JIM HUTTON REMEMBERS

When Tank Tracks was being written a general request was made for people’s memories, photos, maps, and anything else that would be of interest. Jim Hutton sent a cassette tape to Peter Beale, and it was transcribed by Peter’s typist. Jim also sent some photos, two of which were used on pages 9 and 10 of Tank Tracks. Peter asked Jim if he had the originals, and Jim’s tape starts with the answer to that question.

I received your letter last Tuesday on the 11th, and to answer the question as to whether I still had the photographs, the originals from the Kent Messenger, sad to say that the only photo I did have was of the tanks on the flats being tightened up on the chains, the only one of and myself and Tony Lisle and Kit Harlow, that's the only one I had an original copy of. It's said to say when the house got bombed out the photographs were destroyed and all along with it so I can't help you in that respect.

But as regards the other photographs of the troop and the crews which were taken at Farnborough in Hampshire before we moved down to Pompey which as you know we did quite a bit of ......at Farnboroughbourgh, I had those photographs and I shall be bringing all the photographs, if you want copies I'll bring all the originals what I have to the next meeting at Charing which is on the 12th of next month, so I'll bring them along and if Ray wants to sort any out from that, he's quite welcome to do so.

Up until then I can't help you in that respect, but you ask if a squadron photograph was ever taken. As far as I know we never did have a squadron photograph taken. I'm sorry about that because I would love to have had one but I can't ever remember a squadron photograph so I can't help you there.

I got a feeling that I think we have met, Peter, you and I. Were you down at the Bovington tank museum about 3 years ago I bumped into a chap who was in the RTR. I was talking to some Normandy veterans outside by a Churchill tank, and I was talking to our Chairman and you happened to, I don't know if it was you, but somebody came along and said that he was in the tanks, that you were going back to Australia the following day, I think it was next day or the day after and you were only over here to visit the museum and one or two friends while you were here. I've got a feeling it may have been you. Anyway, however, when we do meet up, if you are at Charing this year, when we meet up we will sort that out.

Anyway getting down to business now. Originally I joined the army at the beginning of the war and I went into the Territorials as a Kings Royal Rifle Corp. I was a young soldier and I went into the 70th Battalion, young soldiers Kings Royal Rifles. Anyway I served two years with those doing air ground defence and coastal defence work and then they as you know - Churchill turned around one day and said that we are coming off the offensive, er coming off the defensive and going on the offensive and quite a few regiments went on aptitude tests and I happened to go on a test and they sent me to Cattrick, Royal Armoured Corps for training as a driver/mechanic. Anyway, however there were two other regiments, the Royal West Kents, the Blackwatch and my own, the KRR's under training to be tank crewmen. Well, on completion of my training with the 57th training regiment RAC, I was then posted to the 9th RTR, that must be in 1942, I remember. Anyway, getting out Charing Station I remember a 15cwt truck waiting there and he said "Are you for the 9th RTR?" I said "Yes", and off we went. And I was taken to Little Charing, to the Manor House at Little Charing opposite the Lamb Pub, the pub there called The Lamb. The reason why it was called The Lamb was behind the bar there was a young lamb with two heads, and it had been stuffed so consequently that's how the name came about for The Lamb pub. But I should never forget the area. It was a time when all the cherry blossom was out and all the apple blossom was blooming and it absolutely looked a picture in that area. I was so chuffed to be stationed down south - it was really nice and there in Charing it was just right, Anyway, I was allocated to number one troop and I stayed with number one troop - Major Ballantine interviewed me and I was stationed in number one troop and became a crew member to Lieutenant Hendry, also Tony Lisle was our troop sergeant and that's who I stayed with all the time. Now I remember we used to do guards down to the tank park and on the petrol tanks, the petrol dump and I always remember during the day when it was warm the tanks used to swell up and at night they would start contracting, and if you were walking around that dump at night there were so many noises it was unbelievable; bang, pop, wallop, all the cans contracting with the cooling down and it was quite an eerie experience at night to hear all that lot going off! Anyway, that was, if I remember rightly it was called Longbeech Wood, yeah, that's right, Longbeech Woods, just by where the Pilgrims Progress went through, the Pilgrims Progress of Canterbury, that was at the back of the tank park where we were, where all the hard standings were and if I remember rightly there was a canteen not far just down the main road, at the top of Charing Hill and we used to go in there for cups of tea and fags and a couple of buns and that and they had a little nigger boy, a statue in the corner and the blokes used to stick their dog-ends in his mouth and he looked like he was smoking a fag. Yeah, that was, a woman ran the place, it wasn't a real sort of cafe, it was a converted shop into a cafe and I'll never forget they had a queer arrangement of toilets in there it was like a swimming bath toilets, you know, no top and no bottoms on the door, just a small door and you could see who was sitting in the compartments. Yeah. Just checking the tape, I've started up again. Yeah, I remember that canteen, well it wasn't a canteen it was a cafe really and we used to, quite a few of us used to go in there - I expect you know the place I mean. Anyway coming from there back to the tank park, in the trees there - in the woods, at the back of where our tank was was a whopping great anthill and they were the big ants about half inch long and they used to give you a nip now and again if you put your hand down - they would give you a nip and they used to rear up on their hind legs as much to say 'come on lets have yer". Anyway, then their mounds, the anthills were I suppose, about a yard high, about 3 or 4 foot high and there was quite a few of them in the woods there. Anyway getting away from that - then we used to clean the engines in the tanks - we used to as you know put the sheets over the louvres, start the engine up, stick a spanner on the hand accelerator, on the hand throttle, rev her up about 2500 revs and then nip up and open up each engine cover in turn and then blow all the dust out the back. There used to be all sorts coming out, ants, bloomin' twigs and everything. That was a good way to clean the engines but it wasn't recommended anyway, but you had to do it a bit quick otherwise the engine overheated. I always remember we used to, in the mornings we used to crews front ,and mount up and start up and if we weren't going to run the main engine we'd charge the batteries on the AC Delco behind the co-drivers seat and stick the flexible exhaust pipe from the auxiliary engine, stick that through the dump valve at the bottom and you'd hear all the tanks, pop, pop, pop, pop - charging up their batteries. And that was a thing we used to do quite regular. The other thing was the start up procedure was mount and start up, the gunner used to pump the old Ki-gass pump in the back, switch on the master switch and pump the old Ki-gass and then we could start up. So that was normal routine. The other thing we used to dread was the kit inspection, the full kit inspection when you had to lay all the pieces out, there were thousands of them you know, it were never ending. It took you the best part of the day to get through the checking of it there were so many pieces. Anyway, getting back to Charing again, I remember we used to go down Charing Hill, down to Charing Station and load up on the flats there and I remember when the regiment one day, the squadron, A squadron was going down one day on the way to Warcop on the ranges, we went down there and loaded up and it was quite an experience to see some of the officers and senior NCO's backing up as they were guiding the tanks on and the next thing you see them disappear, they fell between the two trucks. Quite a few of them happened to cop out in that respect and it was 10 times worse at night because if you had a non-smoker he used to use a torch and if he was a smoker he used to use a fag to give you a right hand down or a left hand down as the case may be but having got it lined up then you had the Railway Inspector and the Station Master came up with his gauge to see if it was overhanging or not and if it was over about half an inch he'd make you line it up again. Anyway having done that he'd make you chain it up and that was you finished until you got to your destination.

I remember when we went to Warcop I think we went to Walcott twice and we went to Kirkcudbright in Scotland once on the ranges up there and near Dumfries. I remember the Warcop do mainly because when we did arrive there it was on a Friday and it was getting very very cold and it looked like snow. Anyway we took the tanks on to the firing points which was about 2 mile from the main gate where the billets were, they were nissen huts by the way, and we left the tanks there on the Friday, sheeted them up and went back to the billet which were nissen huts and we went out to the pub that night and coming back it started snowing and it snowed all night, and all the next day and all the next day and we couldn't get - on the Monday we couldn't get to the firing points where the tanks were because there was so much snow, it was just impossible. And in the morning when we woke up, on the Saturday morning after the Friday night on the Saturday morning there was snow all up the window and up the door and we had to shovel our way out to get to the bloody cookhouse to get some grub. And I've never seen so much snow in all my life, it was really, really heavy up there at that time. The farmers was asking us to help them go around and dig out their sheep cause their sheep was all snowed in.

We were there longer than we expected, I think we was only going to be there 4 days to a week, but we had to stick there a couple of weeks at least I think because of the conditions. Anyway the next time we went there it was quite warm, it was summertime and my mate and I, old Ted Costin we met a couple of birds up there, a couple of girls come from Kirkby Stephen, and they ran a fish and chip shop, their mother and fathers owned a fish and chip shop and we used to go in there and get free fish and chips which was quite handy in those days and apart from the fish and chips we had one or two other little perks as well, but I shan't go into detail there (chuckle!). That was one of the better things.

Anyway, leaving the ranges now I remember we went on quite a few schemes, I think one was Spartan and Tiger and we went up to Norfolk there on the Norfolk broads up there on the training areas and we did quite a bit of work with the infantry on schemes and that, and then we came back to the regiment area at Charing again and I was sent to Baileys, Bailey Bridges down at Christchurch with Tony Lyall - just our crew well we made up a crew that wasn't a normal crew, there was Sgt. Lyall, Taffy Hughes and myself and I think Jim Carnell and another driver, there was two drivers because the job that was entailed was running a Churchill tank up and down over this bridge, this Bailey bridge all day long, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards until they found stress on the bridge but then we had a change of driver. What they did they made up the weight with a 2 ton roller on the back engine, back engine covers, and a one ton roller on the front over the hatches so that you couldn't get in or out the hatches you had to get in and out the panniers on the side. I would drive it for the morning backwards and forwards, have me dinner and then Jimmy Carnell, I think it was Jimmy Carnell, he took over in the afternoon and he drove it for the rest of the afternoon and the next day we swapped around. That went on for a week and then they tested the bridge at the end of the week, they jacked it up and put the stress rings underneath it and tested it for stress and that, and that was quite a nice little break that one, very good.

The other thing was that I think that while we were on one scheme up in Norfolk there, over the radio came the message that the CO wanted his batman who was in F Echelon, the CO called up that he wanted his latrine to be prepared for him when we got to the end of the day's scheme and the batman came up and said "Would you say again, over" and the CO called out "Would you have my latrine prepared for me when we arrive at the laager, where you are at F Echelon; the batman came up again and said "Will you say again over" and so some bright spark on the radio called out "Will you have the CO's shithouse ready when he gets to the other end? Out". Somebody called out "Will you get off the bloody air!" Anyway, it was another bit of enlightenment, we all had a good chuckle about that one.

The other thing was that I used to go on leave, on home leave and Ted Costin my mate, he used to come with me and one weekend we'd stay at my place and then we had the next weekend leave we'd stay at his place which was down at Orpington in Kent and this particular night we stayed at his place, there was a heavy raid on and he said to me "We better get busy coming back, we better get down to St. Mary Cray Station a bit sharpish because this barrage is a bit heavy and we want to make sure we don't miss the bloody train back to Charing. So anyway, we does a quick run down the main road in Orpington, crossed over towards St. Mary Cray and the shrapnel from the Ack Ack gun was so heavy that we had to take shelter. We went in this bus shelter and there was two women in there crying and Ted said to me "I think we are on a good thing here, there's a couple of birds in here" so anyway he went over to one and I went over to the other one and he said "What's the matter, what's up, right" and she said we've just been bombed out, her house had been bombed out. Just as I turned to the girl I was standing near, in front of, I said to her "When did it happen?". The next thing she was sick and she spewed all over my battle dress, all over the front of me suit, and of course I've got my best BD on and I was really upset about that. And he said to me "Come on, we've got to go and get this train", so we run out of the bus shelter place there, and as we crossed this field there was a gypsy's caravan with a bomb hole - a crater alongside this gypsy's caravan near St. Mary Cray Station, these are a couple of gypsy's we bumped into - of course I copped all the sick all over me. Ted didn't get a splash, but I got the lot. Anyway when we got to the station, the train came in, and as you know in them days the blinds were all drawn and all blacked out and that, and we stepped into the compartment and everybody turned around and it was all ATS, WAAF's, RAF, Navy and army blokes, the train was packed with them and they all turned around and looked at me and saw all this sick all over me uniform and thought 'hello he can't hold his beer' but I just couldn't sort of live that down, old Ted used to take the mickey out of me over that. Anyway that was one small incident. The other thing was that old Ted said to me one weekend when he had a church parade on a Sunday morning, Sergeant Major Bradley called out "Any Church of England over there, RC's over there, other denominations over there" and old Ted said to me "Come on, we will go over with the other denominations, we don't want to go on this Church parade". He said "We want to get home on leave". So while we were sorting ourselves out into groups Ted nicked into the bushes and I followed him and off we went and we nipped down through the bushes at Little Charing - it came out onto the road down towards the pub on the corner, I think its the A20 road near the pub on the corner there, and as we came out on to the road which we thought we'd done a good manoeuvre and was ready to nip off, just as we got on the road a bloody three tonner come along and who's sittin' there but Sergeant Major Bradley. He said "Righto, in you get." Anyway that was our weekend gone, our Sunday leave gone for a burton and the next thing we know we are spud bashing for a fortnight and doing the soya stoves, lighting them up in the morning and getting the stuff ready for the cooks so we was on jankers for two weeks and that didn't work out very well.

The other thing now I remember was down at Charing when we did come home on leave, come back from home, back to the regiment and we always called in at Charing Station, got out and if it was late on a Saturday or Sunday night, usually Sunday night we'd nip across to the Recreation Hall next to the church and there'd be a singsong going in there, and there'd be tea and fags and a bun and they looked after us very well in there, and that's one thing I always remember about Charing Station was the hospitality, the WVS and the clergy there.

The other thing about Charing was you always heard this droning noise all day, all this Gerry spotter plane which was way up high just watching for any tank movements out of Longbeech Wood and the other thing was the loading on the flats there which was quite an interesting manoeuvre getting those on the flats, and it was quite an achievement for the first one on because he had to go all the length of the train to get on. It weren't too bad for the one at the back because he only had the one flat to manoeuvre but the first one on and the rest who followed him had to go all the length of the train which was quite an achievement.

The other thing when we was down at Little Charing there, we used to go from their to Faversham in the passion wagon on Friday and Saturday nights, and have a singsong on the way there and a singsong on the way back and it was quite a good place to go was Faversham cause the Toch was there and the two other places we used to call in at. And then I remember we moved from Charing to Farnborough. We moved out down to Farnborough and we did our sealing there. We sealed up the extension on the louvres and the exhaust pipes and took the starter motor out and sealed that up and the bottom plates we sealed up and all the rest of it and we put the balloon fabric around the turret and put the cortex around the turret and sealed that in, and I think it was everybody's temptation not to plug it in and test it out. But one or two did and they got a rocket over it. The other thing was that I remember when we got to Farnborough, there was a week or ten days leave we had, all of us, and I remember our OC, Major Ballantine he had a driver, a Irish bloke, come from southern Ireland, I think his name was Paddy O'Reilly, Paddy Reilly or something, anyway he went to Liverpool and he had to change into civvies to go to southern Ireland cause they wouldn't allow him in in a British uniform so he went off and that was the last we'd see of him, he never came back cause he knew very well the invasion was imminent and I think he smelt, you know, he didn't want to go. Anyway having done our sealing at Farnborough we lined up down Litchford Road, if I remember rightly, at North Camp and we was in Neil Barracks, yeah Neil Barracks, Queens Avenue, and we finished our sealing in the Royal Aircraft Establishment cause it was raining so much and we had to go in there and finish it off, in one of the hangars and sealed up the starter motor and the bottom plates and that. We rumbled down to Horley Lake, which was I suppose about a mile and a half from North Camp, we went down to Horley Lake which was an RE establishment, the Canadians were stationed in there, we went in the lake there and sealed up and there was water spurting everywhere but anyway we managed to stop it all and seal it up eventually.

Then the next thing was we moved off one night, or one evening towards, we were going to Pompey then and I remember swinging onto the road there Richmond Road and crossing over Ashfield Station and somebody called out "Halt driver halt" and the driver jumped out "What's up?" and he said you've got a fire on the back and when I looked on back bloody camouflage net up against the exhaust had caught alight and we had to chuck it over the side and dump it - it was all on fire. So that was another thing.

I had a tank and one of the valves was sticky and it, and I think every couple of hundred revolutions this valve used to stick and then it used to pop and used to blow a bloody great smoke ring out the exhaust and it was quite funny to see this every now and again a bloomin' great smoke ring curling up - it used to cough and then out come this smoke ring. Anyway, getting back to the move, we rumbled down towards Portsmouth and we went into the blue zone - we were allowed out to go to the cinema and the pubs and that, and we went back and then after we'd been there a couple of days we went into the red zone where we were not allowed out we were confined to camp and then from there we went down to the seafront waiting to load up at Gosport. We loaded at Gosport we reversed onto the ramp, and reversed into the tank landing craft LCT's, 6 tanks on each craft and they were chained up and we shoved off and as we moved off into the convoy a ship came alongside and transferred a barrage balloon. All the ships had one, the landing craft had one and off we went. We joined the rest of the convoy and we laid off, for quite a few hours and then we moved off in the night and then I remember a naval officer, a Lieutenant who was from the Royal Australian Navy and he was in charge of our landing craft and he told us, he introduced himself and he told us that we ought to think ourselves lucky to be on his boat because it was made in Glasgow and you could see on the sides where the iron girders were "Made in Glasgow" on the side and it was a riveted job. All rivets showing through and he said that the flexible deck was bouncing up and down because these rivets were allowing it do so he said that if it had been a welded job it would probably been cracked in half by now and we were thankful that it was a British made ship. So anyway off we goes and during the night we came alongside an American LST, a big ship towering above us and the Yanks were calling out for us to keep clear but we had a collision with the LST and he holed us up forward on the port, yeah on the port side and inside there was a big camouflage net and it struck the side of our landing craft and made a hole in it and every time the boat dipped in the water a ruddy great shower of water came in. And I reported this to a navy lad and one of the sailors, and he said come and show me where this is. And I showed him cause I was trying to have a kip in there and I heard this bang and saw the bloody great hole in the side, and I showed him where the hole was and he said "Oh, it's not below the waterline, as long as it's not below the waterline we are alright!" I said "How about the water coming in?" and he said "Oh its alright it will flush off on the deck and it will just disperse itself". Anyway he wasn't worried about it so I wasn't worried about it. But the only thing was we bobbed up and down all bloomin' night and it was quite an experience being seasick and trying to concentrate on what you was doing and all the rest of it. And anyway during the night we heard a lot of banging and firing and that and we'd lost our anchors and this ship, this American ship said keep well away and our officer shouted back over the loud hailer that he'd lost his anchor and we were more or less adrift. Anyway we popped up alongside the Rodney or the Renown in that area and they tied us up alongside and they were throwing, the navy lads were throwing these tins of soup and cocoa or hot chocolate which had the fuse down the middle and you just put a cigarette end or a match on the fuse and it heated it up instantly, and it was red hot and it was dammed good stuff. Anyway he didn't tell us during the night they started bloody firing and nearly blew us out of the water. Anyway come crack of dawn next morning, off we went, we drove off and charged up the beach - one or two of the craft were turning sideways and tipping our crews out - the tanks out and making a bit of a mess of it, but I will say this Australian lad he took us right up the beach straight smack on and I think we got the tracks wet by about an inch of water that's all. He took us right up and off we went and he got back on the same tide so he done a dammed good job. We came off, we blew our sealing and off we went and I think we laagered up at a place called St. Gabriel. Yeah I think it was St. Gabriel, we laagered up there. Anyway we moved off, having had a meal and got ourselves sorted out we moved off and in the night they said they would put a barrage up so the enemy wouldn't hear the tanks moving so off we went and all we went by was the convoy lights down at the bottom of the tank in front and I was driving along and the next thing I knew the light just disappeared and I carried on and didn't know whether to halt or stop. I didn't get any commands I just carried on and the next thing I knew it was going down at an angle of 45 degrees, straight down. And all of a sudden, bang, and stop. What had happened was the tank in front of me had gone down one of these, either the Rodney or the Renown's shell holes, which I suppose was about 30 foot deep, gone down this shell hole, he went down and flattened in the bottom and and I went down at right angles on top of him. So we were, I was at 45 degree angles on his engine covers and that's how we stopped all night cause we couldn't get out, there was no way I could reverse out, it just wouldn't have it. So we stayed like that all night and more or less slept in an upright position, standing up (chuckle). So next morning they came along and the scammels and a couple of other vehicles, tanks came along and pulled us out but that was a massive hole and I shall never forget that, it was quite a funny experience, but not funny at the time, like. Anyway, we then started to move into a bit of action then and I remember Corporal Killick was our first casualty, a mortar, a German (Nebelwerfer) one of these moaning mini mortars hit him in the turret, he was in the turret and the mortar hit him smack on the top and he was our first casualty, Corporal Killick. And we went into an action near Cheux, Mauvieu, I'm not sure, around that area with the 15 Scottish and we had a shot in our front idler which put us out. We were still able to move but we had to come out and the ARV came out and took the old front idler out and we were replacing the new idler and as it was being lowered into position the Gerries stonked us with the moaning minis and nearly finished us off. But we all managed to dive for cover and get out the way and we got this idler back in in double quick time, mended the track and drove back and joined the rest of the squadron.

Another time was when we were moving back up towards Cheux and we heard a large bang and a quite a bit of concussion inside and we all shook up like and we didn't think much more of it until we got to our destination which was to line up on a hedgerow and when we got there we had a look around outside and on the back was one of these German panzerfausts, was the wooden stem and the flexible fins was on the edging cover at the back. What had happened was this Hitler youth merchant was up the tree and he fired this panzerfausts having past his tree, having passed his tree this night, he was up this tree and he hit our back bin and it peppered it just like a bloody pepperpot and all it did was stopped the panzerfaust from hitting the main armour, it just hit the bin and blew everything to bits, didn't it, but in this bin was my best BD, my best suit and it was rolled up with me trousers and me jacket and the battle dress blouse, and it was rolled up and the fragments had penetrated it in about 2 or 3 different places, and when I unrolled it it was peppered like one of these Japanese, what do you call it, origami, this paper when they tear the papers up, I forget what they call it, it was all peppered with holes all over it and that was my battledress went up the creek.

Anyway, getting away from there we moved on then to Maltot and I remember Sergeant Norman and his crew coming up on the A set and he called out that he was in trouble, that the Germans had surrounded him and he came on the air and said "What shall I do. I am surrounded by Germans", and somebody - some bright spark over the air called out "Stick your bloody hands up!" (chuckle). Anyway he was taken prisoner by the way there and if you look in a book called "Hill 112" you will see that Sergeant Norman and his crew were taken prisoner by the German SS there and there's quite a good picture of them with his hands up and the Germans taking them in. The other thing was a bit hair raising, was somebody came up on the air and called out, "To my left there are 50 Sherman tanks approaching, to my left." "Say again, over". "50 Sherman tanks". "Did you say Sherman or German?" (chuckle) and he said "Sherman". "Oh", he said "thank goodness for that". Anyway, I heard Sergeant Norman and his crew on the radio being taken prisoner and I also heard Ted Costin and his crew - Corporal Jackson - heard them being engaged by a Tiger tank as they came through the hedgerow at Colleville and when three of their crew members were killed. That was the last I heard of Ted. He was buried near Cheux, in the evening after the accident in a shallow grave and I went to the service there, very moving. Never forget poor old Ted.

Anyway, the action at Cheux, my troop was engaged in taking on 2 German armoured vehicles, I believe one was a Panther and other was a Mark IV and we were told that they had been knocked out, that smoke was coming from the Mark IV and we went up to this hedgerow, and as you know the driver on a hedgerow is just looking at the hedge and turret is in a hull down position and just the turret poking over of the top and Tony Lisle nipped off in between the tracks and the hedge and he was doing his business. And while this was going on this German tank gunner climbed back into the, what we thought was a knocked out Panther and opened up and he fired a shot and it hit the top of the turret next to Trooper Butterfield who was sitting on the top and it splashed him with fragments and I remember his face getting smothered in blood. But it just nicked a little vein on his forehead and of course the blood spurted out cause it was a red hot fragment that hit him. The next thing we got one smack in the turret which it penetrated the triangle dead centre on the front of the turret and the shot penetrated the 2 inch phosphorus grenades and set them off. Kit Harlow, was sprayed, that was my gunner, was sprayed with all the phosphorus. He came out screaming his head off and bailed out and Jimmy Bennell took the full force of the shot through his stomach and that killed him instantly.

I was knocked unconscious with the impact and when I came around the pannier door was open and my co-driver was gone and I happened to shake myself and get me head together and doing so I got a perforated eardrum and me ear was terrible, terrible pain I got from me left ear. And I got out and we managed to get hold of Kit Harlow and we got together the crew and we made our way around the back of the tanks to where the infantry were, and they were firing at us, German snipers and the Germans and the British were all firing at us because they didn't know who we were, they thought we were Germans and the others thought we were British and .....all over the place. Anyway we got back to where we thought the British were and they happened to be the 53rd Welsh Division who we were once a member when we were at Charing and the old W, you know the W Div sign and this Welsh chap called out "Hande hoch stick you hands up". And I said to him "You get stuffed you Welsh git, I'm English", and they said "Alright boyo" and we made our way back. Anyway we got back and we went back to forward recovery and we managed to get a new tank and replenished and we spent the night at the back and came forward again to the regiment and we stayed with the regiment again until we went on the push at Hill 112.

Now at Hill 112 I never forget on the Sunday Lieutenant Hendrie had his birthday. He was 21 on the Sunday and we all got drunk on Calvados had a good knees up and a good singsong and all that. Anyhow, Monday morning first light, we were briefed to go into Maltot and coming down over the hill in the orchard there, as soon as we came over the brow of the hill towards our objective which was between C Squadron and B Squadron, A Squadron was to come through the middle and take a feature but we got hit so badly, I think out of 18 tanks there wasn't many, I think only 5 of us managed to make it. But we got hit on the turret and it hit dead centre of the turret ring and the main armament couldn't traverse and water in the canteen splashed all over the place cause that's the side it came in and I felt this cold water over the back of my neck and I couldn't make out what it was but then the tank commander Lieutenant Hendrie called out "We'll carry on with the front machine gun" cause the main armament couldn't be traversed. So we carried on firing the front machine gun and the next thing was the next shot hit the cupola and took Lieutenant Hendrie's head - decapitated him and his body fell down into the turret and the next thing I felt was warm liquid on the back of my neck, which I knew was blood and on turning around I spotted his body with no head and I didn't realize whether the rest of the crew, whether they were alive or dead in the back. By this time I decided to swing left and swing right cause I knew they had got a beeline on us and they were out to destroy us so I swung hard left and then stopped; swung hard right and moved forward, swung left, right and done a complete swing around cause there was nobody there to tell us which way to go or what, and we had a hit on the side, on the right-hand pannier door, my side, and it hit there and ricocheted off scooping about half the metal out and we swung around and we had another hit on the back which was on the louvres, on the metal chocolate bar on the louvre, nearly penetrated the petrol tanks but it managed to bounce off. Finally I did a complete turn, which I thought was a complete turn and we had one hit the back which hit the top of the gear box and ripped the top of the selectors off, the cover for the selectors, but we managed to keep going and we drove for about a mile, a mile and a half and we stopped and we hadn't a clue where we were and Busty Cliff, that was my co-driver - Corporal Cliff - he said "Which way do we go now?" So I looked at a compass, I said "Well if we go that way we are going north towards England so that's the way we want to go" and just as we were about to move we saw a column of tanks coming along a hedge with the rally flags flying and the guns traversed rear which was C Squadron was returning from an action, the same action and we managed to join in with them. We saw the OC and he said tag on the back and we'll take you back to your squadron. When we returned to the forward echelon Sergeant Major Bradley and a padre came over and asked us if we had any casualties and we said "Yes, there's I think, there's three in the turret, but on looking they found there was only one, Lieutenant Hendrie was dead and the other two were more or less dumbfounded, more or less just struck dumb and they managed to come out and we were all OK eventually. Sergeant Major Bradley said "Get yourselves some tea and get some sleep and try and get over it which we did and that was quite an experience there. We found out that the squadron had taken a hell of a bashing there. And I never forget Sergeant Major Bradley, he was a marvellous man. They got the webbing slings in the turret and managed to take Lieutenant Hendrie's body out and they buried him. That was quite an experience.

I don't know if you remember we had in the field there we had entertainment, I think it was ENSA that came out to entertain us and while we were watching the show off the back of a lorry we were looking at the show, they were singing and dancing and that a German Messerschmitt came over and started machine gunning the column and blow me behind him were two Mustangs and they were machine gunning us as well. A couple of Yanks joined in with him. Anyway there was so much flak went up from the regiment that they hit this Messerschmitt, he was only low, he was about 2 or 3 hundred feet above us, and they managed to hit it - brought it down but he bailed out, but he was too low, his chute didn't open and he died in the field next door. Next to where we were laagered and that was just by Maltot there, near Colleville.

Anyway I received a slight wound on me right leg and they sent me to forward aid post and they transferred me from there to Field Ambulance where they inspected my ear as well and they said that that was me finished for now, I had to go back to blighty and they bunged me on a boat and sent me back. And that was me finished. I finished up at Cordistones Hospital up in Lancashire where I bumped into Kit Harlow, my gunner and he was recovering from bad burns as you know. I told you he got badly burnt at Cheux with phosphorus, and he managed to make a recovery but he was never the same.

I stayed at Cordistones for quite a while and then I went to convalescing and having convalesced I went on leave and then they sent me to 152 RAC at Newmarket and it was there that the regiment there was being made up of the First Royal Gloucestershire Hussars into a Churchill tank regiment to go to Japan.