Yeomen of England

by Ken Tout

  Christmas seemed to be bringing a winter lull in fighting and a time to fraternise with happy Dutch civilians. Hitler, however, had other ideas, launching the so-called ‘Battle of the Bulge’ through the Ardennes in an effort to reach Antwerp and thus cut off the northern Allied armies from the forces to the south. The unexpected charge broke through thin American defences and, for a while, threatened to cause great havoc. The German generals themselves had doubts about the possibility of achieving Hitler’s vision and, as British troops were rushed to aid the Americans, the attacks petered out. For men like the 1NY tank crews, the overriding memories were not so much of battle but of perishing cold to the body and danger to the tanks as they slithered up and down steep, forested, icy slopes for which no tank was designed. Captain Sandy Saunders thought it must have been ‘275 degrees below zero’, although the actual 40 degrees below was bad enough:

  It was COLD! It was bloody cold in the open air! It was even colder standing in the turret of a Sherman tank with the air being sucked in beside you to the engine intake, freezing your overalls while you sweated with fear. Added to this, 30 tons of Sherman weight did not prevent the tanks from skidding all over the icy roads. Bad, downright dangerous on the ski-type slopes. Even in villages. The tank in front of us, meaning to go straight on, was caught by a wrong camber in the road and slid off sideways down a steep side street and the driver could do nothing about it. If you caught your track on a kerb and broke it you had to get out and haul huge lengths of frozen metal to mend the thing. We could hardly be bothered about what the Germans might be aiming at us – arctic survival was our main purpose.

  Sandy was later called by a Belgian civilian to examine a pile of more than thirty civilians, each of whom had been shot in the head and all of them dumped in a local cellar. A little while earlier NY tanks, with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders alongside, had come upon the notorious Kamp Vught where the Nazis had imprisoned Dutch and Belgian civilians, shooting many there in the grounds and exporting even more by rail to killing camps in Germany. The 20-year-old Yeomen were learning hard lessons about ‘man’s inhumanity to man’.

  The next great barrier to cross was the River Rhine, after which the wide German plains would be open to the overwhelming armoured might of the Allies. Once again Yeomanry regiments proved their adaptability in battle, as the NY and ERY were now switched to driving the amphibious Buffalo, essentially a crude armoured steel box which floated and could carry a Bren gun carrier, an anti-tank gun or a section of infantry across the treacherous currents of the Rhine. Grousers (extensions) added to the track links enabled the tracks to propel the clumsy vehicles slowly through the water, though with limited steering ability. The Staffordshire Yeomen would once again use their waterproof Duplex-Drive swimming tanks to cross the river and give immediate gun support to the infantry. Other regiments continued their varied life, the Cheshires in the air-landing operation beyond the river and the Lothian and Borders sweeping minefields to reach the river, where the engineers would build a pontoon bridge.

  As on 8 August 1944, so now in March 1945 NY troopers were dismayed before the battle started to hear that the colonel, Doug Forster DSO, had again been seriously injured and would go back to England, never to return. Major the Lord George Scott came back from leave to find himself commanding the local crossing within hours. Major Hank Bevan MC and Captain Tom Boardman MC had gone forward to examine the Bund, the great anti-flood embankment which lined the river, marking routes and arranging for the engineers to blast gaps for the infantry.

  The 1NY amphibious Buffalo carrier loading up to cross the River Rhine, March 1945. (Tank Museum/NYA)

  One of the first awkward Buffaloes to move through the gap crashed and blocked it, with those following having to climb the seemingly vertical Bund, worse than any obstacle on the Bovington proving ground, pause at the top and then slide without control down into the rushing river in the dark. Once in the river the Buffalo had to be pointed diagonally downriver to avoid being swept too fast upriver and missing the marked landing beach. Remarkably, the Buffalo ferry service successfully landed two whole infantry divisions across the river and then assisted them over subsequent water obstacles. Not all crossings were without incident; for instance, Trooper Johnny Howell, just back from an appendicitis operation in England, had his vehicle swamped and found himself swimming for his life in rough, icy, oily, dark waters. Somehow Johnny survived, although all his portable personal belongings remain somewhere at the bottom of the Rhine.

  With such an unwieldy, poorly controlled vehicle there were many alarms, crossing an unknown river in darkness exacerbated by explosion flashes which dazzled the eyes. Rex Jackson MM, now promoted and commanding a Buffalo driven by Mike Hunt, imagined the worst possible fate when, on their first return journey, the engine stalled in midstream:

  Before we knew where we were the current had whipped us away, spinning round and round until, you might say, we didn’t know our stern from our starboard. Mike got the engine going again but we were still spinning and it was impossible to see anything down there on the water, with mist and smoke adding to the darkness. Luckily the night before I had attended a commanders’ briefing which included sight of an extremely good scale model of the crossing area. There was a fixed crane on the home side which was raised high near the track for follow-up loads. Now I could see it silhouetted against the night. We still had to get there. Mike managed to control the spin and head to the bank. We TRIED to land. But the Bund here was lined with stone or cement blocks on which the tracks would not grip. We slid back into the river which whipped us downstream again. Eventually we were pushed into a lower bank, only to find somebody pointing a machine gun at us, maybe thinking we were Germans on a raid. We shouted the password at the top of our voices.

  This 1NY Buffalo was one of 79th Armoured Division’s specially adapted tanks, or ‘Funnies’. (NYA)

  The Allied armies now pressed on into Germany from east and west. The NY troopers were glad to be ordered to hand in their hated amphibians and travel to collect their sleek Shermans again. Victory (VE) Day found them still dismounted in the city of Zwolle and, as was happening to tired troops still in Holland, they were seized upon by the joyful inhabitants and swept into a frenzied dance of delight which went on all night. Next day there was more rejoicing and impromptu sports events. Later there was a solemn memorial service in the great ancient church where the Roll of Honour was read for the first time, mentioning so many remembered names of lost comrades.

  As with those in the earlier Great War, credit must again be given to the ‘Yeowomen’ of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). They excelled in various roles with many of them also forming motor driver companies of the ATS, while others volunteered for SOE, the perilous covert operations behind the enemy lines. Of those latter heroines three won the supreme award of the George Cross, the non-combatant equivalent to the Victoria Cross. In all, fifty-four FANY members were killed in action in the two world wars.

  ‘Yeowomen’ of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) in 1914. They later acquired motorised ambulances. (PRVC/FANY, 2012)

  NY and 51st (Highland) Division veterans at the grave of NY’s last fatal casualty, Corporal Hughie McGranahan, Hotton Cemetery, Ardennes. (NYA)

  Even in the very last days of April and May 1945 there had been fanatical resistance from some German units, and advancing soldiers had died right up to the last shots fired. The 2NY’s Corporal Ken Jordan, now serving with the 8th Hussars, saw his troop leader, Lieutenant Wally Ryde, die even as the firing ended. Ken, later to become a minister of religion, helped his comrades carry the lieutenant’s body into the local church and lay it before the altar, for they now had time to mourn before arranging a temporary burial. Seeing a garden nearby filled with beautiful flowers, Ken went rather hesitantly to the German hausfrau and asked permission to pick some flowers to place around the body. The woman immediately agreed and offered to join them for, she said, she herself had lost three sons on the E
astern Front. She would never get to mourn them at their remote, unknown graves, so she would join the British lads and mourn the lieutenant as one of her own.6

  NOTES AND REFERENCES

  1 Yeomanry Regiments, 1844.

  2 2NY war diary and A.E. Saunders.

  3 Various memoirs by Moseley, Hicken, Spittles, Leary (all NYA), Thorn and Cloudsley-Thompson also at the Second World War Experience Centre.

  4 At the author’s tank, acting i.c. Troop Sgt’s ‘3 Able’.

  5 Much of the subsequent NY ‘travelogue’ covered in others of author’s books.

  6 Ruth Jordan, 2011.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HANDS OFF THE TA!

  (1947–2011)

  VE Day did not signal immediate dissolution of the Yeomanry regiments and the Northants lads found themselves doing police and riot duty in the civil chaos that was Germany in the summer of 1945.

  Stationed at the Hermann Goering steelworks, the NY had to preserve order among tens of thousands of slave labourers, all suddenly released but with no social organisation, material provisions, ability to travel or, in many cases, a surviving homeland to which they might return. There were also German ex-servicemen who had evaded prisoner-of-war camps and a German civilian population threatened by many persecuted victims of the Nazis now seeking vengeance. When order had been gradually restored the Yeomen were switched to commandeering vehicles in order to ensure delivery of basic supplies, and also undertaking lumberjack work as part of the reparations programme, with wood, machine tools, industrial blueprints and other items being shipped back to Britain.

  In the autumn of 1946 the Yeomanry regiments were ‘mothballed’, or put into ‘suspended animation’, with the last Territorial soldiers demobilised and later as reinforcements posted to regular units. In the arcane military system Lieutenant Colonel the Lord George Scott closed down the Northamptonshire Yeomanry and the very next year the same Lord George re-formed the Northamptonshire Yeomanry as a unit of the re-established Territorial Army. The same thing was happening across the spectrum of county Yeomanry regiments as they were adapted into the varied roles which had become typical of the Yeomanry: several regiments became permanent field artillery units and some heavy artillery; the 3rd/4th County of London, the Wiltshires, and others drew tanks and served as armoured regiments; the Fife and Forfar were equipped with armoured cars; the Worcesters became anti-tank artillery; the Scottish Horse re-formed as the divisional RAC regiment of the Highland infantry division; and the North Somersets joined the airborne division. Perhaps few of them suspected that by the 1950s there would be further changes in their roles, reductions in size and amalgamations. Eventually, proud county regiments, many of whom had provided more than one regiment during the recent war, would find themselves diminished into ever smaller units with even more varied functions and regional amalgamations. By the twenty-first century the Northampton Drill Hall, where Sergeant Reg King had marked out bed spaces in 1939, would be home to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) Territorials.1

  Virtually from the moment victory was declared there was hostility between the Western Allies and the USSR, and this was to escalate into the Cold War. It was essential, therefore, to maintain a full-size Territorial Army, available and ready for foreign service if needed. But for some time the normal peacetime status of the Yeomanry was affected by the new type of conscripted ‘National Service’ soldiers, and also by recall of reserves when the Cold War appeared to be reaching a ‘Hot’ state. John Bishop was called up for National Service and posted to the regular King’s Dragoon Guards. He was then informed that the length of his service had been extended but that he could serve half of the time with the Territorials. He moved to the NY and continued to serve with them after the end of his National Service period.2

  The 1NY’s Doug Gardner had accepted his civilian suit after the war, gone home and hoped that the War Office had forgotten him forever, although theoretically all demobbed soldiers moved on to a Reserve List. He was disillusioned when it was decided to recall battle-experienced men for a fifteen-day refresher course. Recalled men, like Doug, were not amused:

  They made us run like chaff before the wind, and when kindly instructors tried to show us how to present arms, we carried on like Baboons with greased hands. Astonished Commanding Officers of suddenly inflated regiments had the duty of making welcome a roaring bunch of ageing civilians who, not without cause, prided themselves that they knew every trick worth while in the British Army. Many of us now held responsible positions in civilian life and/or were building up successful businesses. And a brief fortnight back with the boys was the purest tomfoolery. Fortunately the Russians did not attack.3

  Territorial camps went ahead much as after the Boer War and Great War. In 1952 the NY went to camp at Lulworth ranges, under RSM A. England. George Jelley was still among them but had reverted to SSM ‘to give somebody else a chance’ as RSM. The regiment now worked with 17-pounder anti-tank guns fitted on the tough Valentine tank, although the new recruits found the flash of the gun very frightening:

  The range officer put some moving targets up for us. The first one was shot off the rails and we could see the red line of the tracer disappearing through the models and then a whirring ricochet over Bindon Hill and out to sea. Several times small sailing vessels broke the law and sailed within the danger limits and we had to cease firing. It was suggested that a round of 17 pounder across their bows would make them more careful in the future!

  The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II gave the Yeomanry a chance of glory in 1953, when, as at previous coronations, each regiment was invited to send a select group to join in the military parades. In the same year the queen approved the presentation to surviving Yeomanry regiments of Dragoon guidons. The 7th Earl Spencer, an embroidery expert, produced the new NY guidon, which was presented to the assembled regiment at Althorp by the Duke of Gloucester, with the long-serving SSM George Jelley being chosen to receive the standard.

  Field Marshal the Duke of Gloucester hands the new guidon to SM George Jelley, with Lieutenant Colonel N.P. Foster (right) and Major Sandy Saunders. (NYA)

  Meanwhile, annual camps continued. The NY changed to armoured cars and 1944 Night March navigator, now Lieutenant Colonel Tom Boardman MC, took command. At Perranporth camp another ex-National Serviceman, ‘Tanky’ Turner, achieved a victory by error rather than good judgement, not unusual in real battle. His armoured car had got lost at night and he had ‘kipped’ on Bodmin Moor, before following car tracks in the mud the next day. Putting up an extra aerial, they reported their position. This caused misbelief at HQ, ‘You can’t be there!’:

  Just then we saw aerials appearing over the horizon. ‘Don’t worry’ we told control. ‘We can see you now’. To which control shouted ‘That’s not us! That’s the enemy! They must not pass. Umpires are on the way’. Sgt Archer and myself devised a plan, with thunder flashes, flares and a Bren gun loaded with blanks. We hid the car and set up an ambush. At that moment two umpires, one of them George Jelley, appeared. The enemy drove up innocently at full speed and we opened fire. There was no doubt about it. The umpires declared the entire ‘enemy’ troop wiped out. We were the heroes and nobody thought to enquire how we had got lost and why we were away so long (when there was a snug little pub near where we got lost)????

  The following year’s camp recorded the indestructible George Jelley refereeing the inter-squadron soccer matches at age 63. The NY officers were a little surprised to receive a ‘round robin’ from a visiting divisional commander, stating tersely that, when coming to camp, ‘the GOC does not expect to be fed’. In other words, he was not there to be obsequiously ‘wined and dined’, as might have happened in other times. He was there to ensure the sharpening up of formation exercises and improvement of individual skills. Increased disciplinary measures could be irksome to some Territorials. Tanky Turner, comedian and mouth organ entertainer of the troops, described an occasion when peacetime spit and polish was exaggera
ted to a ridiculous degree. The Northampton Drill Hall was having a ‘wash and brush up’ for a visit by HRH Princess Alice, the Duchess of Gloucester, sister of Lord George Scott:

  There was a very large tiger skin outside the Officers Mess. It was quite old, the beast having been shot in Mysore in 1840. It needed cleaning and the teeth had been lost. The CO thought the Royal Army Dental Corps at Aldershot might help. ‘Delighted!’ they replied. ‘Bring the skin down to our depot’. Some time later I went down to fetch the skin. The Chief Dentist had supervised ‘a painless renovation’. Not only had the TEETH been renewed but the nose had been remodelled and the glass EYES highly polished. A wonderful sight for Princess Alice, our Association President. But some of the lads thought it was ‘bull gone mad’. And some weeks later somebody stole it, teeth and all!

  The mid-1950s and ’60s were a time of great perplexity for Yeomanry regiments. There were myriad changes of roles, amalgamations, reductions and even disbandments, so that an entire book might be written about the period. In 1958 the reduced NY became D Squadron of the Inns of Court Regiment, but in 1962 it changed completely in function to 250 (Northamptonshire Yeomanry) Independent Field Squadron, Royal Engineers. In 1956 other amalgamations took place, such as the Scottish Horse and Fife and Forfar Yeomanry eventually becoming the Highland Yeomanry, and one Yeomanry regiment, the North Somersets, found itself merged with an RTR battalion. In 1967 an amalgamation of several county units produced the Royal Yeomanry, one of the four such regiments which would survive into the twenty-first century. Two of the most perplexed counties must have been Leicester and Derby: amalgamated in 1957, in 1967 they were reduced to a cadre, only to find themselves in 1971 a part of the 7th Anglian Infantry Battalion, before they blossomed again as a squadron of the Royal Yeomanry in 1992.