by Griff Hosker
“I don’t need a medal.”
“I know but politically it is a good thing. The newspapers will be clamouring for the story of how British soldiers fought alongside Americans to throw back a German Offensive once the doctors release you.”
“Please, Toppy! I do not want this in the newspapers. Sneak me out or something. I just want to go home for that leave you promised me and see Susan and my family. That is not too much to ask is it?”
He suddenly looked sad, “No, Tom it is not. Well I will do my best to keep the press away from you.”
“And Hewitt and Barker! They don’t need this either.”
“You drive a hard bargain. Very well. The press seem keen to interview this Geordie Sergeant and Monty does too. He already has the photos.”
“The photos I can live with but not a story.”
“It is a good story, Tom.”
Major Foster had changed since I had first met him. He was still a good chap but he had different priorities these days.
“Thanks and then I will get back to my unit. That will be a relief.”
“Actually, Tom, it is not the same unit you left. Sergeant Poulson is now Lieutenant Poulson and Beaumont and Fletcher have been promoted. You also have another ten men in your section. The lads have been training them up while you were enjoying the snow. Anyway, you have a three week leave coming to you. You report to Falmouth on the 1st February.” I nodded. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“There is one thing. Get the three of us on a flight back to England! If we only have three weeks we shouldn’t have to waste two of them on a troopship.”
“You don’t ask for much do you? Very well. Oh by the way, the brevet rank has been confirmed. You are a Major now and your pay has been backdated to November. Well done Tom.”
To Major Foster the promotion meant everything. To me it was not important. What was important was the sacrifice by the men I had led. They had not been Commandos but they had been soldiers and I was proud to have known them. That was better than any promotion, medal or newspaper report. The war might end soon but the memories would last a lifetime. For those who had died the living would have to live their lives for them. It was a great responsibility.
The End
Glossary
Abwehr-German Intelligence
AP-Armour Piercing Shell
ATS-Auxiliary Territorial Service-Women’s Branch of the British Army during WW2
Bisht-Arab cloak
Bob on-Very accurate (slang) from a plumber’s bob
Butchers-Look (Cockney slang Butcher’s Hook-Look)
Butties-sandwiches (slang)
Capstan Full Strength-a type of cigarette
Chah-tea (slang)
Comforter-the lining for the helmet; a sort of woollen hat
Conflab-discussion (slang)
Cook-off- when the barrel of a Browning .30 Calibre overheats
Corned dog-Corned Beef (slang)
CP-Command Post
Dhobi-washing (slang from the Hindi word)
Ercs-aircraftsman (slang-from Cockney)
Ewbank-Mechanical carpet cleaner
Fruit salad-medal ribbons (slang)
Full English-English breakfast (bacon, sausage, eggs, fried tomato and black pudding)
Gash-spare (slang)
Gauloise-French cigarette
Gib-Gibraltar (slang)
Glasshouse-Military prison
Goon-Guard in a POW camp (slang)- comes from a 19thirties Popeye cartoon
HE – High Explosive shells
Hurries-Hawker Hurricane (slang)
Jankers-field punishment
Jimmy the One-First Lieutenant on a warship
Kettenhunde - Chained dogs. Nickname for German field police. From the gorget worn around their necks
Killick-leading hand (Navy) (slang)
Kip-sleep (slang)
Legging it-Running for it (slang)
LRDG-Long Range Desert group (Commandos operating from the desert behind enemy lines.)
Marge-Margarine (butter substitute-slang)
MGB-Motor Gun Boat
Mossy-De Havilland Mosquito (slang) (Mossies-pl.)
Mickey- ‘taking the mickey’, making fun of (slang)
Micks-Irishmen (slang)
MTB-Motor Torpedo Boat
ML-Motor Launch
Narked-annoyed (slang)
Neaters-undiluted naval rum (slang)
Oik-worthless person (slang)
Oppo/oppos-pals/comrades (slang)
Piccadilly Commandos-Prostitutes in London
PLUTO-Pipe Line Under The Ocean
Pom-pom- Quick Firing 2lb (40mm) Maxim cannon
Pongo (es)- soldier (slang)
Potato mashers-German Hand Grenades (slang)
PTI-Physical Training Instructor
QM-Quarter Master (stores)
Recce-Reconnoitre (slang)
SBA-Sick Bay Attendant
Schnellboote -German for E-boat (literally translated as fast boat)
Schtum -keep quiet (German)
Scragging - roughing someone up (slang)
Scrumpy-farm cider
Shooting brake-an estate car
SOE-Special Operations Executive (agents sent behind enemy lines)
SP-Starting price (slang)- what’s going on
SNAFU-Situation Normal All Fucked Up (acronym and slang)
Snug-a small lounge in a pub (slang)
Spiv-A black marketeer/criminal (slang)
Sprogs-children or young soldiers (slang)
Squaddy-ordinary soldier (slang)
Stag-sentry duty (slang)
Stand your corner-get a round of drinks in (slang)
Subbie-Sub-lieutenant (slang)
Suss it out-work out what to do (slang)
Tatties-potatoes (slang)
Thobe-Arab garment
Tiffy-Hawker Typhoon (slang)
Tommy (Atkins)- Ordinary British soldier
Two penn’orth-two pennies worth (slang for opinion)
Wavy Navy-Royal Naval Reserve (slang)
WVS-Women’s Voluntary Service
Historical note
Readers of my books know that I incorporate material from the earlier books. Some of my readers have joined the series half way through and I think it is important that they know the background to my books. If you have the first books in this series, then you can skip down to the section marked Battle of the Bulge. It is 20 pages down.
The first person I would like to thank for this particular book and series is my Dad. He was in the Royal Navy but served in Combined Operations. He was at Dieppe, D-Day and Walcheren. His boat: LCA(I) 523 was the one which took in the French Commandos on D-Day. He was proud that his flotilla had taken in Bill Millens and Lord Lovat. I wish that, before he died, I had learned more in detail about life in Combined Operations but like many heroes he was reluctant to speak of the war. He is the character in the book called Bill Leslie. Dad ended the war as Leading Seaman-I promoted him! I reckon he deserved it.
‘Bill Leslie’ 1941
Author’s collection
I went to Normandy in 1994, with my Dad, to Sword Beach and he took me through that day on June 6th 1944. He pointed out the position which took the head from the Oerlikon gunner who stood next to him. He also told me about the raid on Dieppe as well as Westkapelle. He had taken the Canadians in. We even found the grave of his cousin George Hogan who died on D-Day. As far as I know we were the only members of the family ever to do so. Sadly that was Dad’s only visit but we planted forget-me-nots on the grave of George. Wally Friedmann is a real Canadian who served in WW2 with my Uncle Ted. The description of Wally is perfect-I lived with Wally and his family for three months in 1972. He was a real gentleman. As far as I now he did not serve with the Saskatchewan regiment, he came from Ontario but he did serve in the war. As I keep saying, it is my story and my imagination. God bless, Wally.
I would also like to thank Roger who is my railway expert. The
train Tom and the Major catch from Paddington to Oswestry ran until 1961. The details of the livery, the compartments and the engine are all, hopefully accurate. I would certainly not argue with Roger! Thanks also to John Dinsdale, another railway buff and a scientist. It was he who advised on the use of explosives. Not the sort of thing to Google these days!
I used a number of books in the research. The list is at the end of this historical section. However the best book, by far, was the actual Commando handbook which was reprinted in 2012. All of the details about hand to hand, explosives, esprit de corps etc. were taken directly from it. The advice about salt, oatmeal and water is taken from the book. It even says that taking too much salt is not a bad thing! I shall use the book as a Bible for the rest of the series. The Commandos were expected to find their own accommodation. Some even saved the money for lodgings and slept rough. That did not mean that standards of discipline and presentation were neglected; they were not.
The 1st Loyal Lancashire existed as a regiment. They were in the BEF and they were the rear guard. All the rest is the work of the author’s imagination. The use of booby traps using grenades was common. The details of the German potato masher grenade are also accurate. The Germans used the grenade as an early warning system by hanging them from fences so that an intruder would move the grenade and it would explode. The Mills bomb had first been used in the Great War. It threw shrapnel for up to one hundred yards. When thrown, the thrower had to take cover too. However, my Uncle Norman, who survived Dunkirk was demonstrating a grenade with an instructor kneeling next to him. It was a faulty grenade and exploded in my uncle’s hand. Both he and the Sergeant survived. My uncle just lost his hand. I am guessing that my uncle’s hand prevented the grenade fragmenting as much as it was intended. Rifle grenades were used from 1915 onwards and enabled a grenade to be thrown much further than by hand
During the retreat the British tank to Dunkirk in 1940, the Matilda proved superior to the German Panzers. It was slow but it was so heavily armoured that it could only be stopped by using the 88 anti-aircraft guns. Had there been more of them and had they been used in greater numbers then who knows what the outcome might have been. What they did succeed in doing, however, was making the German High Command believe that we had more tanks than they actually encountered. The Germans thought that the 17 Matildas they fought were many times that number. They halted at Arras for reinforcements. That enabled the Navy to take off over 300,000 men from the beaches.
Although we view Dunkirk as a disaster now, at the time it was seen as a setback. An invasion force set off to reinforce the French a week after Dunkirk. It was recalled. Equally there were many units cut off behind enemy lines. The Highland Division was one such force. 10000 men were captured. The fate of many of those captured in the early days of the war was to be sent to work in factories making weapons which would be used against England.
Freya, the German Radar.
Germany had radar stations and they were accurate. They also had large naval guns at Cape Gris Nez as well as railway guns. They made the Channel dangerous although they only actually sank a handful of ships during the whole of the war. They did however make Southend and Kent dangerous places to live.
Commando dagger
The first Commando raids were a shambles. Churchill himself took action and appointed Sir Roger Keyes to bring some order to what the Germans called thugs and killers. Major Foster and his troop reflect that change.
The parachute training for Commandos was taken from this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/72/a3530972.shtml. Thank you to Thomas Davies whose first-hand account of the training was most illuminating and useful. The Number 2 Commandos were trained as a battalion and became the Airborne Division eventually. The SOE also trained at Ringway but they were secreted away at an Edwardian House, Bowden. As a vaguely related fact 43 out of 57 SOE agents sent to France between June 1942 and Autumn 1943 were captured, 36 were executed!
The details about the Commando equipment are also accurate. They were issued with American weapons although some did use the Lee Enfield. When large numbers attacked the Lofoten Islands they used regular army issue. The Commandos appeared in dribs and drabs but 1940 was the year when they began their training. It was Lord Lovat who gave them a home in Scotland but that was not until 1941. I wanted my hero, Tom, to begin to fight early. His adventures will continue throughout the war.
The raid on German Headquarters is based on an attempt by Number 3 Commando to kill General Erwin Rommel. In a real life version of ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ they almost succeeded. They went in by lorry. They failed in their mission. Commandos were used extensively in the early desert war but, sadly, many of them perished in Greece and Cyprus and Crete. Of 800 sent to Crete only two hundred returned to Egypt. Churchill also compounded his mistake of supporting Greece by sending all three hundred British tanks to the Western Desert and the Balkans. The map shows the area where Tom and the others fled. The Green Howards were not in that part of the desert at that time. The Germans did begin to reinforce their allies at the start of 1941.
Motor launch Courtesy of Wikipedia
Motor Gun Boat Courtesy of Wikipedia
E-boat
Short Sunderland
Messerschmitt 1tens over France
Aeroplane photographs courtesy of Wikipedia
Fieseler Fi 156 Storch
Photographs courtesy of Wikipedia
The Dieppe raid was deemed, at the time, to be a fiasco. Many of the new Churchill tanks were lost and out of the six hundred men who were used on the raid only 278 returned to England. 3,367 Canadians were killed. wounded or captured. On the face of it the words disaster and fiasco were rightly used. However, the losses at Dieppe meant that the planners for D-Day changed their approach. Instead of capturing a port, which would be too costly they would build their own port. Mulberry was born out of the blood of the Canadians. In the long run, it saved thousands of lives. Three of the beaches on D-Day were assaulted with a fraction of the casualties from Dieppe. The Canadians made a sacrifice but it was not in vain.
S-160 Courtesy of Wikipedia
The E-boats were far superior to the early MTBs and Motor Launches. It was not until the Fairmile boats were developed that the tide swung in the favour of the Royal Navy. Some MTBs were fitted with depth charges. Bill’s improvisation is the sort of thing Combined Operations did. It could have ended in disaster but in this case, it did not. There were stories of captured E-boats being used by covert forces in World War II. I took the inspiration from S-160 which was used to land agents in the Low Countries and, after the war, was used against the Soviet Bloc. They were very fast, powerful and sturdy ships.
Sherman Tank-courtesy of Wikipedia
The first Sherman Tanks to be used in combat were in North Africa. Three hundred M4A1 and M4A2 tanks arrived in Egypt in September 1942. The war was not going well in the desert at that point and Rommel was on the point of breaking through to Suez. The battle of El Alamein did not take place until the end of October.
The Hitler order
Top Secret
Fuhrer H.Q. 18. 10 1942
1. For a long time now our opponents have been employing in their conduct of the war, methods which contravene the International Convention of Geneva. The members of the so-called Commandos behave in a particularly brutal and underhanded manner; and it has been established that those units recruit criminals not only from their own country but even former convicts set free in enemy territories. From captured orders it emerges that they are instructed not only to tie up prisoners, but also to kill out-of-hand unarmed captives who they think might prove an encumbrance to them, or hinder them in successfully carrying out their aims. Orders have indeed been found in which the killing of prisoners has positively been demanded of them.
2. In this connection it has already been notified in an Appendix to Army Orders of 7.10.1942. that in future, Germany will adopt the same methods against these Sabotage units of the Brit
ish and their Allies; i.e. that, whenever they appear, they shall be ruthlessly destroyed by the German troops.
3. I order, therefore:— From now on all men operating against German troops in so-called Commando raids in Europe or in Africa, are to be annihilated to the last man. This is to be carried out whether they be soldiers in uniform, or saboteurs, with or without arms; and whether fighting or seeking to escape; and it is equally immaterial whether they come into action from Ships and Aircraft, or whether they land by parachute. Even if these individuals on discovery make obvious their intention of giving themselves up as prisoners, no pardon is on any account to be given. On this matter a report is to be made on each case to Headquarters for the information of Higher Command.
4. Should individual members of these Commandos, such as agents, saboteurs etc., fall into the hands of the Armed Forces through any means – as, for example, through the Police in one of the Occupied Territories – they are to be instantly handed over to the SD
To hold them in military custody – for example in P.O.W. Camps, etc., – even if only as a temporary measure, is strictly forbidden.
5. This order does not apply to the treatment of those enemy soldiers who are taken prisoner or give themselves up in open battle, in the course of normal operations, large scale attacks; or in major assault landings or airborne operations. Neither does it apply to those who fall into our hands after a sea fight, nor to those enemy soldiers who, after air battle, seek to save their lives by parachute.
6. I will hold all Commanders and Officers responsible under Military Law for any omission to carry out this order, whether by failure in their duty to instruct their units accordingly, or if they themselves act contrary to it.
The order was accompanied by this letter from Field Marshal Jodl
The enclosed Order from the Fuhrer is forwarded in connection with destruction of enemy Terror and Sabotage-troops.
This order is intended for Commanders only and is in no circumstances to fall into Enemy hands.