Читать книгу Murray Walker: Unless I’m Very Much Mistaken - Murray Walker, Murray Walker - Страница 6

In August 1939, at the age of 15, I was having the holiday of a lifetime in Austria, accompanying my parents to what was then the most prestigious event in the world of motor-cycle sport – the International Six Days Trial. Sadly, like the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio, it has long since been discontinued because of road congestion, but then it was exactly what its name implies: a gruelling, and virtually non-stop, road time trial for modified road bikes with tremendously demanding speed stages. Britain excelled in the event and in 1939, following three successive British victories, it was to be held in Austria. Following its annexation by Germany, Austria was totally under the control of the Nazis, who offered to give Britain an organizational rest and to base the event at glorious Salzburg.

It was a superb location amid the glorious Alpine scenery and my father, who knew the event thoroughly as ex-captain of a winning International Trophy team, had been invited by the War Office to give expert guidance to the British Army teams. The political situation was extremely tense with the threat of war between Britain and Germany, and while we were in Salzburg the Foreign Ambassadors of Russia and Germany, Molotov and Count von Ribbentrop, signed the Russo-German non-aggression pact. Hitler was aggressively rattling his sabre at Poland and the inevitability of war was gloomily forecast. In those days international communications were not as they are now, so the War Office said that in the event of, and only in the event of, an extreme emergency they would send a telegram detailing action and instructions.

Unusually for anything German, the Trial suspiciously showed every sign of having been hurriedly thrown together, almost as though they hadn’t really expected to be holding it. ‘There will be no problem,’ said Korpsführer Huhnlein, the Nazi boss of all German motor sport, ‘as there will not be a war now that we have signed the pact with Russia.’ On day five though, with all the British teams in very strong positions, a telegram that had been delayed for 24 hours arrived from the War Office, reading: ‘War imminent. Return immediately.’

Panic stations! While maps were urgently consulted to find the quickest route to the border, my father went to see Huhnlein.

‘We’re off,’ he said.

‘Why on earth are you doing that?’

‘Because the British War Office has instructed us to go.’

‘But there isn’t going to be a war and even if there is I give you my personal guarantee that you will all be provided with safe conduct out of Germany.’

‘Just one question,’ said my father, ‘What is your level of seniority in the Government?’

‘I am ranked number 23,’ said Huhnlein.

‘Well what happens if any of numbers one to 22 reverse your promise?’

‘That wouldn’t happen.’

‘Sorry, but we cannot take the risk. We go.’

For me the trip had been wonderful: the long car ride from England to Salzburg in my father’s Rover, exploring beautiful, Mozart-dominated Salzburg with my mother, watching the riders race by, the charm of the sun-soaked Alpine scenery, and the quaint Austrian hotels. The dash home through France was full of drama too but shortly after we returned to Enfield Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany for the second time in 30 years. Not so very much later I would be heavily involved in it myself. But first, back to school and glorious Devon, my scholarship at Dunlop, and, as my time approached, the decision about how I could best get into the war.

If you haven’t actually been in one, no matter how much you’ve read about it, you just don’t realize how horrific war is, how brutal, bestial and mindless. My image of tank driving included racing across the desert trailing great plumes of sand, having leave in exotic Cairo and being in my element with something mechanical. It was an ignorant and absolutely pathetic attitude but I was fresh off the farm, full of patriotic fervour, desperately wanting to do something about the evil which then looked likely to overcome the world. So once I got the call on 1 October 1942 I took the train from Waterloo to Wool in Dorset and reported for duty as number 14406224 at the 30th Primary Training Wing (PTW) at Bovington.

Bovington was and is the home of the Royal Armoured Corps and the whole area seethed with tank activity. There were gunnery ranges at Lulworth, the workshops, the wireless schools, the maintenance areas and driving ranges, not to mention the NAAFI – Navy, Army, Air Force Institute – Bovington’s centre of social activity and culinary excellence. (‘A char and a wad please, dear.’) It was a popular belief that they put bromide into the buckets of tea to suppress the libido of the licentious soldiery. If they did it was just as well, for the fraternization between the ATS girls and the lads was frequent and vigorous enough as it was.

My ignorance of life outside my loving family and school friends was compounded by my youth and inexperience so the 30th PTW was an exciting new experience and a huge culture shock for me. As a wet-behind-the-ears army private, I found myself amongst all sorts of people that I’d never come across before. In the bed on one side of me in the barracks room was an incredibly upmarket chap, whose name I have genuinely forgotten and whose general uselessness was well nigh unbelievable. On the other side was a laconically lovely bloke called Ted Nicklin who, if I remember correctly, was a welder from Walsall and as streetwise as they come. I am convinced that living as part of such a disparate mix did me all the good in the world, because it taught me there were other points of view, other ways to speak and more ways than one to skin a cat.

The 30th PTW was all about the beginnings of discipline – what armies win or lose by. ‘Do what you’re told. Don’t question it. Do it!’ was the unbreakable rule at the 30th and rightly so. Soldiers in combat must instinctively obey, not argue whether their orders are right. So seemingly endless drill parades, standing rigidly to attention when addressed by anything senior to the regimental goat, kit cleaning, sentry duty, assault courses and physical training were the order of the day, every day. If you were lucky enough to have leave, you had to report to the Orderly Sergeant for inspection before you were allowed to depart the barracks. He would closely inspect the backs of the tiny brass buttons in the rear vent of your greatcoat and the bit between the heel and the sole of each of your boots to make sure they were highly polished. Daft? No, it was discipline. But by far the worst thing as far as I was concerned was sentry duty.

It was winter and very cold and the system was two hours on and four hours off – dressed in full order. Battledress trousers and tunic, webbing belt and gaiters, boots, greatcoat, a gas mask satchel strapped to the chest, rifle and ammunition pouches and, literally, to top it all, a steel helmet. Clumsily clumping off to the sentry position in that lot was bad enough, but then standing in one spot for two hours of freezing night-time monotony was purgatory. But worse was yet to come. When you thankfully returned to the barracks room for an enamel mug of tea and four hours off, you had to sleep on the floor, or try to, without removing any of your kit – including your steel helmet – only to be woken for the Orderly Officer’s inspection just as you’d dropped off.

Eventually, as a result of all this marching, cleaning, running, jumping, parading, sentry-going, weapons inspecting, church parading and general hammering into shape I was ready to move onwards and upwards to Stanley Barracks. Not now as a humble Army Private but as a very proud Trooper to the 58th Training Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps. Still at Bovington – but the first hurdle had been cleared.

Psychologically the 58th Training Regiment was on another planet because now I felt as though I was really on my way to the commissioned rank to which I had always aspired. My army ambition was geared to it and I would have been gutted and ashamed if I hadn’t made it. Life was at a higher level and altogether more specialized, in that it was more mechanically and ‘tank’ oriented with six months of driving, gunnery, wireless and crew commanding instruction.

Learning to drive was great. I was already proficient on a motor cycle, thanks to the 1928 250cc Ariel Colt my father had given me, but driving on four wheels was something new. We had to learn in a Ford 15cwt truck, which had a V8 engine and whose clutch was either in or out; nothing in between and a bit like a Vincent-HRD 1000cc motor cycle. Get it right and you went: get it wrong and you stalled. By the way, I’ve never taken a driving test in my life, because when I came out of the Army in 1947 you didn’t have to – all you needed was a certificate of proficiency from your Regimental Technical Adjutant. As I was the Technical Adjutant I didn’t find that too difficult!

So in the 58th it was not just more assault courses, physical training, marching, drill, belt and gaiter blancoing and ghastly sentry-going, although there was still plenty of all of those, but also getting to grips with the rudiments of being a ‘tank man’ – gunnery and maintenance, tactics and wireless, weapons handling, and enemy tank recognition. I’ll never forget the first time I drove a tank. It was a 20-ton Crusader and I can still feel the thrill as I hunkered down into the driver’s compartment, with its 340bhp 12-cylinder Liberty engine thundering away behind me. Rev it like mad, clutch up and – GO! With the crash gearbox in top it could do 40mph in the right conditions and, believe me, that felt more like 400mph. In the Crusader you steered by pulling two metal bars like pencils that braked the appropriate track and made the tank turn one way or the other. You felt invincible as the whole thing noisily bucked and plunged, ripped and roared its way ahead. Magic! I’ve always been grateful for the fact that I was one of the lucky ones: my tank was never hit by an armour-piercing shell from the Wehrmacht’s awesome 88mm anti-tank gun, my turret never penetrated by the blast from a terrifying Panzerfaust and I was never hit by mortar fire.

I loved it all at the 58th except two things: Morse code and Corporal Coleman. Morse code was my bête noire. I could never get my head round having to tap out electrical sound messages, machine-gun-like, in the form of dots and dashes with a key that moved only a fraction of an inch. But I beavered away at it and became just about good enough to get by. Corporal Coleman was something else though. At the 58th you may have been potential officer material but you certainly weren’t yet an officer cadet – or likely to be unless you played your cards right. Officers were gods and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) were all-powerful. A bad report from an NCO could ruin your chances and they all knew it.

Well into my time with the 58th I got a simple cold which I ignored. With all the assault courses, getting sweaty, swimming icy rivers in battle order and other physically demanding things, it rapidly got worse. Like everyone, the last thing I wanted to do was to report sick, because if you had to go to hospital you were automatically retarded. So I didn’t … until ultimately I could hardly stand up and simply had to. Sick parade meant you had to assemble your kit for inspection by the Orderly Corporal – in a specific way to a very specific pattern. Highly polished boots with their soles upward. Highly polished mess tins alongside them. All your clothing folded and arranged a specific way, millimetrically precise and faultlessly creased. Blankets folded and gas mask, webbing equipment and cutlery all present and correct and spotlessly clean. Then you stood, alone and ramrod-erect, to attention at the end of your bed whilst the Orderly Corporal gave it his minutest attention.

Enter Corporal Coleman. Not, in my admittedly biased opinion, one of nature’s charmers at the best of times. Unsurprisingly my kit hadn’t been laid out as army-approved as it might have been and it didn’t go down well with Corporal C, who swept the whole lot on to the floor, kicked it round the barracks room and shouted, ‘Now do it all again – and properly!’ Or rather less refined words to the same effect.

Remember what I was saying about army discipline? There was no point in protesting and anyway I was in no state to, so I did as he said. And, having made his point, it was to his satisfaction this time. Then I dragged myself off to see the MO, who said, ‘You’ve got pneumonia. You’re going to hospital.’

I’m not a chap who holds grudges but for many years I dreamt of meeting Corporal Coleman again in circumstances where I held the upper hand. But I never did and in spite of my long hospitalization I returned to the 58th, completed my training successfully enough to be selected for my War Office Selection Board (WOSB) and appeared before it. I made the grade and, to my unbounded pride and joy, was told to report as an Officer Cadet to number 512 Troop Pre-OCTU (Officer Cadet Training Unit), Blackdown. Yes! Yes! Yes!

It was at Blackdown that Sergeant Major Hayter of the Coldstream Guards and I had a parade-ground encounter that taught me a lesson. Never was a man better named. Picture the 18-man 512 troop, now sophisticated and hardened veterans of drill parades, expertly marching and halting as one, symmetrically wheeling, turning and rifle-bashing their way around the vast black tarmac acreage of Blackdown’s drill square, fearlessly and faultlessly responding to the stentorian commands of Sergeant Major Hayter.

‘By the left, quick march! Left, right, left, right, left, right, left.’

‘Squad ’alt!’

‘Quick march! Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Aybout turn! Left, right, left, right, aybout turn! Left, right, left, right, LEFT TURN! Left, right, left, right, LEFT TURN! Left, right, left, right, RIGHT TURN!’

And who turned left? I did.

‘SQUAD ’ALT!’

‘Officer Cadet Walker come ’ere, SIR!’

(All Officer Cadets had to be addressed by NCOs as ‘Sir’, which was usually done with great emphasis and heavy irony.)

‘We got it all wrong didn’t we, SIR?’

‘Yes, Sergeant Major.’

‘Shall we show them how to do it properly then, SIR – just you and me?’

‘Yes, Sergeant Major.’

‘Right then. Officer Cadet Walker only. Quick March!!’

I think you’ve got the drift now and he had me sweating round the square performing obscure drill manoeuvres by myself for a solid 10 minutes. And the lesson it taught me? Listen out, stay sharp and don’t assume that everything is going to be as it used to be.

In spite of that I continued really to enjoy the drill sessions. There is something very satisfying about marching proud, swinging your arms high with your back straight and your head up, knowing that, as a unit, you look terrific. We were getting to be soldiers now!

Blackdown held no terrors like Corporal Coleman. I reached the required standard without interruption and, in October 1943, it was goodbye to 512 Troop at Pre-OCTU and hello to 115 Troop RAC OCTU at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, the most famous and historic in the world. Sandhurst, as it is known, has been the elite training centre for regular officers of the British Army since the early 1800s and, compared to Bovington and Blackdown, was relatively luxurious. When World War Two broke out it became the Officer Cadet Training Unit for Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) personnel only. We were quartered in the historic buildings and followed the long-established Sandhurst traditions and practices that had made the British Army so dominant and powerful over the centuries. I was immensely proud to be associated with and shaped by them and to be trained in such impressive surroundings.

Some 23 of us started in 115 Troop and six months later 18 of us reached the giddy heights of Second Lieutenant. Sandhurst was enormously enjoyable but it was also tough, because of the ever-present fear of failing what was a pretty demanding mental and physical regime. The whole thing was even more intense than Blackdown with major emphasis on determination, initiative and leadership. The Sandhurst assault courses had some fiendish elements. One of them required you to climb up a 40ft hill in full kit, run off the top of it on to a single narrow plank, clear a gap on to another plank, run across that, jump on to a third plank and then rush down the hill. I’ve seen strong men stuck with one foot on each plank and a 40ft drop beneath them, transfixed with fear and panic and unable to move. Being put into a room into which CS gas was pumped, but not being allowed to put on your gas mask until you had inevitably inhaled some of the filthy stuff was not a lot of fun either. Nor was having to negotiate pitch-dark shoulder-width underground tunnels while some joker dropped thunderflashes around you. However I made it, only to experience the supreme test of physical horror – a Welsh battle course.

It started at a Youth Hostel at Capel Curig, in Caernarvonshire, from which we set off to do infantry manoeuvres, sleeping rough and living off the country until we reached Britain’s highest mountain, 3500 ft Mount Snowdon. I was the one carrying the 2in mortar and my abiding memory of the whole week was the Troop Sergeant’s non-stop screaming to ‘double up, the man with the mortar!’ But after days and nights of marching, digging slit trenches, attacking seemingly invulnerable positions, sleeping in pig sties and other fun things, we finally got to the lower slopes of Snowdon.

‘I want 10 volunteers to climb to the top with me,’ said Captain Marsh, our course commander. And, of course, dead keen, I volunteered. It was hard, but we went up a comparatively easy route and had a double bonus at the end. Apparently, it is very unusual to get an uninterrupted view from the top of Snowdon but ours was as clear as a bell and you could see for miles in every direction – magnificent. As soon as we were done we were bussed back to the hostel we had started from – those who hadn’t volunteered, in the belief that they would get to the hot baths and beds before us, were made to march there on a compass bearing that got them back, by way of rivers and very rough country, at four in the morning. My respect and admiration for what was known in World War One as the ‘PBI’ (Poor Bloody Infantry) had increased tenfold and I knew now why it was that I had wanted to serve in tanks – you didn’t have to walk and had a roof over your head.

The camaraderie at Sandhurst was wonderful; the tank driving and commanding and the gunnery fabulous; and the occasional evenings in the pub were great. Even the Church parades were very special because they were held in the RMA Chapel: an immensely dignified and very moving scene of military tradition and magnificence. But of course all good things come to an end. For me that was on 8 April 1944, my passing out day, with all the moving pomp and circumstance at which the Army is so accomplished. My parents and friends were there and the salute was to be taken by that great American General Dwight Eisenhower, Commander in Chief of the Combined Allied Forces which, in just two months’ time, would be landing on the coast of Europe to commence its bloody liberation.

On to that magnificent parade ground in front of the Old College, then, marched the entire Sandhurst contingent in proud formation, with heads held high, arms swinging and boots resounding to the drum beat and stirring military marches of the band that preceded them. I certainly felt emotional – even 57 years on I can still feel the excitement and pride. I was now Second Lieutenant Walker, Royal Armoured Corps, wearing the coveted black beret and ready to go to war from a sealed camp at Manningtree, near Harwich, the gateway to the Continent.

My recollections of Manningtree are dim and my recall of the ship I boarded dimmer, but the trip itself was smooth and straightforward. It took quite a long time: we turned right after Harwich and headed south through the Straits of Dover for the Mulberry Port at Arromanches, a wonderful example of British initiative and enterprise. To bypass the heavily defended French ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg, enormous concrete caissons were prefabricated in Britain and towed out to France on D+1, 7 June, to create a brand new port almost the size of Dover. When we were put ashore the whole area was a hive of khaki-clad activity with tanks, trucks, guns and all the other bric-a-brac of warfare flowing out of ships and on to the shore along the floating roadways. I wasn’t there long because I was rapidly assigned to a tank transporter column that was to make its way to Brussels. And what a journey that was. As the lengthy convoy of enormous American White tractor units with their massive trailers, each carrying a Sherman tank, slowly churned its way through the recently liberated French countryside into Belgium we got an enthusiastic reception from the population, still euphoric after their liberation from ‘les salles Boches’.

I was very lucky to join the Royal Scots Greys, even if I was rather a round peg in a square hole. First raised in 1678, the regiment was one of the foremost in the British Army and had fought with great distinction in Palestine and in General Montgomery’s magnificent Eighth Army from the Western Desert to Tripoli. It had taken part in the invasion of Italy, landed in Normandy, fought its way through France into and out of Belgium and was now at Nederweert in Holland where I joined it.

So, as a young, untried and totally inexperienced new boy I was becoming part of one of the toughest, most case-hardened fighting units of all. When I reported to the tent of the charming Major Sir Anthony Bonham he said to me, ‘Welcome to the Regiment, George, we are glad to have you with us.’

Somewhat embarrassed, I said, ‘The G is for Graeme, actually, Sir, but my friends call me by my second name, which is Murray.’

‘Oh,’ he replied. ‘I thought Murray Walker was a hyphenated, double-barrelled name.’

I had the feeling that he was rather disappointed that it wasn’t, because that’s the sort of regiment it was: very Cavalry, very regular, officered by moneyed County gentry, many with Scottish connections, who had been educated at the very best and most expensive schools and who had known each other and fought together for a long time. I was and still am immensely proud to have been a Greys Officer and to have fought with them but I certainly felt as though I was in a club of which I was not a natural member.

Major Bonham told me, ‘You will be responsible to Sergeant McPherson, Murray.’

Sergeant? What the hell does he think this Second Lieutenant’s pip on my shoulder is – confetti?

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘Fresh out of Sandhurst I expect you think you’re God’s gift to the British Army, but you should know that McPherson has been with us since Palestine. He has forgotten more about fighting and the way the Regiment does it than you’ll ever know and when he says you are capable of commanding a troop you will have one.’

He was, of course, absolutely right. So I watched and listened and before long I got my own troop. A few days later we moved to the island between the Waal and Neder Rijn rivers north of Nijmegen where I had my first experience of sentry-go, Greys style. Up all night standing in the Sherman’s turret, with the Germans on the other side of the river, thinking that every sound you heard was one of them creeping up to blast you to perdition with a Panzerfaust. This was shortly after the airborne forces’ foiled attempt to capture the bridge over the River Maas at Arnhem and to launch the 21st Army Group across the Rhine into Germany. From our positions on the other side of the river we could see parachutes and supply containers for the beleaguered airborne troops hanging from the trees. One night I had to transport ammunition on my tank to troops of the American 101st Airborne Division. It was not a job I relished as, silhouetted against the sky, we slowly felt our way along the dark and narrow road with no turn offs. There was a great deal of heavy and very messy fighting at this time, clearing river banks, woods and other difficult areas and, as ever, the Regiment came out of it with great distinction.

During the actual fighting, we tried to rest whenever and wherever we could – in the vehicles, in barns and even in Dutch homes. On one occasion though, when I was seeking billets for my troop, the door was opened by a completely bald woman whose head had been shaved by revengeful villagers because she had collaborated with the Germans. The time we spent in our winter quarters was really good. I was billeted in a very comfortable Dutch home in Nederweert with the Regimental Quartermaster, Captain Ted Acres, a dry, exact, pedantic and incredibly efficient chap, and Fred Sowerby, a blunt and cheerful Yorkshireman who ran the light aid detachment. It was Fred who refused to help me out of a difficult situation when I forcibly removed the windscreen of my regimental Jeep. I had done so in a moment of madness when driving across an airfield while a B17 bomber was starting to take off. The chap who was with me said he’d bet I couldn’t catch it. I not only did so but clipped the back of its tailplane with the top of my windscreen. ‘You did it, you silly young bugger,’ said Fred, ‘so you can live with the consequences!’

In the evenings though, when the day’s training schedules, joint manoeuvres with the infantry, gunnery practice and tank maintenance tasks had been completed, Ted, Fred and I could relax in front of a roaring fire catching up with the very welcome mail from home and listening to the American Forces Network. Frank Sinatra was the man, Peggy Lee was the woman and the big bands of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller were and still are my passion.

In the middle of February 1945 the Greys’ winter rest period ended. The long-serving personnel had returned from their UK leave and the Regiment was refurbished and refreshed – just as well, for the end of winter heralded some of the bloodiest fighting of the Second Front. The war had now surged up to the very borders of Germany at the Reichswald Forest and the mighty River Rhine. The Greys were heavily involved, co-operating closely with the infantry, and the going was very tough indeed with the Germans resisting every inch of the way with anti-tank guns, rivers, ditches, snipers, blown bridges and Panzerfausts. Their homeland was now being directly threatened and that added extra steel to their resistance. It was here that I had one of the most emotional experiences of my life.

Times arose when we had to let other units leap-frog through our positions so that we could refuel, take on fresh ammunition and eat. You stopped by the supply vehicles and then there was a flurry of activity: humping five-gallon jerricans up to the engine compartment and sloshing petrol into tanks, passing shells and ammo boxes up into the turret, maintenance work – a sort of tank pit stop. Sitting on the turret with my legs dangling inside while my troop was on its way to one of these, I saw a group of four men in army uniform and idly thought that one chap looked just like my father. As we got closer I realized to my amazement that it was my father: he may have been in battledress and wearing a khaki beret but his stance was unmistakable and to clinch it he was smoking his inevitable pipe. At the time he was editor of Motor Cycling, and had got himself accredited as a war correspondent with the express intention of finding me, which he’d done. Needless to say it was wonderful to see him but there wasn’t any time for more than a short conversation because I had to get back into action.

This all happened close to a place called Udem, near the towns of Goch and Kleve which had been completely obliterated by over a thousand bomber raids. I remember having to get out of the tank at one point during the night and thinking that I must be in Dante’s Inferno. The road was blocked by rubble, houses all round me were ablaze, there were dead bodies lying on the ground amid a nauseating smell, bemused cattle were wandering about, people were shouting, guns firing and there was the constant worry that somewhere up the road was an 88mm or Germans to let fly at you with a Panzerfaust. With V1 rockets aimed at Antwerp soaring over us, we advanced despite the most stubborn resistance by Panzers and elite Paratroops. The Reichswald was cleared and on 24 February 1945 we crossed the border into Germany.

It is difficult to find the words to express my emotions as I saw the crudely signwritten board saying, ‘YOU ARE NOW ENTERING GERMANY’. Since 1939 Britain had been subjected to defeat after defeat in Europe, Africa and the Far East. Our towns and cities had been bombed and torched with incendiaries. Countless thousands of men and women had been killed, maimed and injured on land, sea and in the air and Hitler’s U-boats had done their best to starve us out. Standing alone, Britain had been on its knees but it had fought back and now, with the might of America at its side, it was winning.

The British Army’s part of the Eisenhower/Montgomery master plan called for the crossing of the Rhine and then a mighty surge towards the Baltic. Now, after the bloody night attacks using ‘artificial moonlight’ from searchlights, we were on the west bank of the Rhine near Xanten. Looking across its mighty width, it seemed impossible to cross but we knew that it was just a matter of time. On 23 March there was a 3300-gun artillery bombardment of the far shore and beyond which must surely have been one of the most intense in military history, and on the following day the 6th Airborne Division swept into action. I simply could not have imagined what it would be like, and if I hadn’t seen it would never have believed it. As the gathering roar grew louder and louder, I stood beside my tank looking up at a vast fleet of hundreds of aeroplanes towing gliders containing troops and equipment. With no opposition from the Luftwaffe, they reached their targets, cast off their gliders and returned for more. It was the most amazing demonstration of military might and how Britain had clawed its way from the brink, rebuilt its forces and turned the tables on its enemy. But it wasn’t all euphoria: at one point, to the horror of the forces below, a Tetrarch reconnaissance light tank emerged from its glider hundreds of feet above us and plunged to the ground with its crew still inside. What had happened I do not know, but the story was that with the engine running for a rapid exit, the driver had dropped the clutch while still high up in the air. Whatever the reason, it was a terrifying sight.

On 25 March we crossed the Rhine. Unlike Arnhem, the air drop had been a total success and a bridgehead had been established. German forces were still holding out in Holland, to our left, and the Ruhr, to our right, but between them the way was now open for a charge to the River Elbe and Hamburg. But there was still a lot of bloody conflict before that could happen. Progress was slow and painful. At one point there was particularly bitter resistance from the German Second Marine Division and I remember standing over one of them, who was clearly dying, with a drawn pistol in my hand in case he was bluffing and tried some desperate move.

After virtually continuous fighting, during which I liberated a fine pair of Zeiss binoculars from a German 88mm gunner who had been trying to wipe us out, we reached the crucial River Elbe, south of Hamburg. In a mammoth military traffic jam pouring across the newly constructed army bridges, the mighty Elbe was crossed and now our momentum was unstoppable. With the Russians advancing rapidly towards Berlin from the East and the combined forces of the West pressing forward from the other direction, the Germans were in a vice and their resistance melted. With vivid and bitter memories of the Russian campaign uppermost in their minds, the last thing they wanted was to be captured by Stalin’s men, merciless and eager for retribution and revenge. Things became very political as it was vital to the Allies that their forces reached the Baltic before the Russians. The key was Lubeck. ‘Get to Lubeck first!’ was the stirring order given by the War Office to the 21st Army Group. The Greys and the 6th Airborne Division were instructed to head for Wismar on the Baltic coast, and we went for it. It was an incredible experience. At the rate of some 5000 troops an hour, the German army was heading west as fast as possible to avoid being captured by the Russians, while on the same single carriageway road we were hammering east absolutely flat out. With the British and the Germans going their different ways just feet away from each other there was no fighting, no acknowledgment even. At one point our headlong gallop was brought to a halt by the sheer weight of traffic and, sitting on the top of the turret eating a tin of Spam, I found myself looking down on to a vast open Mercedes-Benz staff car containing four obviously high-ranking German officers. It was hardly the time, place or occasion for a cheery chat: we studied each other dispassionately and not a word was spoken. Then the column moved on, so did they and that was the last we saw of each other.

On 2 May 1945, after an incredible 80-mile dash in one day, the Royal Scots Greys reached Wismar to become the first unit of the British Army to link up with the Russians – in the form of a captured German BMW motor cycle and sidecar carrying an officer on the pillion and a woman soldier in the sidecar, accompanied by a couple of American White scout cars and another mixed bunch of soldiery. The war was over.

The Greys did not stay in Wismar long. At the end of May 1945 we moved to Rotenburg, between Bremen and Luneburg, where I was given a special job to go to the Philips factory in Eindhoven, Holland to collect a load of radios for the Regiment. I was to be allocated a truck and to find my own way. But I wasn’t exactly overjoyed when I found the truck was a Morris-Commercial 15cwt that the Germans had captured from us at Dunkirk in 1940 and had been using all through the war.

It was in running order but not in the best of shape, to put it mildly. However, off I set with Trooper Doug Taylor (my personal servent in the army) to lumber back through Hamburg, Bremen, Osnabruck and Munster, retracing our steps amid refugees, columns of troops, tanks and B (wheeled) vehicles as Europe started to reorient itself after over five years of bloody conflict. The gallant old Morris did a fine job and didn’t let us down, although it certainly took its wheezy time getting there. But when we got to Eindhoven the news was not good.

‘The radios are not ready,’ we were told. ‘Please come back in three days.’

Well, there wasn’t much to occupy us for three days in war-torn Eindhoven so we decided to go to Brussels – plenty going on there. I had a Belgian girlfriend in Brussels from my time at Villevoorde earlier in the campaign, so we fired up the willing old Morris again, and headed off. This was strictly forbidden, of course, for I had no authority to go there and very nearly ended my army career by doing so. We left the Morris in a military park and three days later, after a great time in the big city, Doug and I returned – but there was no sight of the Morris. Eventually, in desperation, we asked the Sergeant in charge if he could help us. ‘Ah, yes, Sir,’ he said when he saw the receipt. ‘We were a bit suspicious about this vehicle in view of its age and when we checked we found it wasn’t on the Army records so it has been impounded.’

Oh my God. Stark panic. I was in Brussels where I wasn’t supposed to be, I’d been there for three days without authority, my truck had been impounded, I hadn’t got the radios and I had no way of getting back to the Regiment in far off Rotenburg. I could see the court martial looming. There was only one thing to do then: find the Town Major, make a clean breast of it and cast myself on his mercy. ‘You’ve been a bloody fool, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, we’re all human and it is going no further. Off you go and the best of luck.’ And that, thankfully, was the end of that.

During our time at Rotenburg any fleeting thoughts I may have had about signing on with the Army as a regular soldier evaporated and I decided that the life was not for me. Things became more routine with the fighting over. Now a Lieutenant, I was promoted to Mechanical Transport Officer, which meant that I was in charge of all the Regiment’s B (wheeled) vehicles and answerable to the Technical Adjutant who was responsible for all the Regiment’s vehicles. This, of course, was right up my street.

During this time a friend of mine, Peter Johnson, returned briefly to the UK, sharing a cabin with a couple of British Infantry officers. They were discussing what loot they’d brought back with them. Peter mentioned he’d a German officer’s revolver and a Nazi flag.

‘Look at this then,’ they said, opening a suitcase full of jewellery and gold ornaments.

‘God almighty!’ says Peter. ‘Where the hell did you get all that lot?’

‘Well, we’re first in anywhere and we go straight to the jewellers’ shops.’

It was thieving of course but anything was fair game in those times. For the record I came out with my binoculars, which I still have, a P38 revolver, which I handed in during the arms amnesty, an enormous Swastika flag and a German officer’s knife with ‘Gott mit uns’ engraved on its blade. Funny that. We thought he was with us.

I was again promoted, in February 1946, to become the Technical Adjutant and to start a running battle that could have ruined my life. It’s a long story so a bit of background might be helpful. The Regiment was reverting to its normal peacetime ways, which were totally foreign to me as mine were to them. For instance, I started a motor-cycle club for the whole of the 4th Armoured Brigade and spent a great deal of time organizing trials and scrambles, sourcing machines to be used for competitions and even working with the Regimental Fitters building bikes, none of which were usual activities for a Greys officer and they were undoubtedly regarded as unacceptable behaviour.

Amid this increasingly fraught situation, I should have been promoted long before to the War Substantive rank of Captain. It wasn’t happening, though, and I was getting fractious. I am hard to rouse but was outraged that I was not being given the rank, income and status that went with the job. Eventually I was grudgingly given the rank of Local Captain but not the money that went with it or any promise of permanency, which, if anything, made me even angrier. To top that, they tried to cancel the home leave that I’d previously been granted, and which I’d applied for months in advance so that I could attend the first post-war motor-cycle race meeting in the fabled Isle of Man, the Manx Grand Prix. They claimed it was cancelled for disciplinary reasons.

Now the battle was well and truly on. Thanks in part to my father’s influence I got my leave and had a wonderful time in the Isle of Man, but when I reported back to the Regiment in Luneburg it was to find that an adverse report on me had been submitted which recommended that I be reduced to the ranks because I was ‘unreliable, unsuitable, untrustworthy and a bad example’. My back was up against the wall now for if the recommendation was accepted, the Dunlop Rubber Company (for whom I’d recently had an interview for a job after I left the army) would certainly have thought it a bit odd that the Captain they had interviewed next appeared as a Lance Corporal, quite apart from the loss of self-respect the demotion would have caused me. Fortunately though, army rules being what they are, I was allowed to submit a written response. Knowing that my future literally depended on it, I sat down and gave it my very best shot – five closely typed foolscap pages.

For most of my time with the Regiment it had been part of the famous 4th Armoured Brigade, commanded by one of the most outstanding men it has ever been my privilege to meet: Brigadier R M P Carver CBE, DSO, MC. He was young – in his very early thirties – had a wonderful personality, and was a superb example of all that was the very best in the British Army. He was the sort who would suddenly appear on the back of your tank in the middle of some very unpleasant action and ask you why the hell you weren’t further ahead. And now he was to rescue me from this situation that could well have blighted the rest of my life. He came to the Regiment to interview me and told me that my response had been accepted but that it was clearly impossible for me to continue with the Greys. I could not disagree with him for had I stayed the atmosphere would have been intolerable. So you can imagine the relief and pleasure I felt when he went on to say that I was being transferred to become Technical Adjutant of the recently formed British Army of the Rhine Royal Armoured Corps Training Centre at Belsen, with the full rank of Captain. So I had won without a stain on my character, but it is a battle I would far rather not had to have fought. I was and still am mighty proud to have been able to serve in and fight with such a wonderful regiment as the Greys, but only sorry it ended the way it did.

So to the BAOR RAC Training Centre at Belsen. Not the Belsen of concentration camp notoriety? Yes indeed, but very different by the time I got there in October 1946. The hideous installations of the Nazi death camp had been destroyed, the bodies buried and the thousands of displaced persons moved to other locations. Belsen became Caen Barracks, which had a driving and maintenance wing, gunnery and wireless wings, a tactical wing and its own AFV ranges to provide short-term courses of just about every conceivable type. ‘Officers,’ says the brochure which I still have, ‘should bring their own sheets and pillowslips and may bring their own batmen [personal assistant] with them if they wish but German civilian servants can be provided by the Centre if necessary. Facilities are available for riding, shooting and fishing, football, rugby, hockey and swimming.’ A good place to finish one’s army career then and a dramatic contrast to the utterly unspeakable place it had formerly been.

The wheel had gone full circle for me. I had started my army career as a humble Private at the home of tanks, Bovington, and here I was finishing it with greatly enhanced status at Bovington’s German equivalent. The work was enjoyable and satisfying, the accommodation was good and I had the opportunity for local leave. On one occasion I went to Hamburg to stay at the Officers’ Club, which was located at the old Atlantic Hotel, one of the finest in Europe. It was surprisingly undamaged by the many RAF raids, but around it hardly a single complete building stood, however far you looked and in any direction. I remember thinking that there was no way that it could ever be rebuilt, but go there now and you wouldn’t think that there had ever been so much as a broken roof tile.

I started to get involved with the motor-cycle racing world again at Belsen. Germany, a centre of motor-sport excellence before the war, was already striving to recreate its racing activities but, banned from international participation as it was and with the country flat on its back, this mainly took the form of enthusiasts talking and planning for what might be. One such group was the Brunswick Motor Cycle Club, right on the east/west border, who got to hear of my existence and invited me to become an honorary member. It was led and inspired by Kurt Kuhnke, who had raced one of the incredible supercharged two-stroke works DKWs before the war. I spent several very enjoyable evenings in their company talking racing and bikes. Just a few months earlier I had been doing my best to rid the world of these people in the sincere belief that they were the ultimate evil but now here I was socializing with them about a common interest. It is indeed a funny old world – a world that was again about to change dramatically for me as, at the end of May 1947, I boarded the ship for Hull where I was to swap my khaki uniform for my post-war civvies.