Hello again. What follows is my old friends description Of the Bloodiest square mile.
There is too much to add at one go so I have split it up into about three sessions. This, as it unravels will surely convey the atmosphere of war for even today it is terrifying.

The Battle For The Chateau
De la Londe, June 28th 1944
Sappers friend. Richard Harris RH
We moved up on the afternoon of the 24th of June. The plan, though we only vaguely understood it at the time, was that the S. Lancs should recapture the Chateau and the E. Yorks and Suffolks would follow through this objective to capture the villages of Epron and La Bijude, It all sounded quite simple and straightforward, for the Lancs had taken possession of the Chateau easily enough on the first occasion, but had had the bad luck to be counter-attacked with tanks before they could get their A/T defences into position.

Intelligence thought that the objective was only lightly held by a handful? of Germans and. a couple of dug-in tanks and that once these were cleared the two villages would present little difficulty. It turned out however that this was one operation which did not go quite according to plan and was by no means as brilliantly successful as the brigade’s first objective, the Normandy beaches zone of these objectives were taken that afternoon, The S. Lancs put in their attack, but had to withdraw after sustaining severe casualties. ‘B’ Company of the Suffolks waited all that afternoon for the word to go in; a period of suspense which only those who have experienced it, can know, We tried to dig in by the side of the road to shelter from the 88 mm shells and mortar bombs which kept whining over, the ground was chalky and we could make little impression on in; hard surface, During this waiting period we lost several men, caused by a direct hit on one of the slit trenches dug, and now vacated by the Lancs and temporarily occupied by the Suffolks.

There was not much to see. One or two prisoners were escorted back, a few wounded and shell-shocked men passed back along the road which ended in the enemy positions. An ambulance and a Red Cross jeep did wonderful work going out time and time again to pick up the wounded in spite of the mortars which had little regard for the symbol of mercy displayed on the side of the two vehicles. It was not until the supporting tanks began to withdraw that we realised that all was not well. No one seemed to know quite what was happening as so often is the case where infantry warfare is concerned.

The suspense was terrible. To me it was not a dissimilar feeling to that which I experienced on the night of June 5th wondering what the morrow would bring and whether I should live to see it through. Were we going in or not? Why this interminable waiting? If we have got to do a job let’s get it over and done with, That I think is what most of us felt. As darkness fell we learned that the Lancs had failed, though it was no fault of theirs, many had lost their lives, many more had been wounded until they had become too depleted and disordered to continue the attack, Now we knew the worst and that provided some measure of relief. We and the S. Yorks would make a dawn attack on the Chateau de la Londe and hold it at all costs. ‘B’ Company would lead the Suffolk attack, which would commence at 0408 hrs after 8 mins of Divisional Artillery preparation.

We changed our positions to the start line after dark and those who were not on guard got in a couple of hours uneasy sleep in bushes and ditches; there was not much comfort. Rations came up in the night. Stone cold steak and kidney pudding is not very palatable at 1 o’clock in the morning, especially eating it with your fingers, but in spite of this it was welcome to us, who had had no food for over 13 hours; not that we had much stomach for it.
My first recollection of that unhappy day was that of being stirred into life by the toe of a section mate’s boot as be said “Get your kit on mate we’re going’ in soon”. I arose stiff and damp from the dew soaked ground and groped round in the dark for my equipment which was equally wet, All around dark shapes were performing similar acts of preparation grunting and cursing and yawning. I wiped the moisture off the working parts of my rifle and made sure that the bayonet was properly fixed, checked that my bandoliers of ammunition and two grenades were secured, and waited shivering, in the cold darkness for the order to move.
Silently we mustered, moved a hundred yards forward from where we had spent the night and lay down in the waist high corn, being thoroughly soaked by this time. Our section lay together in a line abreast. We were good pals, the eight of us always together in England and over here. The Corporal whispered something about keeping together and not losing contact, then there was silence again. In the East the first gleams of daylight could be seen, and only the mooing of a cow broke the uncanny quiet.

Suddenly a series of flashes illuminated the sky behind us followed by rumblings and the familiar whistle of shells and mortars as the Divisional supporting fire opened up, flinging their missiles on to the enemy positions a few hundred yards in front of us. The very ground shuddered under the impact and the scene resembled a gigantic and terrible firework display, black smoke and fumes being wafted towards us as shell upon shell thundered down. Even though it was our own guns who were doing the damage it was, because of our proximity to the bursts, little less terrifying than an enemy bombardment, According to the plan, after 8 mins of this deadly rain of explosives, the Company Commander gave the order to move forward, he in the middle leading the company. Although he shouted at the top of his voice it was barely audible above the almighty din which was going on all round, we were to keep as close to the barrage as possible which was to ‘creep’ forward by 100 yd. stages in order that we might get right up to the enemy while he still had his head down. To add to the racket, the Middlesex joined in, sweeping the front with their medium machine guns. It is difficult to realise that anyone at the receiving end of such mass of organised destruction should survive, let alone fight back. But Jerry was well dug in and he was tough, particularly the Panzer Grenadiers.

The whole Company moved forward and I think there was no man who was not afraid; forward through the soaking corn as close as they dared to the curtain of death in front of them. By this time the Boche, realising that such intensive fire preceded an attack, sent over counter battery fire and dropped shells on our side of the barrage. Casualties were inevitable. The line began to thin out and tended to become disordered. Cries of “stretcher bearer” were soon to be heard, vain cries in many cases, and as a man fell his mate would stop only to put his rifle, bayonet first, in the ground so that the casualty might be more readily located. Some fell silently, a dark red pool staining the corn, being the only indication of the tragedy that had overtaken them. There was no time to wait, we just had to press on, for capture of the enemy and the cessation of his fire was the surest and quickest method of getting aid to those in need.

In the faint light of early morning made darker by the clouds of smoke and dust which were constantly being thrown up it was difficult to see where the rest of one’s platoon or even section, was. Every so often we had to lie down when the shells fell too close, and wait until the barrage lifted another 100 yds.
I found myself walking forward with one of the Corporals and the Company Commander, I, having no idea where the rest of the section had gone. One of the platoon officers shouted for his Sergeant to carry on as he turned and staggered back, his right arm dangling limply at his side. As we passed a group of blazing farm buildings on our right I could make out that it was a much thinner and straggling line which was now advancing. From the burning farm came four figures with their distinctive German helmets faintly gleaming in the red glow. Their hands were not raised, there was no time to argue. A Sten barked for a couple of seconds and the silhouettes crumpled to the ground as we passed on. On, for what seemed hours, sometimes running, sometimes crawling, sometimes lying still, waiting and praying for the barrage to lift. There seemed even less of us now but the Major was still in front bellowing words of encouragement to carry on to those remaining, a leader and an example to his men if ever there was one. I followed like a dog at his master’s heel, going by this time, I knew not where. Despite the intense chill of the early morning air and the cold wetness of my battle dress clinging to me, I could feel perspiration running down my face and neck. My throat felt that I had not tasted water for days, parched by the smoke and cordite fumes, 1 gripped my rifle with a frenzied determination until the knuckles were as white as my face must have looked, could I have seen it.
To clarify the position I must state that we by-passed the Chateau (though I did not know this at the time) and on finally halting prepared to dig in on the enemy held side failing to realise that a company of Germans were still entrenched in the grounds behind us. I think there were about nine of us, including Major Macaffrey. I shall always remember his words, calm and steady as if he had been through just another exercise. “God bless you lads, now dig in as soon as you can, we may be counter-attacked at any moment”. We had found a spot used by one of the dug-in tanks and this afforded a little protection, but would be of no use as a weapon slit trench, The only members of my section there, were the Lance-Corporal and Jarvis, the latter lying on the ground with his foot shattered. As we prepared to dig in the Major told me to go back, try to locate Captain Archdall, the Second in Command, and bring up any other men we could find as it would be impossible to repulse much of a counter-attack with the few men we possessed. He then sent up the Verey signal arranged to indicate to the artillery that the objective had been reached in order that they might lift their fire.