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VICTORY IN EUROPE DAY

The war seemed to be nearly over and we had moved to a village called Bremervorde not far from Hamburg; it became famous later as the place where they arrested Himmler. We moved into the town over as assault bridge which had been put into place by an Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers, a converted Churchill tank which carried the bridge on its roof and placed it where it was needed using hydraulic arms like today鈥檚 skip carriers . In the town, all was quiet, but suddenly we came under heavy artillery fire; while I was trying to keep out of the way of flying bits and pieces, a messenger came from Company HQ that the Company Commander and the Company Sergeant Major had both been wounded and, as the only surviving Officer, I had to take command of the Company. I ran to HQ just in time to see them being driven away on stretchers on top of a jeep. I was now at the age of 20 in command of a unit of 120 soldiers receiving orders to lead them the next day to a village called Engeo. Having placed them in a defensive position, I was next given orders for an attack on some farms held by enemy Panzergrenadiers on the following day. I spent the evening planning how for the first time to command a Company in battle, but later a that night a message came through that the enemy had asked for a ceasefire, not only locally, but throughout that part of Germany. You might expect that this would have signalled a tremendous celebration and I do remember seeing various guns shooting V signs into the sky with tracer shells, but most of us were so relieved that we wouldn鈥檛 have to go to war any more, we just flopped down and enjoyed the best sleep we had had for about a fortnight. It was, I suppose, a total anti-climax!

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