WAR MEMORIES

Jack Woods

The 23^rd of March 1942 was the occasion of my eighteenth birthday, and I marked the occasion by joining the Royal Armoured Corps. I had realized that together with the rest of my age group I was destined for service with the Armed Forces in one form or another, and by volunteering I had my choice.

I was attested on 15 May 1942, and on 27 April, armed with a travel warrant, I was en route to Bovington and the 58^th (Young Soldiers) Training Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. I arrived at Wool station in good time. Considering that I had hardly stepped out of the borders of my native Norfolk previously, and had to cross London on the Underground, one of the seven wonders of the world as far as I was concerned, this was no mean achievement.

On arrival at Wool together with other volunteers, I was transported to Bovington Camp and there became part of 31 Troop, 7955816 Trooper Woods J.S. I was to spend the next six months with 31 Troop training to be one of His Majesty’s tank troopers.

At the end of this training, leaner, fitter, and a bit more knowledgeable I was posted in November 1942 to 9 Royal Tank Regiment, who were then at Charing in Kent. The regiment was equipped with the Infantry Tank Mark IV or Churchill, and I was assigned to 11 Troop C Squadron as spare crew. The regiment consisted of regulars and mid-30s conscripts, and I was one of the boys posted to bring the regiment up to strength.

Shortly after my arrival we of the new batch were sent to Ashford station to help unload the new Churchill Mk IIIs which were armed with the 6-pdr gun; it was there that I saw for the first and last time the new gun-carrier Churchill which was destined never to be used in action.

A period of some months followed which seemed to be designed for forgetting as much as possible of what I had learned in training. It consisted of mainly fatigues, you name it, I did it; Cookhouse ( I spent two successive Christmas days on Tins), Dining Room, Ablutions, Coke Bashing, Camp Cleaning and the inevitable guard duties.

I got some relief when the Regiment went on a scheme. Spare crews on a scheme spent the entire time in the back of a three-tonner relaxing on the camouflage nets being transported from goodness knows where for goodness knows what reason. Once I had to drive a broken-down tank back to camp at the end of the convoy. Its intercom didn’t work and somebody had to perch on the front to guide me by flapping his hand to right or left in front of the driver’s visor.

I was rather pleased with this and myself, and all went well until we came across a convoy of 5.5 prime movers parked in column by the side of the road facing towards us. One of them was projecting rather more into the road than it should have been, and I showed my disapproval of that by hitting it with the offside air-louvre and taking the side out.

Oh dear! Up on Squadron Leader’s orders and remanded for the C.O. I explained to him that I had had only about a fortnight’s experience of driving ‘A’ vehicles, and at that he raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed. “I have to give you something,” he said, “ the Artillery bods have brought charges, do you accept my award?”

To which I answered yes – I have never met anyone who has answered no to that question. His award was that I should pay 7/6d towards the cost of the damage at 6d per week. It was a bit ridiculous when you think about the value of the prime mover, but it was a lot of money to me when my pay was just 17/6d a week.

Eventually I was put on a course for re-training, and in April 1943 passed out as a Gunner Class B. The following July I passed out as a Gunner Mechanic Group C Class III with a resultant pay rise of 6d per day and, wait for it, back to spare crews. There, except for a spell in MT Troop, I remained until the Regiment moved to North Camp Farnborough to seal the tanks and vehicles prior to sailing for Normandy. During our stay at North Camp the spare crews acquired a Lloyd Personnel Carrier with a mind of its own in which we buzzed merrily round the area for a while. Eventually this was replaced with an International Half-Track in which we travelled to Normandy.

By this time those who were too old to fight and had been occupying the crew places and doing all the training had left us. I, however, stayed with the spare crews. We landed in Normandy after, for me at least, a horrendous journey in which our Landing Ship Tank (LST) did everything but sink; there were times on the journey when I wished it had, I wanted to die. It was an American ship, and they tell me the food was excellent, I wouldn’t know, they still owe me my rations.

We landed at Arromanches and travelled to St Gabriel where we stayed the night in a field. The Regiment had been warned for action with 15 (Scottish) Division in Operation Epsom, the battle for the River Odon and Hill 112. We moved forward into the Division’s 25-pdr area, where we received a rollicking from the Echelon Commander for not digging in. Digging in! Who did he think we were, infantry?

The Echelon was later to realize the wisdom of his words, but the MT bods had dug a hole big enough to lose a vehicle in, they had a good card school going, nothing was happening, and what the hell!

Briefed on the coming battle by the Squadron Leader we learned that the Regiment was to advance through Cheux, C Squadron executing a right hook to support the Gordon Highlanders through Colleville – which didn’t mean much to me at the time. However, I was summoned to report to the Reconnaissance Officer (RO) Captain Ken Kidd; he needed a driver for his scout car, his driver L/Cpl Farmer having done a hatch job on his fingers and become unable to drive.

Captain Kidd gave me permission to drive around a bit in the car to get used to it, and the next morning, together with the RO and his wireless-operator Tpr Egan, I went into battle for the first time in my life. It was a lousy day, pouring with rain, and we passed some of the 7 RTR Churchills being back-loaded with ominous holes in their turrets just to cheer us up.

We spent a very wet and uncomfortable day as part of the Gordon’s CO’s convoy, finally getting up to the tanks later in the day. There we witnessed a scene which was to remain with me for the rest of my time and probably for the rest of my life. C Squadron Churchills were on the skyline blazing merrily and pouring out dense clouds of black smoke, their ammunition going off like a firework display and their de-horsed crews coming back through the corn, their faces registering the shock of what had happened to them.

The infantry had also been unable to reach their objectives, and they were returning and regrouping on the road prior to digging in defensively. Captain Kidd enquired of the infantry as to whether we could be of any use to them, but his offer was politely declined. We then re-joined the squadron to learn the story of the battle and our losses; what shook us was the fact that we had been encouraged to believe that the Churchill was practically invincible, and the truth was very sobering indeed.

The squadron had been given two days off to ‘lick its wounds’ as the Squadron Leader put it. Replacement tanks were coming up and the fitters were busy welding track plates as a sort of ‘applique armour’ But for us it was away first thing to report to Infantry Brigade HQ where we found an armoured counter-attack coming in. The Infantry Brigadier was standing in the middle of the road, exhorting the Jocks who were streaming away from the enemy to get back to their positions. They had evidently heard of a break-through by Tiger tanks.

After a short stay we left to visit the infantry positions, passing through Colleville where we were nicely stonked and where I saw my first dead enemy. These were a small group led by a sergeant and freshly killed, and the Jocks who had done the killing were crouching under a hedgerow.

Then along a nearby road where on a crossroads a half-track was burning away, and its infantry crew hanging over the side all killed. We went into the infantry position via the hedgerow which was too steep for our scout-car; we duly bellied, and had to be extracted by a Bren carrier while a Spandau stitched a line of bullets up our backs. Mission accomplished, and we were away by an easier exit, and back along that road; it transpired later that at the time the road was the front line.

Into enemy territory, where Captain Kidd left us to recce on foot towards the enemy, giving us instructions to come and get him if he was longer than ten minutes. How green we were, standing in the road without any personal weapons and the Bren-gun stowed. He returned, we did a smart about turn and hared off at the double the way we came, straight over the cross-roads and into friendly infantry positions.

There were enemy tanks coming up the road behind us, and we decided to bail out for the time being. What I remember of the rest of the day is of a German Mk IV tank being knocked out by an infantry 6-pdr, and Captain Kidd capturing the commander’s cap and then disappearing in the general direction of the melee. Tpr Egan was crouched by the side of the car at the open escape door trying to raise the squadron on the radio: “Hello sugar niner, hello sugar niner, report my signals” time and time again, finally getting through after using as many aerial extensions as he could find. Suddenly the squadron appeared over the horizon like a cavalry charge. This was my last stint as a scout-car driver; I was again returned to spare crews, maybe for something I did or didn’t do.

My next taste of action was in the Maltot battle. After a lengthy journey seemingly all over the battlefield the echelon decided to leaguer in a field strewn with enemy slit trenches. And guess what, surprise, surprise, we were heavily stonked, suffering casualties, some of them fatal. Off we went again for another joy-ride, finally catching up with the tanks where they had leaguered for the night, and servicing them in the dark.

The next day a different job, I was told to go to Brigade Workshops with a tank that needed an engine change, and to stay with it until it was repaired. The squadron ARV towed the tank there, and when we arrived no one had heard anything about this tank. The ARV dumped me in a field near the Workshops, and I was forgotten for a day or two. I was eating and sleeping with the fitters, and nobody was concerned about who I was or what I was doing there; maybe I could have sat out the rest of the war there.

I soon got cheesed off with doing nothing, so I reported for further orders to the REME bods. They were surprised, but immediately shipped me off to the Forward Delivery Squadron or FDS. The FDS, there’s a prospect to cheer a body. It lived up to its reputation, and the days I spent there were all of them days too many. I was relieved to be sent back to the Regiment in a replacement tank commanded by Sgt Dickie Hall.

We joined the regimental convoy as they were moving through Villers Bocage towards the River Orne, taking on board infantry of 7 Royal Norfolks, 59 Div. We finally deployed before the river in what Captain Sidney Link, 2 i/c of C Squadron, described as ‘an arrow in tomorrow’s Daily Mirror’.

We thought that we were destined to cross the river the next day, but no, we were pulled out and despatched to the other end of the bridgehead to support 49 Div and the Canadians in the battles to close the Falaise gap. En route I was transferred to B Squadron where I joined the crew of 9 Troop Leader’s tank ‘Inspire IV’; I remained with them for the rest of my time with the 9^th. Lt David Scott became Troop Leader at roughly the same time, and the rest of the crew were Bob Hay, a gritty Brummie, Cyril Smith, and Len Lennard. Len was a German Jew who had a penchant for disappearing for the night whenever we leaguered and magicking himself a woman out of nowhere.

The War Diary will record what further actions 9 Troop took part in in Normandy. The bowels of a Churchill are no place to acquire a knowledge of the terrain we covered. That had to be left to those who we hoped would know, and as far as we were concerned it was mostly 1,000 yard jobs from A to B, remaining on the objective all day, and pulling back at dusk to service the tank and get a hot meal if possible.

My next recollections are of the advance to the River Seine, crawling along in the column and receiving the hospitality of the locals (especially the women), the wine and the flowers. We were so complacent that when we were held up by a blown bridge we pulled off the road into a field where we duly brewed up. It wasn’t long before we were receiving the attentions of the rearguard left by the enemy on the other of the river. We casually watched ourselves being bracketed, and were caught in the open when a salvo landed among us. The inevitable casualties included one fatality, Wilf Woodfine; he was buried there, and the locals vowed to look after his grave for ever.

NOTE: Wilf was killed at Coquanvillers, and was initially buried there. Later his body was moved to the St Desir War Cemetery, where he is buried in grave I. E. 14. St Desir is a village 4 kilometres west of Lisieux.

Our next action was Le Havre, where we were to support 49 Div into the town from the south. B Squadron got the job of leading the Regiment, and 9 Troop had the ‘honour’ of leading the squadron. That’s what David Scott said, and you can imagine what we said, especially after studying the defence overlays on the maps we were given.

We moved off through the flails of 22 Dragoons and advanced towards Montevilliers and Harfleur, pausing to open fire on the church in Harfleur to remove any possible observers. There had been no trouble from anti-tank mines, but the area was strewn with anti-personnel (schu) mines which were giving the infantry some concern. I remember seeing Lofty Earl of 10 Troop having to go back for something, and treading very carefully in the tracks made by the tanks – a touch of the page and King Wenceslaus.

We were held up by a sunken road into which we had to drop and turn right for the run to the docks area. David Scott couldn’t see the drop very well, so I had to get out and recce it. I found a place, Inspire dropped into it, pulled hard right and off came the offside track. So we were left behind, and the rest of the squadron passed us by. I received a bang over my eye when I was out of the tank from somewhere, but it was superficial. We had to wait for the ARV to tow us out and fix the track, and we rejoined the rest of the squadron in leaguer.

I returned to Le Havre in 1989 and went to look at the church steeple in Harfleur. I found it intact, and I thought Len must have missed; but when I enquired I discovered it had been re-built and was six metres shorter than the original.

After Le Havre the Regiment settled down outside Dieppe where we heard of the liberation of Paris on our 19 set. We lost our soft transport to the Armoured Divisions so that they could keep up their pursuit of the German divisions; we also heard rumours of a return to the UK, but went on with maintenance and changing our worn-out tracks. The tracks had been broken and the new ones nicely laid out for the ARV to tow us on to them when we had a flap one hour’s move. We put the old tracks back and off we went on our own tracks, the drivers spelling each other on the long journey. We loaded on to transporters at Renescure, just outside St Omer, and travelled through the night – the only time I saw Brussels – finally arriving in Eindhoven where we stayed for ten days in civvy billets; the locals would not allow us to sleep with our tanks. Those ten days are a bit of a blur; on returning to Eindhoven in 1990 I could remember the general area, but no details of the family I stayed with in 1994.

On crossing the River Seine we had left 31 Tank Brigade with whom we had fought the Normandy battles, and joined 34 Tank Brigade with whom we would serve for the rest of the campaign. On leaving 31 Brigade we said goodbye to our old Brigadier, all tanks passing in review order.

We left Eindhoven and moved to Belgium where under 49 Div again we took part in an action to open the door for Clarkeforce to advance to Steenbergen. After we had obtained our objective we handed over to the newly-landed 104 US Division (Timberwolf), the first and only time I witnessed a jeep trying to tow a Sherman tank. The next day we advanced on their left and reached our objective, only to find that 104 Div had attacked instead of holding, and had been forced back resulting in a threat to our supply lines.

We were next used for the battle for Roosendaal. I remember standing in the open waiting for our turn while solid shot was flying around, overs from the battles which others were engaged in. We were to take part in a frontal attack on the town, but early next we moved into the outskirts of the town and then into the town itself, the enemy having left overnight. We stayed in Roosendaal for a month to refit and relax, during which time we took part in football matches, dances, and general social activities, and some got leave in Brussels.

Everybody was billeted with families, but together with Charlie Merry, Sgt Jakeman’s driver, I was with German collaborators who had had their heads shaved, and with whom we had no communication all the time we were there. They were two women, mother and daughter. The mother had been a washerwoman for the Germans and the daughter was six months pregnant by a German boyfriend. I wonder whether he returned after the war.

We left Roosendaal en route for Geilenkirchen via Brunssum. I mention Brunssum because many people in the squadron had their photograph taken at the local photographer’s, and Cyril Handley of 15 Troop married a girl from there. Outside Geilenkirchen we were holding the line, and we had to creep into position so that the enemy would not hear us coming.

Inspire IV was parked under a brick arch adjoining a brick house in whose cellar we installed ourselves. The cellar came up into the doorway of the house; there was no longer a front door, just a gap, and it was there that we mounted guard at night.

The form was that a piece of string was attached to David Scott’s wrist and led up to the guard post, so that he could be alerted to any problem by the guard pulling the string. My turn on guard, my personal weapon was a green Sten gun with a shaped butt which I had acquired during the Le Havre battle, and I hadn’t checked it to see that it worked properly. When I heard a patrol coming up the road I didn’t know whether to pull the string, fire the gun, or keep my head down. Fortunately I chose the latter, and it was a British patrol so I breathed again. When we left the area we were well and truly stonked, the Guards who replaced us made more noise than Larry coming in.

Rumour had it that it was Mol in Belgium for Christmas and civvy billets. In the end it was the Ardennes and Christmas on the way. We skated into a village south of Liege and settled down in reserve supporting 51 Highland Div. I was billeted with an old lady and her son and daughter-in-law, once again with Charlie Merry. The son and daughter-in-law were newly-weds, and we had to go through their bedroom to reach ours. I still smile occasionally when I recall the son in the midst of his honeymoon activities with one hand out of bed begging for a cigarette. His mother made the largest and fluffiest omelettes I have ever tasted, but the obligatory ‘tasse de malt’ that went with them, Ugh!

I went on UK leave from there having drawn No. 12 in the regimental draw, and when I returned the Regiment was back in Eindhoven prior to taking part in Operation Veritable. We moved up through Nijmegen to our assembly area early in February 1945, and were billeted in a farmhouse. The barn was filled with straw, so it was quite cosy. In the mornings we had to wash under the pump in the yard (in February?), the only consolation being that the farmer had six daughters and we had to queue with them.

On the first day of the battle, 8 February, we had to wait among the guns all day for our turn to enter the forest. We entered in the evening, and for the next few days we advanced steadily through the forest until we reached the far side six days later. At one point Inspire IV opened fire on a target and the 75 barrel split like a Christmas lantern. David Scott moved to a tank with a working gun, and we became Troop Corporal’s tank under Cpl MacDonald. We didn’t mind that because we still had two Besas and a Bren gun and could do a bit of damage with them if required.

When we reached the edge of the forest we pulled back and parked in a clearing, laid the tank sheet on the ground, put all our bedding on that, pulled the engine sheet over ourselves and slept, we were clapped out. Next day we were transported into Nijmegen to a mobile bath unit for a shower and clean clothes, and then away to pick up a new tank. Inspire IV had come all the way from the bridgehead and now was done for, a sad moment. But to our delight we collected a brand new Mark VII, much better, which was christened Inspire V. We rejoined the Regiment for the final drive to the River Rhine at Wesel via the Broedesbosch in support of 52 Lowland Div, and were then pulled back into reserve south of Venlo.

In early April we crossed the Rhine by a pontoon bridge, a hairy experience, and marched to Gronau on the Dutch-German border. We spent VE day guarding the frontier and relieving the returning forced labourers and DPs of their transport. Most had big wood-burning lorries loaded with looted household furniture and household goods which they were allowed to keep provided they unloaded over the frontier and left the transport on the German side.

I relieved some signals bods of a German Mercedes staff car, despite the pleadings of one of them with whom I had worked prior to joining up. He was not pleased, to this day he is not pleased, but we had a Mercedes to run around in until we had to hand it over ourselves.

We moved from Gronau to Mettingen near Osnabruck where we received our Age and Service release numbers, and where the younger members of the Regiment had Far East 1 marked in their paybooks. The 9^th was a wartime unit, and was to be disbanded before the end of 1945. The older soldiers stayed with the 9^th until they were demobbed or until the disbandment. Most of the younger ones, including myself, were posted to 4 RTR. We had a good Au Revoir concert, and said a fond farewell.

I was finally demobbed in May 1947 after service with 4 RTR in Germany and Italy. Five years a tank trooper, five years which changed my life.

Jack Woods, Christmas 1992.