by Matthew Hall
By now it was becoming evident to even the most optimistic that the brigade was making no headway in the face of fierce opposition and was in increasing danger of becoming irretrievably boxed in. The situation suddenly underwent a dramatic transformation. News was received over the radio that Italy had announced her unconditional surrender. Then contact was made with the British 5th Infantry Division, which had successfully pushed up the coast ahead of their brigade and was now in a position to reinforce them. Finally they heard that the American invasion force had made a successful landing at Salerno. As the fighting stopped everyone cheered.
The announcement of this armistice brought an almost immediate cessation of hostilities from the enemy, who were obviously forced to withdraw at once. No one doubted that the Germans would continue to fight on as an army of occupation, but for all practical intents and purposes their objective thereafter became to hold the line from just south of Rome to the northern borders, a task which they accomplished with some success and at considerable cost in lives for the rest of the year and into 1944.
At 4am on 9 September Herford helped load 154 casualties who urgently required evacuating onto a landing craft beached close to the entrance to the railway tunnel. The enemy fire had fallen ominously silent, and despite the flurry of activity on the beach not a single shot was fired. There was an almost ghostly hush. The Germans had hastily withdrawn inland to regroup further north, destroying roads and bridges as they went.
The following morning was a perfect, warm autumn day. The bright sun rose in a clear sky and reflected on the azure sea. The gentle waves lapped almost noiselessly on the sandy shoreline which the day before had been the scene of so much slaughter. In place of the dreadful whine and crash of mortars was the soothing sound of birdsong. Where did the birds shelter when chaos descended? Herford wondered, and marvelled at the resilience of nature, which even in the thick of war never seemed to be defeated. For his part in the landings at Porto Venere Captain Herford MBE, MC was awarded the bar to the Military Cross. The Citation in the London Gazette of 13 January 1944 reads:
On the 8 September 1943 during the assault on Porto Venere (Italy) an LST (landing craft) which had been shelled during the approach and set on fire arrived on the beach. Major Herford led a stretcher party to the beach and assisted in the rescue and evacuation of casualties from this LST which was still under well aimed shell fire from a flank. This officer dressed several casualties which occurred in the LST during which time it was also dive bombed. Throughout this period the officer carried out his duties calmly and without regard for his personal safety. By his coolness, leadership and courage he was the means of saving many lives.
Herford subsequently commented that the eulogistic terms of this citation were ‘unrecognizable exaggeration’, but there could be no doubt that his actions in retrieving casualties from the landing craft exposed him to mortal danger – a danger which, no doubt, his businesslike efficiency allowed him largely to discount once he had made his decision to cross the beach. But he would also be the first to acknowledge that there were many feats of astonishing bravery that day from all the men who worked tirelessly to unload their landing crafts in the direct line of enemy fire.
Herford’s unit spent the next ten days moving swiftly northwards with the Allied troops chasing the retreating Germans up the heel of Italy. By the 19th they had arrived along infinitely twisting roads at Lagonegro, a village 666 metres high at the base of Mount Sirino. Heavy artillery pounded away at enemy positions all night, but it was nonetheless a beautiful spot. The Germans had blown a vital bridge that was seriously holding up the Allied advance. Time and again in the coming months this would be their tactic, destroying vital communications in their wake rather than standing their ground.
As the Allies advanced from the south and the Americans pushed inland from Salerno, the affairs of the Italian government took further unexpected turns. As the Germans closed in a tight circle around Rome the King and government removed themselves to the southern town of Brindisi where they attempted unsuccessfully to exercise authority over a people for the time being plunged into chaos.
Attempts were made to co-ordinate the groups of Italian partisans who now turned their weapons and ingenuity against the Germans, but these were largely self-organizing outfits and the writ of the Badoglio government ran not much further than the city of Brindisi.
Mussolini had meanwhile been moved from Ponza to the island of La Maddalena off the coast of Sardinia, then, fearing German interference, Badoglio had him moved to a small mountain resort high in the Abruzzi in central Italy. But on the morning of 12 September 1943, 90 German paratroopers were dropped by glider near to the hotel where Mussolini was being held. They effected his removal and carried him away in a light aircraft to a meeting with Hitler in Munich. Having secured assurances of extensive German help, the Duce then returned to establish a rival government in the north based on the shores of Lake Garda, which he maintained with varying success until his ignominious execution at the hands of Italian partisans in April 1945.
Herford’s brief spell in Italy drew to a rapid close as on 22 September his unit was returned to Sicily. At first they were given to understand that they were being posted to India, but then received the gladdening news that they were returning to Britain. They left mainland Italy on 23 September and spent a pleasant but frustrating four weeks waiting to embark on the Tamaroa bound for home. The eight-day journey via Algiers, past Gibraltar and through the Bay of Biscay passed largely without incident until they were nearly home. In the Irish Sea their escort vessel flushed out a submarine with depth charges and then opened fire with deck guns. When the vessel surfaced it was discovered to be British!
On 5 November Herford stepped ashore at Avonmouth and with the rest of his unit left almost immediately on a train bound for Sudbury in Suffolk, where they arrived in heavy rain at 5am and marched to camp. The sudden exposure to the cold and damp had given him a heavy cold and bronchitis. He was exhausted but it was good to be back.
He had been away from English soil for three years and nine months.
CHAPTER 9
1944 – A TOUCH OF PROVIDENCE
To be back in peaceful England was a tremendous relief. Despite the ravages of war it still looked clean, collected, cheerful and purposeful. Herford’s first thoughts on arrival were of Mary, his fiancée whom he hadn’t seen for nearly four years. He immediately telephoned her and five days later met her at the station where they had an emotional reunion.
Their thoughts turned swiftly to marriage. Herford knew that sometime in the New Year the Allies would launch the long-awaited invasion on mainland Europe. It was inevitable that his unit would be involved and that he would be away from home for some considerable time (however, neither expected it to be the 18 months it became). So they decided to seize the opportunity while they had it and quickly made arrangements for the ceremony to take place on 15 December at St John’s, Clifton in Bristol, where Mary was working at the children’s hospital.
Their wedding took place early in the morning, followed by a reception at the Royal Hotel. They left at 1 o’clock and drove to the north Devon coast for a brief honeymoon in the Lynmouth Hotel. The weather was bracing, strong winds and rain, but they fearlessly braved the elements, taking long walks and drying their steaming clothes in front of a log fire. They had waited four years to be together, and the English winter weather was not going to stop them enjoying their few precious moments before Martin rejoined his unit.
On 29 January 1944 the Director of Medical Services, Colonel Tomlinson, told Herford that he would be given command of a field ambulance unit and asked if he would like one in the Airborne Division. Herford expressed an open mind on the subject and so a week later was summoned to an interview with Colonel Austin Eagger, Director of Medical Services of the 1st Airborne Division. He was not particularly impressed with the applicant from the RAMC and asked, ‘Why do you want to join the Airborne? I’ve got more than enough willin
g and competent officers I would like to promote. Do you actually know anything about the Airborne?’ Herford confessed that his knowledge was limited to his experiences in the RAMC. Eagger pulled a face. ‘Do you know what “stick” morale is?’ Herford didn’t. Eagger ended the brief interview with the offer of a position of second-in-command of a field ambulance. Herford considered this for only a few seconds before replying emphatically that he would prefer to make his way to France by boat as he had done before in Sicily and Italy. He left with the distinct impression that Eagger had no intention of letting an upstart land-lubber permeate the ranks of the elite Airborne Division!
Herford was comforted to read some years later that a contemporary of his, later to become Major General Urquhart, had experienced considerable difficulty when he arrived from outside to take over the command of the 1st Airborne Division. He wrote:
On January 7th 1944 I drove to Fulbeck to take over the Division. I was received with some surprise and a good deal of curiosity, and I was soon to learn that an Airborne Division is a rather self-contained community, into which one had to be accepted… I was aware of being looked over closely and with ill-concealed reservations in some quarters. I had plenty to overcome. To make the situation rather more complicated, one of the brigadiers had been given to understand unofficially that he would be in command.
Herford did not regret having been warned off by Eagger, but as events were to later unfold on the continent, he would have plenty of contact with Airborne officers at Arnhem.
The first three months of 1944 passed with a tedium and sense of purposelessness only the military could devise. Herford was greatly relieved to escape the confines of rural Suffolk in mid-March when he was transferred from Sudbury to the invasion concentration area in Brockenhurst in the New Forest. At that time the entire south of England was slowly gearing up to launch the greatest invasion in military history – Operation Overlord.
The brigade to which Herford was attached, the 231, had spent six years in the Middle East, including three especially hard ones in Malta, which had come under intense aerial bombardment. The soldiers were tired and quickly grew impatient of being confined to leaky bell tents in the New Forest with no floorboards, no recreation and perpetual rain. Security was intense for fear of German spies so everyone was confined to camp. Needless to say, this was too much for many of the men to bear, and large numbers of them disappeared for hours at a time ‘absent without leave’. Being an officer Herford had no choice but to make the best use of his time he could, but was usually holed up in his tent with a book. The highlight of the wait in the New Forest was a visit by General Eisenhower, who carried out an inspection. Herford’s impressions of him were favourable, but he was far from awed. He wrote to his parents that ‘The men liked him. I thought he appeared an able and humane man. A good leader, not necessarily brilliant but able to get men to work and combine well.’ He might have been commenting on a corporal! The draft plans for 231 Brigade’s part in the Normandy operations were examined in detail and briefings held. Herford was then posted to 163 Field Ambulance in Hampstead, his new command. He was greatly relieved to be freed from the claustrophobic tents to comfortable billets on the edge of London.
He found the 163 Field Ambulance Unit efficient and in high morale. His only complaint was that they had been trained in a technique called the ‘New Formation Method’, designed to maximize the number of casualties attended to on the battlefield by treating them where they lay, then moving on to the next, leaving the job of removing them to back-up staff. This concept horrified Herford, who could not abide the idea of a wounded man lying outside without shelter, wounds dressed or not. He sent his Quarter Master out with several men to scavenge for some large tarpaulins in the local dumps, insisting that if casualties were to be treated on the field they should at least be gathered together and sheltered in makeshift tents. This hybrid technique was later employed with good effect at Arnhem.
Herford’s unit embarked at Southend for France on 18 July 1944, nearly six weeks after the initial D-Day landings. Operating as an independent unit, they followed the Guards Armoured Division through the low country of Belgium and Holland to the Rhine near Arnhem. Progress was swift and steady. The American heavy artillery and troops at the fore drove forward to the Rhine, where the Germans dug in and put up solid resistance. Herford was fortunate throughout August to be operating largely behind friendly lines, busy organizing the evacuation of casualties, which were thankfully comparatively light. This was a time of hope and optimism, the Allied progress seemed unstoppable, and the faces of the cheering crowds who lined the streets of the towns and villages along the route were sufficient reward for all the years of hardship and suffering endured by the men who had now become their liberators.
The situation in Belgium was confused as German troops were in hasty retreat, often leaving their positions without warning. On the morning of 4 September, the day after the liberation of Brussels, Herford set off with a fellow officer, Captain Franklin, to reconnoitre the area around Malines with a view to establishing a Corps Medical Area in the vicinity. Taking the main Ninove–Brussels road, they crossed the Canal de Charleroi and turned north towards Vilvoorde which they reached an hour later. They were instantly struck by the fact that there were no flags out and the streets were almost eerily quiet. The few people who had ventured out looked at them with surprise and even suspicion. When Herford stopped and asked one of the nervous locals whether there were still enemy soldiers in the area they were told that they had left only hours before. Within minutes a small crowd of people had gathered around the staff car – these were the first Allied soldiers they had seen! Some were overcome with joy, but others seemed to doubt whether they were British at all. When Herford assured them they were, the Belgians said they had not expected to see Allied troops for some time, and assumed that when they did it would be Americans.
Rather rashly, Herford decided to continue along the Malines road, which was the route by which the Germans had evacuated. They soon reached the next village, Eppegem, where they were told that the Germans had left no more than one hour before. Herford ordered his driver on, but proceeded slowly, making careful inquiries from the civilians they passed at the roadside. One woman they stopped was extremely frightened, thinking she was being tricked by Nazi agents, but when she realized they were British she broke down and wept for joy. A little further on they reached the village of Sempst where they were told that there were still German troops only a short distance ahead.
They crawled along the road, speaking to everyone they encountered, and then met a small group of ragged-looking civilians who said they had been internees in a German POW camp and had just released themselves following their captors’ flight. But they warned that there were still Germans sheltering in a house less than a mile along the road.
Herford decided to investigate. He ordered his driver to proceed to the house, suspecting that the only reason German soldiers would not be in full retreat would be because they were desirous of surrendering to the British. Even at this early stage the more realistic amongst the German soldiery were confronting the fact that surrender to the Russians would be no guarantee of fair treatment in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Fortunately this assessment proved to be correct. As the staff car approached the house three German soldiers emerged with their hands on their heads and surrendered. Herford seized their weapons (being medical officers they were unarmed) and ordered them to remain where they were until British troops arrived. They looked miserable and obviously had no stomach for further fighting. It must have been a great relief to know that for them the war was over.
As Herford was disarming them an excited group of civilians ran over with the news that there were still some enemy troops in a nearby chateau, and insisted that they go there straight away. Herford ordered the car to the chateau entrance, which was 100 yards back down the road to Sempst, but found that the large iron gates to the driveway were chained and padlocked. He
thought better of single-handedly taking on a flushing-out operation, but assured the locals that more troops would be arriving shortly. He decided to proceed a little further along the road to Malines, but as he returned to the car the three German soldiers who had surrendered rushed along the road and asked if they could be taken with them back to base. Herford replied that there was simply no room. He left them at the roadside happily eating apples and talking to some civilians.
Proceeding along the long, straight road to Malines they crossed the bridge of La Senne and approached a junction with a side road. Just as they were coming onto a junction another car slowly turned out in front of them containing three German NCOs. Herford ordered his driver to pull round in front of them, then leapt out into the road and demanded their surrender. The NCOs were startled and looked at each other in amazement. They clearly had no intention of surrendering and thought they were still in a safe area. Herford had no idea whether or not they were armed, but strongly suspected that if weapons were drawn he would be the one who ended up as a prisoner! Thinking fast he exclaimed in German that there were British tanks surrounding them and that surrender was the only sensible course of action. They consulted each other briefly and peered up and down the road in some disbelief. Herford bolstered his bluff by saying that they had better hurry up if they preferred to remain alive. The ruse worked. They reluctantly got out of their car and gave up their pistols.
When Herford searched the car he found a large stash of weapons including a number of rifles, revolvers and hand grenades. There were also half a dozen bottles of first-class brandy which he promptly requisitioned on behalf of the King! Herford questioned his captives closely and discovered they were a party of demolition engineers who were very angry at having been captured in such an unexpected fashion. He ordered them to get back into their car and Captain Franklin, holding a loaded revolver, sat in the back with one of them. The two cars then set off in convoy along the road to Brussels. On the way between Sempst and Eppegem they passed a party of German infantry at the roadside who seemed too surprised to interfere with their progress. Herford had effectively taken them behind enemy lines.