have betrayed a public school background. I found it a good policy to keep the mouth shut as much as possible until the other squaddies trusted me. I found them all to be quite super chaps.

My father had told me to apply for a commission. I, in deference to him, made that promise although I hadn’t the least desire for such a course of action. Nevertheless, a promise is a promise, especially when one’s parents are involved. So I duly appeared before Major Warren in his office at Hall’s Place.

Having been marched into the rather cramped office, Major Warren opened the proceedings with: ‘Now, Bellamy, what’s all this about wanting to become an officer?’ I thought at the time he had spoken with some asperity. I had already thought out the reply: ‘Well sir, my father asked me to ask you the question, and that I have now done. But I do not want a commission. I have carried the promise I made to my father, and that is all I wanted to do. I am sorry for the trouble it has caused you.’ ‘Dismiss.’

I well remember the scheme that took place on the South Downs above Brighton, especially Ditchling Beacon. I recall that I was in the troop that included Corporal Fred Hackett. It was a cold, wet, and miserable scheme. Late one afternoon we were suffering from hunger. One or two of the lads had found a considerable quantity of mushrooms. The problem was that we had nothing left with which we could eat them. After some thought it was decided to carry out a light raid on the cook’s store which was at the bottom of a steep hill.

Two of us took part. Fortunately the food store was under canvas and the tent was against a hedge of some sort. Our hands beneath the canvas found butter and bread. Stuffing these commodities inside our battledress and under our arms we sloped away up the hill and back to the troop. What a meal Cpl Hackett made! Mushrooms fried in butter and thickly loaded on to the bread chunks – what a supper! We were not closely questioned about the source of the food by anyone (nobody but the immediate crew members knew), and all that mattered was that we were the only troop that went to bed that night with full stomachs.

While at Charing I took part in a wireless-operator’s course run by Cpl Reg Southern. I suppose it was the voice that determined my being pushed towards being a wireless-op, but I would have made a better driver because I had mechanical leanings and what is described as mechanical sympathy. Incidentally, although the Churchill gearbox was reckoned to be very difficult, one of B Squadron’s drivers, Cpl Laurie Lawrence, could change gear in his tank on the flat without using the clutch.

Personally I thought the Churchill was appallingly designed. My memory might well deceive me, but I have an impression that when the turret was traversed so that the skirt of the turret partially covered the hatches over the driver and co-driver’s heads, both of those hatches were effectively sealed. I seem to remember experimenting with this in the tank park at Charing.

The method of ‘laying on’ the gun always seemed to be so ham-fisted – supporting the balance on the shoulder. Everything about the fighting compartment was designed to infuriate. And the dragging of bits of trees between the track upper surface and the turret gear teeth thus reducing the main armament to impotence should have been foreseen by the designers and designed out.

The vertical surfaces of the armour plate were totally absurd. A tank had to have the thickness of armour of a Tiger or the sloping sides of a Panther. When tanks have the role of infantry support, as the Churchill did, and when the speeds across terrain were slow, thick armour and guns of effective calibre were imperative. The Churchill had neither. The loss of life as a consequence always troubled me over the years.

I was sitting in a pub in Harrogate in the 1970s (I lived in Ilkley) drinking a quiet pint or two when a total stranger next to me engaged me in a conversation about tanks – I cannot recall what he had been reading in the newspaper open in front of him. During the chat I said to him that, in my personal opinion, the designers of the Churchill tank and the officials who sanctioned its production should have been arraigned as war criminals. He said: ‘ I helped to build those tanks!’ He was not amused. He rose to get another drink and didn’t rejoin me at the table.

I shared the kind of fate experienced by Jack Woods as spare crew. I was always being shoved here, there, and everywhere; a kind of supernumerary, standing by to fill gaps occasioned by bods on leave, sick or what have you. So it is difficult for me to remember the number of the troop I was in at any one time.

That laager at Fontenay-le-Pesnil (I think some of the more imaginative called it ‘fountain pen and penis’) was memorable for that dreadful experience you witnessed at Brettevillette, and for the demonstration shoot at the Panther; both of these depressed everyone. After the demo we had been cleaning the gun and had left it with the muzzle pointing downwards, like a drooping finger. We were sitting having some grub facing the tank; the whole group was gloomy and silent. I said: ‘Everybody seems cheesed off, and look, even the gun’s depressed.’ The remark was not calculated to amuse, but it cause an outburst of laughter and later, to my surprise, the unforced humour spread like wildfire through the squadron. I felt good that I had inadvertently done something to make people feel better.

After having those phosphorus burns on 13 August during the fire making duties, I was taken to Bayeux where I found myself with hardly any hair, burns on the face and arms, and a blood plasma drip stuck into my left arm. The casualty clearing station was a large tent with soldiers from various units with all kinds of injuries. Some time lateer I was taken to an airfield where there was a Dakota with a New Zealand pilot asleep across the tailplane – funny the things you notice at such a time. He woke up to fly the plane across the Channel. As I mentioned earlier, I rejoined the squadron at Geilenkirchen just before Christmas 1944, and met the troop, and Lieut Bracewell, in a smoke-filled cellar.

I hope this missive reaches you. It has been very interesting to read your book which is very well produced and edited and beautifully indexed. It must have taken a lot of labour and a few years to complete. Anyway, I should like to thank you for your endeavour, and give you a handshake across the miles to the Antipodes.

Best wishes

Derek Bellamy

Letter from Peter Beale to Derek Bellamy, 13 Jan 1997

39 Bilwara Ave

Bilgola Plateau

NSW 2107

Dear Mr Bellamy (sorry, but I can’t remember your Christian name),

Very pleased to get your letter through Jonathan Falconer of Sutton Publishing. Not being sure whether you are in touch with any ex 9^th people, I would like to bring you up to date, and please excuse any repetition of what you already know.

The Qui s’y frotte Association (QSFA) has been going more or less continuously since the war ended, with ups and downs from time to time. For the last few years it has been going very strongly with Ray Gordon, ex A Squadron, acting as a very competent secretary. QSFA has an Annual Reunion at Charing, generally in early June. The next reunion will be on 7 June 1997, with a church service at Charing at 1.0 pm to be followed by a social get-together at somewhere close by as yet to be decided. Last year there were just over 80 people present, 48 veterans and the rest families and friends – three of my grandchildren were there!

Unfortunately Ray has had to give up the position of Secretary due to ill-health, and my wife Shirley is standing in as Secretary for the time being, and as President I am helping her. We will arrange for you to get a copy of the next Newsletter.

I’m afraid I can’t remember which troop you were in – having written that a memory came that you were mentioned in one of the wartime Newsletters, and sure enough you were in the 8 Troop news for the Jan 1945 issue. Would be very pleased to hear from you, and to know your Christian name, what you did in 8 Troop, and what has happened to you since. I rediscovered the QSFA in 1991, and Shirley and I were at the reunions of 1992, 1994, and 1996. Started to write Tank Tracks in 1992, and it was finally published two and a half years later! Have just finished writing another book called ‘Death by Design: the fate of British tank crews in WWII’.

Looking forward to hearing from you, and with very best wishes,

Peter Beale

Letter 3, 23 Jan 1997 Swaffham, Norfolk

Dear Peter,

I was very happy to receive your letter in response to the short message to Sutton Publishing. I am not in contact with any of the fellows from the 9^th, although I made one or two attempts by means of BBC Radio 2 some years back. One of the drivers, Tom Langdon, visited me after demob, and I called on him at his home in Streatham, South London, but thereafter we lost contact. I did, in fact, attend his wedding in 1948.

I also had contact in the immediate aftermath of the war with Gordon Resker, who was a corporal in the office at Mettingen in 1945. He too visited me in Petts Wood, Kent, and I made a trip to Walthamstow to see him; after that we lost contact. Gordon was a very musical chap, and also rather unhappy at that time. His wife had deserted him during his absence and it had upset him greatly.

I was surprised to hear of the existence of the QSFA. I have answered, in anticipation, some of the questions in your letter in my missive to you. I do have, somewhere, a small photo taken in London while on leave. I have found my old beret and badge and the QSF badge, together with the memorial service booklet dated 17 June 1945.

I was most interested to read in your letter of your book ‘Death by Design’. I will look forward to its publication with much interest. As I think I mentioned in my letter to you, I left the 9^th at Mettingen and was transferred to the Intelligence Corps – the Army does make mistakes. I completed a course in Paderborn and from there joined 273 Field Security in Nienburg an der Weser. It was an interesting time involving, among other things, tracking down ex SS personnel and bringing them in.

For many years my hearing has become progressively worse and now I have almost no hearing in my right ear; the hearing in the left ear is about 45% now. I have had one or two operations on the right ear and have a permanent grommet stuck in the eardrum. It doesn’t help, really. People tire of those with hearing difficulties, and I have tended to shun company over the years. I have a hearing aid which I use when conversing one to one. When in the company of people all talking things become quite impossible; it is rather like trying to understand what a person is saying in the presence of a battery of 25-pounders blazing away.

I married quite late in life in 1962. My daughter was born in the autumn of 1963, and when she was three weeks old the family moved to Leeds in Yorkshire. My wife had been married before, and I had a five-year old stepson. In 1967 we moved to Ilkley, and lived just at the foot of the moor. In 1976 my wife deserted me, and I had little option but to divorce her in 1977. I lost interest in things for a long while after that, moving to Harrogate and then to Bournemouth to be near kith and kin. I have been here in Swaffham for a short while, moving from Bournemouth in March 1995. I live quite alone, but the neighbours are helpful and kind. My home is a nineteenth century cottage; at least I have no passing traffic; in Bournemouth it was becoming unbearable.

At Hall’s Place the hut in which I was housed was next to the latrines. I was reflecting on this period the other day when the images of Eisen, the little Jewish chap, and Saltmarsh dropped into my mind. They bore the burden of the description ‘shithouse wallahs’ – but they did the job well. I remember I was having supper in the dining hut on a summer evening, and Saltmarsh was sitting opposite me. As we ate our Welsh rarebit he suddenly produced a letter, pushed it across the table to me, and said: ‘Read it, it’s a letter from home.’ I said that I didn’t really want to read his private correspondence, but he insisted. So I began to read it, silently. ‘No, no!’ he exclaimed, ‘read it out loud.’ Then the penny dropped, and I read it to him. I did wonder at times how it was possible to enlist if you couldn’t read.

I should be very happy to receive the Newsletter if this can be arranged. Thank you so much for writing, it brings back such a lot of memories.

Best wishes, yours sincerely,

Derek Bellamy (rigor mortis!)

Letter from Peter to Derek, 28 Jan 1997 Bilgola Plateau, NSW

Dear Derek/Rigger,

Thank you very much for your most interesting and amusing letters, which Shirley and I read with great pleasure. We were amazed at the popularity of Tank Tracks at your local library – perhaps the borrowers could be persuaded to buy copies! A few comments on items in your letters.

Ken Virgo was a very brave but highly-strung chap. Your recollection was quite correct, and on the first occasion he had the duty of Orderly Sergeant he was determined to carry out his tasks to the letter. The first morning he had to rouse the squadron at reveille, he did so with a stentorian shout of ‘wakey, wakey’ repeated several times. Everyone tumbled out of bed, and then someone said: ‘It’s a bit dark, isn’t it?’ It was indeed, because it was 2 am. They went and checked with Ken, and found that he had given this almighty bellow in his sleep!

I can tell you the real story of the shot-off bogie in the tank park because I was the troop leader, and the person totally responsible. It was 8 Troop, and Reg Terrington was my wireless-op. We were balancing the gun, which as you remember had to be done with a round up the spout for the fighting balance. For some reason Reg left the tank before Norman Fraser (the gunner) and I had started on the task. Norman got out and went somewhere else. I got out to go for a leak, and Reg came back. Seeing the striker off he put it back on and released the mechanism. ‘Bang!!’ At that moment I returned to see the gun fire, and then Reg’s face appeared from his hatch with an expression of utter consternation which I can still see! Besides the bogie being shot off – which Nicky Nicholls and his fitters quickly repaired – the round had passed through the wooden bung we used to put in the barrel to keep it watertight. This had jammed the flash eliminator solidly on to the barrel, and in spite of all our efforts the gun finally had to go to Brigade Workshops.

I reported all this to Bob Warren, and told him that I was solely to blame for the unfortunate occurrence. I was then marched in to the CO, who gave me an initial rollicking and told me the matter would be taken to the Brigadier. Fortunately the Brigadier’s comment evidently was: ‘He’ll be firing it in earnest before too long, so we’ll forget it.’ A close shave! But there you have the full story from the inside.

You spoke of John Stone and Len Saxton, so I think you must have been in 7 Troop for a while. John was the troop leader of 7 from about Jan 1943 to June 1945, and was the only troop leader in B Squadron to last the whole campaign without injury. His sergeant was Fred Hackett and his corporal Bob Mann. Others in 7 Troop besides Len were: Sammy Linton, Jack Shepherd, Wally Tooley, Boyce Dunsford, Johnnie Foden, Eric Stocks, Les Radley, Bill Saunders, and Taffy Gilbert. All of these were in a photo taken at Stalisfield in April 1944.

Your thoughts on the Churchill tank are in part expressed in the book ‘Death by Design’. My views are not quite so damning as yours, but certainly there was an incredible amount of bad management in the design and production of British tanks. You may know that the first really good modern British tank, the Centurion, was delivered as six pilot models to the Guards Armoured Div one week after the war ended. Well done!

Would like to hear more of your recollections, and Shirley and I both commented what a pity it was that we did not have your vivid contributions before the writing started.

We both send very best wishes to you and yours,

Sincerely, Peter

Letter 4, 2 Feb 1997 Swaffham, Norfolk

Dear Peter,

It is so good of you to take so much trouble to write to me; I do appreciate it very much indeed. I take it to heart that you write in longhand, and do not, as I do, use the typewriter. It is reckoned not to be polite to use a machine when writing a personal letter; my excuse is always the same – I consider the feelings of the recipient in that the words are at least legible.

After a small preparatory school in Eltham, South-east London, I went to Eltham College. The experience wasn’t an unqualified success, and I cannot honestly say that those days were the happiest of my life. The cosy, almost personal attention by the masters at the prep school abruptly ceased, and I found myself in a new and larger establishment where one or two of the masters could only be described as sadists. Whether it was the same in Liddell’s day (Chariots of Fire) I cannot say. My favourite subject was German, and the master for the subject was a Scot, a disciplinarian, but a fair one. His method of drumming into our heads the peculiarities of the German prepositions and the following inflections has always struck me as brilliant. Mr Wilson – Willie to the boys – lost a leg in Italy during the war. I met him in Tunbridge Wells at a school reunion some years ago and he hadn’t altered much. I left the school in 1941 and spent the time between then and enlisting working in Woolwich and dodging the bombs in the frequent air raids.

Thank you for the true version of the incident of the gun in the tank park at Charing. There was always so much noise in that café when all the boys were clamouring for cups of char and wads that the report of the gun didn’t reach us there. Terrington struck me as such an amiable chap, the kind of fellow who you might meet as a landscape gardener.

You brought back another name to memory in your letter, Eric Stocks. He was a tallow-haired, cheerful, stocky lad from the north country. Wally Tooley, I believe, came from Birmingham. Boyce Dunsford reminded me of a solicitor’s clerk; such a pleasant, articulate man, undemonstrative and quietly diligent.

Percy O’Bourne, the little copper-haired Welshman, was in the same hut as I was at Hall’s Place. Whenever the subject turned to Theme One (which seemed to increase in frequency) Percy was always ready with eloquent descriptions of his conquering most, if not all, of the ladies of the Welsh valleys.

At that time in the hut was a Yorkshireman, slow of speech, broad of accent, who was, I believe, in the Quartermaster’s Store; at any rate, he was not a crew member. When the lads were in full flood and predicting coming feats of valour against the Hun, this solid Yorkshireman would remove pipe from face and silence the boasting with his famous caution: ‘I tell thee summat, wairt till ya coom fairce t’ fairce wit’ squer ‘ed.’

Another character not mentioned in your wonderful book was Fagan of the water-cart, that Bedford 15-cwt of mercy. I do recall, one day on Hill 112, he arrived with a bullet hole in his windscreen. He was justly proud of this mark of his devotion to duty.

In all my time with B Squadron I never heard, not once, any derogatory remarks about any of the officers. That says a lot, doesn’t it? I am rambling on a bit here – forgive me, but thoughts insist on dropping quietly into my mind.

Do you remember the time in Normandy – I have no idea exactly where it was, we laagered in a field near a destroyed village – Sammy Linton and Jack Shepherd had, with their unerring homing instincts towards alcohol, located a supply of Calvados. I can only guess that they replenished their water-bottles with this spirit for later use. But they must have slaked their thirst far beyond their own capabilities because they were laid out, unconscious, in front of their tank with flies crawling across their faces. I recall hearing the voice of the Squadron Commander saying: ‘Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish. What happens if we have to move off?’

At one point in the Normandy business I picked up from the side of a dead infantryman his rifle. The butt bore the name, in red paint, NORMA. This rifle we kept for some time on the engine hatches, and used it for pot shots at snipers in the trees. The .303 rifle accepted without complaint the 7.92 mm rimless cartridges used by our Besa machine-guns, so there was no problem with ammo.

Somewhere along the line I acquired a beautiful Spanish replica of a long-barrelled Colt .38 that I used to keep wrapped in an oily cloth somewhere near the smoke-bomb rack in the turret. It was when I was lying in hospital in Grantham, after that ridiculous incident with the fire and phosphorus bomb, that I suddenly realized that I had lost my lovely gun. Who ‘inherited’ it I don’t know, but I hope it was Lieut Stone.

Do you remember Rupert Thompson? He was a corporal, and a quiet, humorous, ruddy-faced north countryman. As you know, it was the practice of crews to tie, or wedge, tins of steak and kidney or some such ‘compo’ against the exhaust pipes or the engine hatches so that preparations for the next meal could be reduced by having a tin or two of pre-heated food. Apparently Rupert’s tins had been subjected to some extended heating. During a mortar attack one of the tins burst, and a hot gobbet of steak and kidney hit Rupert as he stood in the turret. ‘I’ve been hit, I’ve been hit’ he shouted as the meat and gravy trickled down his neck. It must have a shock to him at the time, but it caused a lot of amusement afterwards in the telling.

I was in our library yesterday, and noticed that Tank Tracks was out again. Our history is popular!

With best wishes, Yours sincerely,

Derek