My service in Royal Signals, 1939 to 1946.

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by Nevil, Feb 21, 2011.

  1. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    Most interesting Nevil. I don't think that anyone who saw the aftermath of Falaise has ever forgotten it. I remember my Dad mentioning the quantity of dead horses. He also went through a little later with 11 Air Formation Signals.

    Without wishing to open too large a can of worms, and having noted your mention of the speed of the allied advance, what was your impression as a British officer working alongside the Americans of their view of British and Canadian progress after the initial landings ? Was there an understanding with the US that Caen was difficult or were they impatient with the Commonwealth advance ?
     
  2. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Most interesting Nevil. I don't think that anyone who saw the aftermath of Falaise has ever forgotten it. I remember my Dad mentioning the quantity of dead horses. He also went through a little later with 11 Air Formation Signals.

    Without wishing to open too large a can of worms, and having noted your mention of the speed of the allied advance, what was your impression as a British officer working alongside the Americans of their view of British and Canadian progress after the initial landings ? Was there an understanding with the US that Caen was difficult or were they impatient with the Commonwealth advance ?

    I guess it is a can of worms anyway!

    As I have mentioned, Rich, I saw very little of British and Canadian troops in Normandy, or beyond, and my job was outside the scope of battle tactics, so I am quite neutral on the comparisons between them and American troops and formations. Also I have not made a study of the campaign.

    Prior to D-Day when Ike appointed Montgomery as the Allied Ground Commander, taking precedence over Bradley, it was taken very badly by most American officers. I am sure Ike took a lot of flak before it was finally changed a few months later. It would in fact be impossible today in any joint operation where Americans formed the majority of the troops..

    Just based on the scuttlebutt around SHAEF, there was no doubt a great deal of scepticism, even anger, amongst Americans about what they saw as a failure of the British and Canadians to achieve objectives that Montgomery had established initially, or even those he later changed to.. This came to a head around Caen and Falaise and the Americans were intensely critical and blamed his command for the escape of many German divisions and personnel from the Falaise trap.

    I think at one point Monty said the his original plan was not to take Caen but simply to draw most of the elite panzer troops against his divisions. He was not given much credit for the fact that most of those divisions were in fact thrown against the British and Canadian lines.

    This largely died down when the war moved outside Normandy because there was less contact between the two forces except at the command level. The next big blow up that I remember occurred much later in 1944 when Montgomery was reported as publicly taking a lot of credit for saving the day at the Battle of the Bulge. The American forces having fought 95% of the battle and taken about 60,000 casualties in the process, were understandably incensed.

    I think you will see from the above that most of the acrimony revolved around the personality of Montgomery, rather than the Commonwealth troops. He was not popular with Americans.

    Overall, I give Ike a lot of credit for maintaining relative peace amongst often fractious allies!

    On a personal level I got on well with the Americans I had contact with at SHAEF.


    My ten cents worth anyway!

    Nevil.
     
  3. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Travelling to Versailles, and having been diverted by road damage and closures, my driver and I somehow missed our destination, Camp de Satory on the fringe of Versailles, and found ourselves on the outskirts of Paris in the late evening. Not wanting to chance driving around in the dark in what was a rather unstable place, we looked for somewhere to spend the night. There were several houses in a row with some burned out German cars outside and we decided that was likely a German billet so we would not disturb any French family by moving in for the night. The reasoning was good but the assumption that the one we picked was empty was not; as we approached the door there was a series of pistol shots, which fortunately did nothing more than scare us half to death.

    The door was unlocked and we entered very cautiously. At first I thought we had disturbed the original occupant, obviously a German officer, but after checking all the rooms it was apparent that somebody had been ransacking the place when we turned up, as clothing and belongings were scattered all over the floors of several rooms, We also realised that the shots were just to slow us down as whomever was inside escaped out of the back.

    The previous occupant, a Wehrmacht officer, had left behind most of his belongings, including his medals, which included the Iron Cross. He also left a small 6 mm Mauser automatic pistol that I carried in a concealed holster or a pocket for much of the rest of the war and into Berlin. I still have the framed notice the officer had on his wall: "Was wurde Der Fuerer dazu sagen?" which means "What would The Leader say about that?”.......a precursor of George Orwell's "Big Brother is watching you!" An ashtray, with silver rim and insignia of the Iron Cross, has since been broken but I still have the rim. The medals I gave to the young son of my army buddy, Bill Plant, immediately after the war.

    We actually spent two nights at that billet before going to Satory. All the German formations had left Paris by the time we arrived. With so many Germans previously in the city, and it being evacuated by them so quickly and unexpectedly, there were supposedly stragglers hiding for weeks. In consequence, those two nights, and many afterwards, were noisy with gunfire as the French searched for Germans. In addition to looking for Germans, they were sniping at each other. The Maquis tangled with the FFI (French Forces of the Interior), and both fought the communists, and those loyal to General De Gaulle fought all the rest. Some of them were settling old scores and getting rid of neighbours whom they did not like or thought had been too friendly with Les Boches. They were especially brutal with any girls who had been friendly with German soldiers. I suppose it was understandable after a very cruel German occupation but it was not a pretty sight. We moved around in daylight but stayed in for those nights, some of the French being so trigger-happy with captured weapons.

    Within the next few days, the advance party from SHAEF caught up with us, with news that Supreme HQ would be in the Trianon Palace Hotel, with other General Staff offices and supporting services, including the Signals Office, in Les Grandes et Petites Ecuries (Large and Small Stables) of the Palace of Versailles. These stables had not seen any horses in a very long time and were nicely set-up.

    The British and American Signals Other Ranks` billets would be in Camp de Satory. This was also to be the location of various offices, storerooms, etc, and also our workshop.

    The Officers' Quarters, and Mess, for both British and American Signals, were in a gated enclave of superior residences called "Parc de Montretout" in St. Cloud. This was an exclusive suburb of Paris overlooking the city from a point high above the Seine. The room I shared with another British Officer had a fireplace with a large window over the whole width of the mantelpiece, through which there was a remarkable view right over the city across to the church of Sacre Coeur.

    We soon learned that the Parc had been used by a section of the German General Staff. It was made clear to us they had behaved "correctly" towards the French owners of the homes, a few of whom left no doubt they regarded us as mere riffraff in comparison.

    The next three months settled down to a busy but fairly stable routine. SHAEF remained at Versailles, with a forward HQ near Rheims. The latter was another good place to be, being the centre of the Champagne area, with "les caves" being still loaded with the very best in spite of the years of German occupation.

    The 3/4 ton Ford pick-up, with four-wheel-drive, I had acquired before I left England, I had had fitted to cover the essentials in sleeping for my driver and me. This became invaluable as soon as we became based in Paris. I was responsible for around 500 vehicles, plus trailers and mobile generators, spread over hundreds of square miles, wherever the war took them. Roughly two weeks of each month, I would travel around the various sites, arranging for repairs, taking replacement vehicles where necessary, and so on. We could rely on getting a meal wherever we were but, in the forward areas especially, the truck was usually the most comfortable place to spend the night.

    The remaining part of the month, I had administrative work at Camp de Satory, with my office, parts storeroom, petrol depot, and vehicle workshops. However, I had a Sergeant, an ATS clerk, and several storemen, who could run it all efficiently, so I had a reasonable amount of free time to enjoy the plentiful social opportunities in Paris. I say workshops because after a few weeks SHAEF received a REME workshop led by a warrant officer. This became a bit tricky as the WO2 was not happy to find another workshop already in operation and was not inclined to cooperate. I suppose this was standard British Army protocol. I understood the politics of this of course but it was not popular at SHAEF where the mix of two armies and two regulations were usually subjected to the more practical ``Cut the crap and get it done!`` philosophy.. Anyway, after a few rather prickly weeks, we were able to arrange a logical divisions of tasks between the two shops and keep both busy with a minimum of acrimony.

    The pictures are:

    Wireless Set #10 ("Beam wireless")
    Souvenir ashtray from Paris.
    Wall poster taken from German officers' billet.


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  4. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    My biggest problem in Paris was getting supplies for the workshops, and especially petrol and diesel fuel, from the Channel coast ports. Early in the campaign, the army had established one-way roads, in each direction to and from wherever the front-line divisions had reached. They were called the "Red Ball Routes." The supply trucks were from US Army Transport Groups, most of the drivers being African-American. Their standing orders were that each truck must run 20 hours each day, seven days a week. Many were seriously overloaded and ran around the clock on occasions. Each truck had two drivers and ran nose-to-tail, around 50 mph, non-stop except for brief maintenance periods in official service areas. They had an ingenious method of speeding up maintenance by colour-coding engine and transmission parts to differentiate between those that needed daily checks or more extended ones..

    It was virtual suicide to run at any lower speed, or stop on the side of the narrow road; if you were not hit by following traffic, you would be taken off the road by patrolling military police with orders to let nothing slow the flow of materials and would use their side-arms to enforce their orders if necessary. In the early days I had to go up and down those routes every few weeks, trying to get a load or loads of especially urgent items from the beach depots or from Cherbourg. They were always nightmare trips. Any trucks we sent on that job had their governors disconnected before they left.

    Our worst hassle in the supply of petrol was early in our move to Paris. The US Third Army had by-passed the city and was advancing at great speed towards the German border, when they started to run out of petrol and diesel oil for trucks and tanks. Being concerned to maintain a balance of supply to all sectors, General Eisenhower refused extra allocation to them. General Patton then sent his own military police onto the Red Ball route, hijacked all the petrol and diesel trucks and diverted them to Third Army. There was one hell of a row as some 12 Army Group units, in action against the Germans, began to come to a halt. The situation was restored before too much damage was done. I don't know what Eisenhower said to Patton but, as they were buddies from way back, I don't suppose it was too serious. In the British army, it would probably have meant a court-martial and the end of Patton's career. In the light of future event, and especially the Battle of the Bulge, it was undoubtedly fortunate that Patton was not relieved of his command at that time..

    A disconcerting aspect of the Red Ball routes was the habit of Frenchmen to take quite literally their long-established rule that a vehicle joining another road from the right has the right of way, irrespective of any other considerations. Every now and again, some old guy would drive his charcoal-fired farm wagon straight across the Red Ball route and be splattered all over the surrounding countryside, usually taking a few army trucks with him. With a truck a few feet behind you, one a few feet ahead, and your foot hard on the gas pedal, all you could do was hang on and pray that nobody ahead would stop for any reason.

    The incoming and return Red Ball routes, closed to all civilian traffic, operated between Cherbourg and Chartres, where there was a huge transport depot. Goods were then split over various routes to supply the armies as they advanced. The original routes lasted only about three months, until supplies could be received via Antwerp, but there was no doubt they were an essential ingredient in enabling the fronts to advance with such speed after the breakout from Normandy.

    A significant improvement in our supply of petrol was the Pluto pipeline that ran from the UK to Cherbourg quite soon after that port was opened. Taking petrol off the loads that had to come in over the Normandy beaches was a huge relief to the supply effort. This was further improved when another under-sea pipeline was laid to Boulogne in mid-August. Perhaps the most important part was the extension of the Cherbourg line from there to follow the armies, running more or less parallel to the Red Ball routes and then later beyond Chartres. The pipeline eventually crossed the Rhine at Frankfurt am Main.

    A significant irritant with the land pipeline was the quite frequent breaks in the line caused mainly by theft by the French, especially farmers desperate for petrol for their tractors and so on, but also by black marketeers who could make a good living selling it virtually anywhere in France in spite of the fact that the petrol contained a dye and any civilian found in possession of it was liable for stiff penalties. The theft was easy.....just use a wrench to open a pipe joint and a knife to pierce the gasket. The problem was not just loss of the fuel but the gasoline sometimes ignited causing loss of life and property and not insignificantly a temporary breakdown in the supply to the waiting armies.
     
  5. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    To his credit, the German General in charge of the Paris garrison and defences had ignored Hitler's orders to destroy the city when his troops withdrew. Apart from a couple of air raids in the early days, I cannot remember there being any subsequent substantial ones on Paris although there were a few on the supply routes from the Normandy coast..

    Within weeks of its liberation, Paris became the R&R centre for the US army sectors, as did Brussels for the British and Canadian sectors a little while later. It must have seemed like Heaven on Earth to any GI from a combat division lucky enough to get a brief leave there.

    Although everything was in short supply for civilians, including food, it was hard to realize it sometimes. In addition to the big, flashy, elaborately-costumed (and un-costumed) shows at the Follies Bergere and Casino de Paris, there were soon many small cabarets and night clubs, most being concentrated in the Place Pigalle area. After years of blackout in England and all the war fronts, seeing Paris a blaze of light and thronged with people late at night and every night, it was hard to remember we were in a very active war zone. The various clubs for British and American officers and other ranks served excellent meals with fine wines, for a modest cost.

    The French franc being valueless, and hoping to curb the blackmarket, the Allied forces paid their troops in a special military currency. The French public wanted nothing to do with that, or any other paper money, insisting on payment with such items as soap and cigarettes.. To get one's laundry done by a French civilian cost two bars of soap, one being to do the wash and the other as payment. A night out, with a cabaret show and a bottle of champagne, would cost perhaps two or three packets of cigarettes. For us, the place to eat for a “night out,”was the British Officers' Club on the Faubourg St. Honorế. They not only provided an excellent meal, with good wine, but actually accepted payment in military currency. This was one of the few ways of spending it, others being the military supply stores (NAAFI for the few British and Canadians, PX for the Americans and British at SHAEF). Some of the military currency that was left over could be sent back home to family but there was a limit to the amount.

    The incongruity of all this, compared to the severe rationing in England and the real food shortage around us in Paris, struck me early on. I invited a middle-aged French couple, apparently prosperous near-neighbours in St Cloud, to dinner at the Officers' Club. They exclaimed about the excellent wines, the food, the service..."just like the old days," they said. A few weeks later, with several other British and American officers, I went to dinner at their home a large house, tastefully furnished. The entire meal, from soup to desert, was based on turnips or contained them as a significant ingredient. It happens that even the smell of cooked turnips revolts me for some reason. Obviously, I could not insult my hosts by declining the dishes, so I ate them with a great show of enjoyment and was most complimentary about the cooking, and so on. I left as early in the evening as I decently could, explaining I was due on duty. On my way home I was sick.

    However, the point was, they were generous with what little they had. Most troops in the rear echelons of the American sector were living high on the hog, with little appreciation of the contrast with what the civilians were experiencing. It was little wonder that many French men and women openly referred to Americans (there were too few British to be obvious) as “the new occupiers.” I have no idea how this compared to the rear echelons in the British and Canadian sectors.


    The situation of "non-currencies" was ripe for the introduction of a large black market and one was soon established. There was one widely-rumoured incident where a US Army Supply Company, from the C.O. on down, was found to be engaged in it on a large scale. Assuming the rumour was true, they got caught but hundreds did not.

    In spite of strong protests to the C.O by several interested parties, the argument being that this was outside the normal responsibility of an MTO, I had been given control of all the petrol and diesel supplies for SHAEF Signals, Most of this was dyed petrol but that did not stop people attempting to steal it or obtain it illegally by one subterfuge or another. However, I also controlled a supply of clear petrol that had to be used for some specialized generators and was brought into the US sector solely for our use. Being not coloured, this was worth its weight in rubies in the black market. I had some surprisingly ingenious attempts to co-opt me into making some of this available for such illegal purposes but not being al all anxious to spend the rest of the war in a military prison, and being very conscious of the fact that people up front were often desperate at times for petrol and diesel supplies, I had no difficulty in telling those involved to drop dead, although depending on the rank of the person in question I might sometimes couch the recommendation in more diplomatic terms! However, there was no doubt that a number of military people, both British and American, finished the war much better off financially than when they first joined. That definitely did not apply to me!
     
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  6. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Nevil
    Thanks once again for posts here. I am learning an awful lot from them.

    You say the petrol was dyed - do you remember what colour? And where/at what stage was the dye mixed into it?

    Regards
    Diane
     
  7. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Nevil
    Thanks once again for posts here. I am learning an awful lot from them.

    You say the petrol was dyed - do you remember what colour? And where/at what stage was the dye mixed into it?

    Regards
    Diane

    I have called the petrol "dyed," Diane, because that was the vernacular then. It did have a distinct yellowish hue but more importantly the stuff that was added was virtually impossible to remove so any military petrol could always be precisely identified by a simple chemical test if someone was caught with an unauthorized supply. I recall a report of one enterprising farmer near Paris being caught with a large supply (probably from the pipeline). Apparently he had filtered the stuff through a whole array of German or French army gas masks thinking that would make it impossible to identify as military. Didn't work!

    The substance must have been mixed in at some point before shipment as it was all the same whether it came in flimsy cans over the beaches in the very early days or later through the pipelines.

    The so-called "white" or clear petrol we brought in for some special generators (cannot recall why it had to be different) pretty well had to be collected from Cherbourg, and later Antwerp, in our own trucks or its chance of reaching us would have been zero.

    Nevil.
     
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  8. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Nevil,

    A fascinating collection of Posts that are full of information.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  9. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Nevil,

    A fascinating collection of Posts that are full of information.

    Regards
    Tom

    Thanks, Tom. I'll plod on as time and energy permits!

    Nevil.
     
  10. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    On Nov 1st, 1944, I was promoted to Captain and celebrated with a number of friends from the unit with a visit to the Folies Bergere and then a late night spent going the rounds of the Place Pigalle,,,,the most celebrating I had done since arriving in the City of Light......La Ville Lumiere,,,, a couple of months before. Certainly it must have been the only city in Europe with so much light in those dark days!

    Then about a week later, after attending a meeting to discuss our unique supply problems....a British unit virtually alone in the US sector of operations......I was told to prepare to leave for England to attend a series of meetings to ensure this did not become a major problem as we, hopefully, advanced to the German border and beyond. The travel order, imposingly signed ”By Command of General Eisenhower” came through a few days later and specified use of military aircraft so a few days afterwards I found myself in a US Dakota landing in London. Much better than the arduous road and sea trip I had anticipated.

    That led me to a couple of meetings in London in which I was considerably outranked but the magic words SHAEF and General Ike carried me through. Then a trip around some Ordnance Depots, mainly in the north, accompanied by a senior officer of that Corps, and everything seemed to be suitably arranged for the oncoming months. In fact, although there were a few minor hiccups, supply never did become a major problem for us for the rest of the war in Europe.


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    In early December, I went to the British 21 Army Group Headquarters which I think was just over the Belgian-Holland border at that time. While I was there, I located my brother Alan's unit and paid him a visit. The only time we could spend together were a few hours in the evening. The following morning, I had to leave and he went back on duty. He was then a Sergeant DR, was working very hard but enjoying himself.

    My arrangement at that time was to go from 21st Army Group to the US 12 Army Group near Luxembourg. However, before leaving we heard there had been a German counter-attack in the Ardennes. The general impression was that this was just a local offensive with limited objectives and of no particular significance. However, I was called back to Paris and when I got there, just in case, updated a listing of all the vehicles and locations in forward areas.

    I will not attempt to cover the events of the next few weeks, later known as the Battle of the Bulge, which requires and has filled numerous books I am sure. Suffice to say that there was feverish activity relocating SHAEF sections and their vehicles and supplies, mainly moving them back, as it quickly became obvious this was a major attack aimed at the weakest point in the US front line (also it should be noted the route of the German attack in 1940).

    Apart from one rush trip to 1st Army near Aachen, to help to pull out a wireless group, all my involvement was from Paris until later in December when it was necessary to take replacement vehicles and equipment to US 12 Army Group near Luxenburg. It was not snowing en route but snowed quite heavily when we got nearer to the mountains. The trucks delivered, we had a night's rest then started the drive back to Paris. Unfortunately, in the meantime a report had been received by Field Security that German troops in US uniforms had infiltrated US lines and had a mission to travel to Paris to assassinate General Eisenhower. Because of this, Military Police instituted checkpoints about every 20 to 50 miles. In unfamiliar vehicles and uniforms, and speaking non-American English, we were sitting ducks for a long inquisition at each checkpoint. By some oversight I still had in my wallet the SHAEF pass I had used in London but not since. That was not familiar to anyone at the checkpoints either but was accepted eventually.

    Anyway, by the time we got back to Paris, having travelled overnight and being very tired, we went to the US Mess at Camp de Satory for what we thought would be a snack before catching some sleep.. That was the first time we realised it was Christmas Day. I still have a copy of the menu.

    The German penetration continued into January of 1945. When the skies cleared, the Allied air forces went over in waves, day after day, inflicting heavy damage on their Divisions and supply routes. Massive reinforcements of American tanks and infantry, especially a famous “forced march” of General George Patton’s 3d Army, had earlier nipped off the "bulge."

    This last major German offensive sent a shiver throughout western Europe when it seemed that they might break through to the Channel ports again, It was Germany's last real chance to change the outcome or more probably the timing of the war but it was hard to know that at the time, after such a reversal to what had been a string of Allied successes from D-Day onwards.

    US casualties, killed and wounded, were 70,000 to 80,000, plus about 1500 for the British on the northern edge of the bulge.. The Germans lost around 100,000 casualties and prisoners.

    The end of the battle triggered a major row at SHAEF when Montgomery, in a speech or interview early in January, claimed to have been the saviour of the Allied cause by his intervention in the battle (an intervention that had in fact been relatively minor, in the latter part of the attack). That even caused a distinct cooling between British and Americans at SHAEF, as the claim was understandably bitterly resented by the Americans after their own huge casualties and valorous efforts in initially stopping then driving back the attack.. There were very angry calls for him to resign his command or be fired by Eisenhower. I don't recall if he ever apologized.


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  11. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    In January of 1945, with the "Battle of the Bulge" finished apart from minor skirmishes, and mopping up, the Allies continued their advance. The first crossing of The Rhine, at Remagen, was made by US troops in early March. By mid-April, the armies were racing across Germany, meeting the Russians, advancing from the East, towards the end of that month. I was in a small SHAEF convoy that crossed the Rhine at Mainz around the middle of April, heading for Frankfurt-am-Main, where a SHAEF headquarters was to be established.


    Allied troops had been warned that fanatical Nazis, especially Hitler Youth members, had been ordered by Hitler to "go underground" in occupied areas and engage in sniping, assassination and sabotage. These bands had been given the name of "Werewolves" by Hitler. With this in our minds, it was rather startling, as we drove through heavily damaged German towns and villages, to have apparently enthusiastic civilians on the sidewalks waving and smiling. Some houses even had home-made British and American flags hung from their upper windows.


    Our first impression was that German civilians assumed Allied soldiers would be like their own "SS" and that it would be prudent to look welcoming. There may have been some truth in that theory in the early days of the Allied advance but in conversation with several they made it plain that they knew the war was over for them and were grateful they were being occupied by the British or Americans, rather than the the French whom they despised or Soviet troops that they feared. Although I was in Germany for a year, I never heard of any instance of "werewolf" activity by Germans. Once hostilities ended, the only significant threats to life, limb or good health, came from Soviet military (both serving and deserters), Displaced Persons and potato gin. Germans, whether military or civilian, were invariably cooperative and highly disciplined towards anyone in Allied uniform. Also in that year I never met any German who had supported Hitler or the Nazi party or had been in favour of the war!


    In Frankfurt-am-Main, we occupied the headquarters complex of the I.G.Farben chemical conglomerate and somebody assigned me an apartment there. Next morning I was up early and went for a walk just to look at the neighbourhood and get some exercise. The area around, in fact the city as a whole, had been badly damaged by bombing and later shelling. I came across a small square surrounded by damaged buildings and in the centre there was a large group of German POW, including a number of SS sat apart from the others, seated on the ground, guarded by a couple of African-Americans. As I walked past them, one POW suddenly got up and started running. One of the guards just raised his carbine and hit him with several shots in the back and he dropped like a stone. I was stunned really. Not at the action of the guard who was just doing his job but at the POW who took such a chance when it should have been obvious to him that the war would be over very soon and he would probably be free to return to civilian life almost immediately.


    As an aside, I think I am right in saying that African Americans were employed only in service roles in the US army until the Battle of the Bulge, when several combat units were formed from their ranks and were used in action against the enemy. This was most probably more because of a requirement for more infantry troops than any enthusiasm for desegregation at that time!


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    On May 5, 1945, my driver and I left for Paris, via SHAEF Advance HQ at Rheims, our task being to lead the main workshops, stores, etc., up to Frankfurt. We arrived in Paris on the 7th and, seeing people swarming into the streets, stopped to ask what was happening. We were told the BBC radio had announced the German government's official surrender.

    For the next mile or so, we could move only at walking pace or less, with people pressing on us drinks of wine and cognac for endless toasts to peace, Ike, De Gaulle, Winston, and so on. By the time we got within sight of the Place de la Concorde, en route for St. Cloud, it was impossible to move. We were lifted bodily out of the Jeep and carried off into the crowd for a celebration that extended non-stop for the following 24 hours. We never did see our Jeep, or belongings, again. Fortunately, we lost no personal effects of any value and, controlling the vehicle fleet as I did, I was able to write it off a few weeks later.


    Arriving in "The City of Light" as the end of the war in Europe was announced was exceptionally good timing. It was a memorable party.


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    We were back in Frankfurt in about a week or ten days and almost immediately I was sent to join a group of others at a SHAEF “mission” being set up in Copenhagen for some reason I no longer recall.. Within a few days I was temporarily diverted from that with some US and British officers, not from Signals, to join a group attending the surrender of a German Luftwaffe and Naval unit on the NE Baltic coast. I had absolutely nothing to do there but I did finish up with a German Naval Officer's dress sword (years later stolen at Heathrow Airport when bringing it to Canada)) and also a Naval version of the Luger automatic pistol (later traded with an American officer in Berlin for a Rollieflex camera just before I was demobbed in 1946).


    The hospitality from the Danes was overwhelming. They had always had strong connections with the UK, in trade, vacation travel, and culturally, with English being widely spoken as a second language so British troops were doubly welcome! At that time, Denmark was about the only place in Europe with a surplus of food, especially dairy products and sea-food. So once again, I was able to eat, drink and make merry for several days before reluctantly dragging myself back to the sombre city of Frankfurt.


    On my way up to Denmark, I had travelled via Essen, a city I had visited during my extended vacations in Germany in 1936 and 1937. The industrial and residential areas of the city, and of other major cities of the Ruhr Valley, were a shambles, mainly as a result of Allied bombing. I managed to get overnight accommodation in an industrial building, a sort of hostel for Allied troops in transit, just a roof over one's head really, the only building still standing in a flat desert of rubble that stretched all around as far as the eye could see. I was up at first light next morning and, standing by the window as I shaved, I was amazed to see hundreds of people, men, women and children, emerging from the holes in the ground that were their homes in that desolate landscape. The Biblical phrase of "sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind" occurred to me. It was a far cry from the bombastic speeches of Der Fuerer and of the nationalistic military panoply of the SS regiments and Hitler Youth troops of my visit nine years earlier. Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" had lasted less than a decade.


    During that trip, I had also detoured through Iserlohn and Soest in Westfalen. In those towns, in 1936, I had been entertained by the families of two boys my own age who were members of the Hitler Youth troop with which I was travelling. I found the houses, I am fairly sure, but the occupants, in each case, strenuously denied knowing the boys/men or their families. With all the movement of refugees from one end of Germany to the other, this was feasible. However, they were obviously nervous at having a British officer at the door enquiring about two former members of the Hitler Youth, which was recognized as a training group for the SS.

    ********


    In July, 1945, SHAEF was disbanded, with our unit, 5 HQ Signals (BR)-3118 Signal Service Bn (US), receiving an official commendation from the Supreme Commander. As a memento of Frankfurt, I liberated a beer stein that I had been using in my apartment, and that I have still.


    Some of our Signals people were immediately transferred for what was expected to be shipment to the Far East, to take part in the final assault on Japan. I was pleased to be included with a group to go to Cernay la Ville, south of Paris, for some purpose not explained to us, if anyone knew. Our destination was a pleasant little chateau in lovely quiet countryside and I was entirely willing to spend considerable time there, especially with a particularly nasty war still raging in the Pacific. It was not to be and we were on the move again after a couple of weeks, en route to Berlin. I suppose it made sense to someone that we were going to Berlin from Frankfurt-am-Main via the Paris area.

    ********
     
  12. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

  13. Mike L

    Mike L Very Senior Member

    Nevil, superb recollections as ever. Thank you.
    Would it be impolite to ask for a few of your thoughts on returning home after de-mobilisation?
    I am surprised by the number of WW2 veterans who have emigrated post-war to Canada, Auatralia and New Zealand. Would you have any thoughts on that subject you care to share?

    Mike
     
  14. thewatcher

    thewatcher Junior Member

    Wonderful and enlightening recollections Nevil. I am learning so much from your post, thank you for sharing
     
  15. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Nevil, superb recollections as ever. Thank you.
    Would it be impolite to ask for a few of your thoughts on returning home after de-mobilisation?
    I am surprised by the number of WW2 veterans who have emigrated post-war to Canada, Auatralia and New Zealand. Would you have any thoughts on that subject you care to share?

    Mike

    Thanks for the comment, Mike............and it is never impolite to ask me anything although I cannot always guarantee to know the answer!

    Re your question:



    My reasons for emigrating were probably not at all typical and I think for every ten immigrants in Canada from the British Isles there would be at least three or four different reasons.

    In late 1945 I was accepted for a permanent commission in the regular army but eventually decided to decline it. I left Berlin in late May of '46 but with three months leave so my actual demob date was late August.

    I spent six months on a course in Business Administration at a Community College and was then hired by a very progressive British medium-sized engineering company in a junior management position. I met my future wife there and we were married in 1948.

    By 1957, when we made the decision to emigrate, I had a very happy marriage, a pretty good job with an apparently good future , two children, a detached house in a desirable neighbourhood, a decent car, and I suppose no real necessity to go anywhere.

    The Suez Crisis of 1956 was I think the trigger. The country had not even nearly recovered from WW2 but was then engaging in yet another armed conflict that had the potential to involve not just Britain, France, Israel and Egypt but a much wider list of countries. So we decided to move ourselves to some part of the world that had less chance of further warfare and the attendant shortages of food and other necessities of normal life. As my wife sometimes commented, it seemed that whenever there was some minor skirmish or political backlash in some obscure corner of the world, the price of food would rise in the UK!

    Our preference at that time was New Zealand but they were not accepting immigrants. Some harrowing tales about housing shortages in Australia from friends who had gone there , deleted that country from the list. Some friends who lived in what was then Rhodesia wanted us to go there but my eldest brother who had served in the Recce Corps in East Africa warned us against that, so that is how we came to chose Canada.

    Of course we had to pay all our own expenses and things were difficult for a while, renting for about two years before we could buy a house, but after about six months I had a management job with the Canadian subsidiary of a major US company and progressed from there. I suspect my life would have been a great deal more “comfortable” if I had stayed in my job in England......business became a major rat race much earlier here than it did in the UK.....but we have never regretted the move. We have visited the UK on many occasions, enjoy the countryside and our relatives over there, but have not had any desire to move back.

    I have been retired for 29 years and that is probably the best life of all but it would be nice to have the physical fitness I had in my army days as well!

    Nevil.
     
  16. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    Wonderful and enlightening recollections Nevil. I am learning so much from your post, thank you for sharing

    Thanks for your comments. I appreciate hearing that my recollections are of interest. One does not want to be "a voice crying in the wilderness!" :D

    Nevil.
     
  17. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    Thanks for your comments. I appreciate hearing that my recollections are of interest. One does not want to be "a voice crying in the wilderness!" :D


    I'm still here too, Thanks, keep em coming!
     
  18. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    I had a convoy of about 50 vehicles and one hundred men to take to Berlin from near Paris in the latter part of July, 1945. Everything went well until we got onto the Autobahn over the German border. These roads had been well designed, before the war, for fast movement of vehicles but by the end of the war, with bombing and shelling as well as neglect, had deteriorated badly in parts. Many bridges had been blown up and replaced with narrow Bailey bridges causing frequent, unexpected, slowing of the traffic flow.


    At one such place, one of our trucks failed to slow in time, went over the shoulder of the road, and then fell perhaps 30 feet down a sloping bank into a ravine. There were ten men in the truck at the time and, as we soon realized, they had been sitting on cases of small arms ammunition and anti-tank PIAT bombs. The men were thrown out when the truck hit the bottom but it then set on fire. We had to go down there, with the ammunition banging and popping and shooting in all directions, to pull the men clear and get them up to the road again. I was really worried about the men who had been in the truck and also about the possibility of having more hurt by the explosions. Fortunately, we got the casualties up to the road without any further injuries. All we could do was apply first aid and get them to the nearest military hospital, which was at Hanover. Hours later, we were relieved to hear that none was critically hurt and all would be OK after a few weeks.


    Next morning, we left again for Berlin. At Helmstedt, near Braunschweig (Brunswick), we crossed from the British into the Soviet zone of Germany for the final 100 miles to Berlin. This was one of only two roads into the city on which non-Soviet traffic was allowed, the other being from the American zone.


    We noticed some startling differences. Some of the Soviet convoys had large tanks, T52s probably, as big as the German Tigers, on multi-wheeled or tracked transporters. Behind them would be some heavy trucks often US built, then horse-drawn wagons, then fifty or sixty cavalrymen, chunky Mongolians in dirty yellow sheepskin coats (in July!) on a mixture of shaggy Mongolian ponies, fine riding horses, and some obviously more suited to a plough. In the convoy there would almost invariably be a small herd of cows in an open truck or trucks, or sometimes just roped behind a truck. The cows, and some of the horses, had been liberated from German farms as the convoy rolled through the countryside. The reason for the cattle became clear when we saw one of the convoys stopped for "lunch." They had the carcass of a cow strung from a tree, with soldiers helping themselves to hunks of raw meat. They would then cook it over fires lit on the shoulders of the road. We called these herds of cattle "bully on the hoof."

    We had been warned to avoid stopping unless there was a real emergency or were ordered to stop by Soviet troops, who would definitely shoot if we ignored such an order. It was nice to feel so wanted by our supposed friends and allies!

    ********


    The HQ of the Berlin HQ Signals was on the road leading into the Olympic Stadium complex, as was the apartment allocated to me in a modern, undamaged, well-furnished, building. The Officers' Mess, also very comfortable, was a large home on Badernallee nearby. With so few undamaged buildings anywhere in Berlin, we were indeed lucky.


    The shoulder-flash of the HQ, British Sector, was a black circle with a red band around it. The general supposition was that it was intended to represent Berlin surrounded by the (Red Army?) Soviet Zone...a zany idea, if true. However, the more popular explanation was: "The darkness of abysmal ignorance entirely surrounded by red tape." There were a few other possible explanations, all entirely unprintable here.



    Our immediate task was to get the Berlin telephone service operating again, the main switching centre being in our sector. Our telephone experts met with their opposite numbers from the Red Army who were in the place when we arrived to take over, went over the equipment with them, and arranged to take over in a couple of days. Everything was amicable, if rather more formal than we would have liked, with no brotherly love being expressed from the Soviet side. When our crews returned at the appointed day and time, they found the building empty. The Soviets had spent the intervening days completely stripping the place. Everything was gone, all the switching equipment, even such items as tables and chairs. What was even worse, they had cut all the incoming and outgoing cables with axes, flush with the concrete floor, so our people could not even tap in test equipment to trace lines. It was weeks before we could bring up suitable replacement equipment and get it operating.


    That exercise proved to be typical of the lack of cooperation from the Soviets that drove everyone crazy with frustration in attempting to bring order out of chaos in Berlin. As the months went by, the harassment included the disappearance of trainloads of supplies as they came through the Soviet zone; army road convoys were stopped by tank formations and their goods looted, and so on. Apart from their larcenous natures, they left us in no doubt they regarded us as being as much their enemies as the Germans had been.


    It was the general opinion of knowledgeable military people in the field, both British and American, that if it had not been for the naiveté, in political matters, of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and their American advisors, British and American troops could have been in Berlin well ahead of the Soviets. General Patton held back on the Elbe was particularly incensed. Winston Churchill begged Eisenhower and the American government to agree to let the British/American advance continue rather than holding them back to await the arrival of the Red Army. The course of world history in the second half of the last century would have been changed immeasurably for the better if his advice had been taken.
     
  19. Nevil

    Nevil WW2 Veteran/Royal Signals WW2 Veteran

    I'm still here too, Thanks, keep em coming!

    Hi Geof,

    I am gradually running out of steam......another few paragraphs perhaps but I am going away for a spot of R&R by the lake up north for a few days so they will be delayed a little.

    Regards,

    Nevil.
     
  20. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    I'm following every instalment too !:)

    Enjoy your trip away. I've just got back from a long weekend riding the 16H around Normandy and have had to go back to work to recover !:unsure:
     

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