John Hancock: War recollections

JH: Funny enough, this has nothing to do with this; that was a paper cutting I sort of treasured, this bloke here, his name was Harry Earnshaw. Shank Earnshaw. Harry Earnshaw, he did 50 miles in 1 hour 39 minutes, that was going some.

BC: So that’s what you aspired to be?

He was my sort of idol of…of the day there, which was just before the war. But when you see the times now I think the 50 mile record now is about 1:39 now, that was the record then.

1:39, same?

No, um... wait a minute let’s see 1:39 he done that, so 50 miles now umm... I’ll have to have a think my mind’s goes all over the place. Yeah ‘cos when I first started cycling the big endeavour was to get inside 2 hours, it was a struggle they kept doing a time like um 2 hours 1 minute, 2 hours 2 minutes, and it sort kept of varying anything it all depends if the weather was dodgy it went up to 2 hours 5 minutes. But um now...let’s see…I was thinking…yeah 25 miles I mean when I first started 25 miles the big endeavour was to get inside the hour to do 25 mile inside an hour well that went on for ages, when I first started cycling the 25 mile record was an hour and 59 seconds then, but now I mean they’re averaging over 30 miles an hour.

Well they’ve got all the gear haven’t they? They got all the helmets and stream-lined. 

Oh yeah, stream-lined yeah ‘cos the roads were, all due respects they pick roads that are conducive to um… almost like a track really. Anyway that was all that. I’m just trying to think of the 50-mile record, so it must be well inside 2 hours that was in 1939, anyway that’s incidental really.

(I picked up a small booklet)

That was a bit of oh that was for guidance when you leave the service, you know about further education schemes all that sort of lark.

Yeah these maps were issued to us but they were re-umm... on this side they were German maps and whoever printed these they cancelled all that lot because these maps were German, see Dunfurmlin is all Scotland and all that sort of thing, so obviously the English or the Allies had these maps and cancelled it and they used the back of it…and…

And printed a German map on the back

Yeah, German I don’t know why that was ‘copied from German topographical’. I can’t remember any parts of that.

That’s the River Maas, so this is eastern Holland   

Oh yes. Looks like you’ve used this bit quite a lot.

Yeah that’s unless it got folded that’s where it got dirty.

This is more interesting one… yeah this is the River Rhine, we crossed the Rhine at Wesel oh there it is… that’s where we crossed, we crossed around about here where we crossed. 

On the bridge or just…

We went over by umm…   

The amphibious landing craft

Amphibious they were called DUCWS and it was at night-time they had fixed machine guns on about 400 yards apart and they had tracer bullets so that as we went over or at least who was in charge of the actual… the pilot or driver of these DUCWS there were quite a lot. You could see you want to you couldn’t go down that way ‘cos or at least you shouldn’t do because the tracer bullets were showing you that’s the route you couldn’t go off course, that was it. When you got the other side, it was a… it weren’t actually a cliff but it was quite a steep bit. The Germans were flinging hand grenades and that sort of thing down at us on there, but they were soon over powered because the first DUCWS disembarked the troops and they all swarmed up like a load of ants really. But umm… 

That was just the commando unit?

Oh no it was the whole lot, well we… the commandos were the first lot over and then they gradually followed on, eventually they put Bailey bridges down and took over artillery and that sort of thing…eventually. 

So you were the spearhead?

Well yeah they got to get a spot on the other side and make it secure and than all this other stuff would come over.

So this was the main crossing point for the whole sort of region?

This area yes. This was all part of about a three pronged attack. But once we got to Wesel then we sort of protected that area, then the rest of them could come over then, then various troops came in behind us and then they pushed on further still. The main thing was to get Wesel and hold it.

So Wesel, that’s in Germany isn’t it?

Yeah. Don’t know what these bits are, oh yeah defence overprint, oh yeah, Wesel.

So was it to show you the routes that you’re supposed to take?

You what?

These blue things are they just supposed to show you the routes that you’re supposed to take or the German positions?

I think the German positions, the German positions there. Now what was the next river after the Rhine… we went on from there on to the next river… 

Elbe?

Pardon? 

Elbe?

Yeah over the Elbe, yeah and the place we took there was a similar situation a place was called Grommitz. Grommitz so we took that over and held onto the town there and took a load of German home guard who were there and you know quite a few odd I should think it must have been a thousand or two of the home guard but of course the home guard were men that were…

Would have been in the First World War

Yeah, but when we got there they wanted to take a load of their personnel belongings with them, so our colonel who was in charge there, Peter Young, he said… got all these blokes lined up with all their gear he said right take them on a two mile march, well time they got to the end of the two miles they had dumped all their kit, so they were a bit lighter… they couldn’t carry that too far. But it was a bit you know a bit humorous in some ways see all the blokes struggling along and eventually they kept chucking these… some of them looked as though they had bed rolls or something like that with them. But anyway that was Grommitz. 

And they you when over to... what was it…?

And pushed onto…

Lubeck? Was it Lubeck?

Yeah we was …Lubeck area. Neustadt, N-E-U Stadt, new city I suppose. Neustadt and that’s where we stopped, Lubeck was a bit further up and some of our units, commando units, they went up towards that way ‘cos the Russians were up just at Lubeck and it was a question of grabbing as much land as you can. The orders were get there… get to Neustadt as quick as you can and grab as much as you can because the Russians are doing the same coming in from the…

The east?

From the Berlin direction… cause there was some.. we had sort of lighter tanks come whistling up there was some doubt as to what would happen when we met the Russians but as it so happened nothing happened they just stopped we stopped and that’s where the line was. Lubeck

That was the river wasn’t it? Was it the river that was dividing…?

It might have been… we were at Grommitz which was on the edge of the Baltic… of course there was a big concentration camp at Grommitz.

Oh was there?

And, a lot of chaps that were released from these concentration camps they started pilfering the factories round about with all food you see these blokes with sacks of flour on their back … it was so chaos nobody stopped them, ‘cos it wasn’t up to us, we were trying to get the military side of it but anyway proper chaos really…well it always is when you get to a place like that. But anyway that was… that was it as far as we were concerned that was the end of the war once we were at Grommitz we just stopped there and then kept sorting different bits out here and there and some of the farmers locally were employing foreign labour, Russians and all this sort of thing, and various other people… Belgian, whatever prisoners, they were allocated to these farms to help with their work but of course once the conflict was over then the looting started and so we were getting messages… we had jeeps then at that time… we were getting messages that these farmers we being sort of … in some cases shot but molested by these refugees. Then eventually they said right get all these refugees and that and get them into a great big compound, a great big field. And then up come all the army lorries and then we had differentiate the different nationalities of these people, Belgians, you name it… So they were all in groups then these lorries came up and picked these up bunged them on the lorries and sent them off to a dispersal point. But one of the big troubles was that where these refugees were on the farms there was chaps and girls or women or men. We say a Belgian chap was getting friendly with a French women and they didn’t want to be separated so we were having to force them… you know we couldn’t say oh well you can go with them, if they were French they got onto a French lorry, if they were Dutch they get onto a Dutch lorry and all that. We were having to force them to go on these things and a lot of these people- these couples quite a few of them had a child- a baby really, and they said right if you can’t separate them you gotta take the child from them and put them onto a separate lorry, with the women, and taken to what they called the Lazerette which was a hospital and dump them on there. Of course they were opposing all this…, they said don’t take any notice of that put them on the lorry and get rid of them. And so of course there was a lot of weeping and christ knows what. But that’s how they got sent back to their country or at least to the dispersal point of their country if they were French or whatever.

And of course you’ve got the local government there, like the local mayor, what they call them- the obermeister or something or other, they were supposed to help do it, but it was so vast, I mean some of them they were refusing to go on the lorries and they were running off, but you couldn’t go chasing everyone of them, but anyway it was…. From our point of view was- get them out the area.

So did you have to like spray them with… um….?

Well, that was when we was at the concentration camp, get them all together and all get sprayed them with DDT. 

And you put something on their forehead..

Yeah that’s it, put a thumb mark on their forehead with an indelible thing therefore to show that they had gone through this business. Of course, with the women with their skirts you got these spray gun things with DDT in it, the nozzle you had to put up their skirt and give it a whiff up there, which they took much objection to, but I mean nothing in it really, but it was in their minds what was happening. I don’t think that DDT was all that good actually.

Well they’ve banned it now haven’t they?

Yeah…but there that was the best at the time that was what was being used. We weren’t in charge of the DDT sprays, we were security really, we would stop anybody getting out of the compound and clearing off or doing anything else that wasn’t to our liking. All this white DDT it was just like spraying them with flour really, all this white stuff being blown about, with there so many involved you can’t be too particular. They either did as they were told or they were in some kind of trouble you know, so of them were tougher with them than others.

There’s the legend on the back (referring to map of Wesel) It just shows you what guns and what anti-tank devices there were.

But we didn’t take too much notice of that really, the main idea from our point of view was to get into Wesel and know whereabouts we were in that area. But the advance by this time was in full flow- no question of feeling your way along once you got into the place you soon infiltrated right through and you was almost being forced by the lot that were coming on behind they were queuing up to get over. All the tanks and goodness knows what.

How quickly did they build the Bailey bridge?

Well they were… more-or-less straight away I mean we went in there during the night, and then I should think before midday the bailey bridges were over. They was all queuing up, you know portable things they soon whipped them over some a vehicle forget what they call it, but it’s like a tank with Bailey Bridges on top, they pull up whip the procedure off, next thing is you hear the tank rumbling across the bridge. But there was a tremendous lot of military about, our job was to get over the Rhine and protect it until this big stuff come over and then put onto faster vehicles to go catch them up and pass them and get to the Baltic coast as fast we possibly could.

So by this time the Germans were being in… just disarray? They were just being pushed back?

Yes, in a lot of cases as you went along the road they put their hands up like this... chuck something at them or something like! We was going along at about 30mph at least I should think, with various other scate [or skeg?] cars and all that sort all spraying out. I mean that they knew that the war was virtually over... you know the Germans and whatever. I was trying to think of the name of the German homeguard. But they were all… all had their hands up, and white flags appearing out of all the houses all the windows, white flags all coming out left, right and centre.

Well, I guess they knew it was over, no point in carrying on fighting.

No, they could tell by the noise of all the tanks and various things coming over; get the flag out in case they get fired upon. Amazing where all the… well easy to make a white flag can’t you… tear a couple of sheets up sort of thing.

So Mum said or dad said you went through Limburg?

Yeah, there was a little place called Limburg, I haven’t got a map of sufficient scale to show it… yeah L-I-M-B-U-R-G, Limburg

So was it a country or was it a town?

In my mind it was… I could be wrong… I thought… was a small country, Limburg

So it was on the border of Germany and Holland or was it in Germany?

Yeah, it was definitely on the border there you know you went through part of the Black Forest.

So you went through the Black Forest?

Yeah well yeah, Black Forest is a mighty big area really

Black Forest is in the south isn’t it