My late father wrote this my mother gave it to me and I have treasured it I thought some of you lads may like to read it as my father told me only the funny parts of war never the horror .
I remember,
I remember,
It was a beautiful clear night , the moon sailed through a clear sky , little knowing how the eyes of countless British troops were constantly watching it, waiting for the order they had been waiting for all week . The order was !" Men of the Fifty First Highland Division you are to camp on the side of the river Calgar ( hard to read his tiny writting ) under a perfect smoke screen and as such, you will wait there untill you receive word to cross the Rhine " . It wont be easy , you may rest assured of that, for in front of you are four of Germany's finest Panzer Division's ." " They are fanatics and will not budge one inch come what may ". Your duty is plain to each and everyone of you you will go forward and engage the Germans in battle and hold them , I repeat hold them . You yourselves will not get back over the Rhine for at least four days , for while you are holding them the R.E.s all along the Rhine will be building bridges , bridges, bridges . Troops, Tanks , Guns and supplies are just waiting for the first bridge to go up . " It is a dubious honour the Army has confessed on you but if you live through it and someday marry and have son's , this battle may be shown somewhere on a screen you can say with quiet pride , " I was there ". and now men with your permission I would like to salute you all , with all my heart , but remember one thing the German's are stopping us from going home .
I was thinking of the Generals speach and how old and tired he had looked but what a fine face full of determination and fierce pride in being British for had'nt we shown the World that we still were as good as our fathers and wasn't that enough for any lad to be as good as his dad . Like the rest of the Div I had been surrounded by smoke for five days and stinking like it , eating it and drinking it . The tension was mounting , as though we all were fitted with metal transmitters . The time was six o/clock on Thursday evening and suddenly I knew the message had arrived , everyone else knew it but just waited, tensed and pent up .The whisper started . Ten minuets to nine Tough get everything ready . For nearly three hours I stood with all my kit in battle order, just twenty three years old and already enough sorrow and horror to last me all the rest of my days , but knowing full well that facing me was going to be worse than anything , I or the lads had dreamed about . How true my words were ! At ten to nine we marched onto the crocodiles engineers first to clear the far banks of mines to allow the Black Watch Infantrymen in . They would not budge without one of us with them , for mines was a dreaded word and nobody dare say a wrong word about the Royal Enginers . Eack Crocadile full of Infantry men plus two Sappers . I had a Scotch Engineer with me and little did he know he was to be the first casualty . We had shoved off and already our Croc was thirty feet away from the bank and leaving a frothy wake behind . Then we heard the menacing hum of the German reconnaissance plane as it came slowly down the Rhine towards us , it couldnt hurt us by itself as it carried no weapons but we could see in our minds eye , those Germans fingers getting ready to tap the fateful message , " The assault has started ". " ( Tues )" God in another minute the pilot will see our wakes behind us " . A Jock said " we were now a hundred yards across and not sure at all of the full distance of the Rhine ". Then he saw us at about the same we saw him . A huge shadow just about 50 feet above us and looking as menacing as a leaping tiger . We were prepared for a hot reception and got it . The whole world suddenly erupted and silence of a few minute's previous became a tortured nightmare of shreaking steel as bombs , shells, bullets point blank tank guns firing from their own side and I heard metal striking hard against the side of the Croc and thinking surely nothing can stand against a holocaust such as this . I heard the cries of sheer agony as shrapnel hissing hot found its way through unresisting bodies leaving a smell of hot pulsing blood and I thought again , we have to find mines yet in this dark under the guns of the tanks . Crocs were going down with the cargo of young lions for surely lions they were for not a cowards voice was heard . The noise doubled and I said " Hells Flames "!. I think our's have started firing , they have been waiting to get the range from the German flashes ", a Geordie had said he was right as we could see behind our steel walls , huge flashes on both sides of the Rhine . 'Orgh' we've bumped the bank's I said as we clambered out of the water on our caterpiller tracks making a target that any tank could hit with a pea shooter. " We are only half way across" , said the driver beside me , thats only a little island they use for picnicing on fine days . There will be no picnicing their tonight then I said . It seemed as though it would be impossable to escape being hit but our's wasnt and in another ten minutes the driver said " Right lads get ready , we are nearly there .
Sorry gentlemen but my father stopped there he never told me of this so I could never ask him and if I had he would never have told me , my mother only told me after he passed away that he was with the first lot that liberated Belsen . Do I wear my poppy with pride you bet I do and yes we have German friends and their fathers fought in the war .
