WW2 Memories #2
Arthur Heartfield (aheart@MNSI.NET)
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:53:41 -0500
From: Arthur Heartfield <aheart@mnsi.net
We left the 1/7Bn Middlesex enduring a very cold winter and the
vicissitudes of the "phoney war" in the Houplin-Seclin-Lille area of N.
France from Jan-May 1940. It passed the time in training and practising
"tactical withdrawals" from simulated lines of defence on rivers and
canals in the countryside around Lille. The overall plan, as we found
out later, was for us to advance into Belgium moving easterly to counter
the German attack which would come from the east. As Belgium was neutral
we could not practise on Belgian soil, and had to rely on the Belgians
establishing defence lines on their eastern frontier so that we could
move up to reinforce them when attacked. This meant that we knew nothing
of these Belgian defences until they were under attack.
The area around Lille had been in German hands for four years during
WW1. Many of the locals had German fathers and were rabid German
sympathisers, which made for strained relations with the British troops,
although they were happy enough to take our money in the cafes and
estaminets! We were only allowed to draw roughly the same amount of pay
as that of a French Army private ("poilu") - 50 centimes("sous") per day
to avoid further conflict because of our much higher rate of pay (2/-
per day less deductions plus rank and trade pay). The remainder of our
pay was banked for us in Britain.
The French countryside and people were extremely poor, and many
signs of the ravages of the First World War fighting were still to be
seen - fences made of barbed wire from No Man's Land, houses built of
petrol cans and papered inside with newspapers were not unusual. It was
common to see German signs such as "Trinkwasser" still painted on the
walls of the French houses. As the Medical Officer's driver I saw a lot
of this desolation because all civilian doctors in the area had been
drafted into the French Army, so our Doctor did what he could to service
emergency cases in the surrounding villages, making home calls on these
people who often did not even have a horse and cart. The other British
doctors in the area did the same, but often got little thanks for their
services. The roads were mostly cobblestone and until almost the end of
our time there were overlaid with a thick layer of ice. Since our
vehicles were fitted with very wide tires intended for desert use,
driving on ice was very difficult, and sometimes impossible.Our food
supply sometimes ceased for some days because the trucks could not get
through, and we had to rely on what was left in unit stores and what we
could scrounge.
Our Battalion Quarter-Master Captain had been the Signals Sgt. with
the same unit in the British trenches in the same area during WW1, and
on Sundays during the phoney war would get parties of us young soldiers
together and take us to places in the old trench lines that he knew
where famous battles took place. In that way I got to see Vimy Ridge and
several other well-known sites, and some of the cemeteries. Near to us
was a blown-up fort of the 1917-18 "Hindenburg Line", part of the German
defences thrown up when the Allies at last started to advance and
over-run their trenches.
At the end of April 1940 and the first days of May the weather at
last started to improve, and the Battalion moved into more advanced
positions in and around Gondecourt. Then very early on the morning of
the 10th.May the balloon went up and we got the trucks ready and loaded
for our journey into Belgium; the Germans had crossed the frontier and
were bombing Belgian towns, and their paratroopers had landed at Eben
Emael and other key Belgian defence positions.
While loading the trucks a Heinkel bomber flew over us very low: one
of our AA gunners happened to be checking out his twin Bren guns mounted
on one of the trucks as AA defence, and he let the Heinkel have a full
magazine from both guns at a range of about 100ft. It crashed two fields
over and burned, and for most of us that was the first time we heard a
gun fired in anger.
Next:-" Advance to Louvain and retreat to Dunkirk"