MONTY, CRACKERS, and THE SQUADRON FUND

Harry Hurt

Harry Hurt of A Squadron provides us with his memories of three people, rather than a continuous narrative of his service. The three sections are of great interest, particularly that dealing with Squadron Sergeant-Major Monty Bradley. Monty was an excellent SSM, but his attitude to the soldiers in his care was more relaxed and sympathetic than that of most sergeant-majors. He was described by everyone as ‘a good bloke’.

SSM Monty Bradley

My first encounter with Monty was when I joined the 9^th from Bovington. I booked in at the squadron office at Stalisfield Green, and was allocated a hut space with 5 Troop. I was told to take my kit to the hut and to return to the office to give my next-of-kin details etc to the squadron clerk. Monty’s comment to me and the other four or five lads joining was: “Now, we’ve got a lot of old soldiers in the squadron. You try to pull them up to your standard of smartness. Don’t let them pull you down to theirs. Don’t walk about with your hands in your pockets and your berets on the back of your heads.”

I took my gear to my hut and was walking back to the office when who should I see coming towards me but Monty. He had both hands in his pockets and his beret on the back of his head. I couldn’t help looking at him and smiling. His response was to smile back at me and say: “Alright. I know what I said just now. Now you know what I meant!”

Another example of his attitude was told to me by Nobby Clark of 5 Troop. Monty was wounded, as was Nobby, in the Hill 112 action on 10 July 1944. Both were returned to England. Monty had thrown himself on top of a wounded tankman to protect him from further wounding when a stonk started, and was himself wounded as a result.

Before returning to rejoin us in France Nobby had to spend a short time at the Depot at Catterick. He told me he was walking along one side of the square when he heard a shout, and there was Monty running across the square to meet him. He grasped Nobby’s hand, saying he was absolutely thrilled to meet someone from the 9^th. He was currently Orderly Sergeant-Major, and was smartly dressed in greatcoat with highly polished buttons. Almost his first words on learning that Nobby was soon to rejoin us were: “For Gawd’s sake don’t you tell the others you saw me looking like this.” A fine example of what a marvellous chap he was!

Crackers Cracknell

Another A Squadron character was ‘Crackers’ Cracknell, a three-ton truck driver. His driving merited his nickname. One night he was driving a passion wagon back from Faversham to Stalisfield. Lt Gerry Wells, generally known as ‘Gaffer’ was with him in the cab, and there were thirty or so of us in the back. Crackers took a corner too wide and too fast and turned the truck over on to its side in a ploughed field. By pure coincidence a Police car came along a couple of minutes later and took the injured off to hospital; I thing two people had broken limbs.

I went round to the front to see if Crackers and Gaffer were OK. Crackers had climbed up through the driver’s window, now on top, and Gaffer then climbed out. I said to Gaffer: “Are you OK?”, to which he replied yes thank you – and promptly passed out! We all set off to walk back to Stalisfield. We had not gone far when along came two trucks from behind us.

What had happened was that another passion wagon had left Faversham after us with Monty Bradley in charge. He had organized his passengers to get our truck upright, and then got someone to drive it along after him. It caught up with us, and could take us on board again. It was interesting psychologically that because it was the same truck that had turned over with us in it, none of us were happy to continue our journey in it. We did in fact do so – but not with Crackers driving!

Crackers got no better at driving, and when we were in France he managed to turn two more trucks over, and this time they were full of ammunition. I believe he did survive the war!

The Squadron fund

I would like to relate a story that I think well illustrates the underlying spirit that had developed in our unit. At Halls Place we had in our hut a lad, whose name unfortunately I cannot remember, who was always spending his evenings in bed. He was a very nice quiet fellow, but used to get the mickey taken out of him for this habit. Other lads would come back from the canteen at, say, 9 o’clock at night, wake him up and tell him it was nearly time for parade. He would hop out of bed and go to the ablutions hut, return to our hut and then be told it was 9 o’clock at night.

Unbeknown to us the lad suffered from tuberculosis, and died from this while we were still there. At a subsequent parade it was proposed by our Squadron Leader Duggie Ballantine that ₤50 should be sent from the Squadron fund to his mother who was a widow. An unknown voice from the ranks shouted: “Send her the lot!” This call was immediately echoed by everybody, and Duggie Ballantine agreed that it should be done. The sum that was sent to the lad’s mother was ₤300, quite a sum for 1943.