Hello Again everyone.
The period that follows, is probably one of the most interesting times of the whole campaign. The war had by now become more "Fluid" for the want of a better word.

For now, at last, nears the time when all that we had striven for was to come to fruition. The dreadful battles of the killing grounds around Caen had brought about the successful culmination of our taking on the best of the German SS Panzers. Victory in Normandy, was at last at hand. This little bit of war history is longer than most. To that end I have had to spilt it into sections for there was a great deal going on.

The Battles round Vire.
The Fluid war. The reluctant Hero's.

It is an indisputable fact, that for those who landed on D. Day, and served at “The sharp end” would have six weeks before they were killed, or wounded. No dispute about that, it is a bald fact. Of course, we were young and never thought that we would ever succumb to the enemy fire. Anyway, as far as we were concerned the object of war is to kill the other fellow, and not get killed yourself! Sadly, these odds against your survival were born out by what happened in actual combat. For in nearly every case that is exactly what took place…… You had six weeks…. The best one could hope for was a “Blighty” wound that did not do to much damage.

After the abortive Goodwood attack, and a short period of reconstruction, we were switched away from the death and destruction of the Caen front.

Glad to leave the stench of death, and the complete devastation of that God awful killing ground North of Caen. On August the 2nd, we moved across Normandy near to the American sector and harboured near St Honorine de Ducy, heading for the town of Vire.

There was a great change in the general atmosphere, things seemed much brighter and not so menacing, Girls in Summer dresses, actual civilian people walking about, Buildings! for us this was something that was quite new. We had forgotten that there were normal people here in Normandy, for we saw them very seldom. This feeling of near normality was soon to be dispelled. We arrived along-side an American unit to be greeted by the Yanks who seemed were genuinely pleased to see the British. I shall always remember the first meeting, An American came up to me, shook my hand and said “We are very glad to have you with us”

With their normal great generosity as soon as we arrived they came over and gave us a large towel full of goodies! K rations, they made our food look like rubbish. We had never seen such luxuries, cans of meat, Cigars, Sweets, and Chocolates, untold goodies! After our soup and biscuits we had lived on, it was absolute heaven. The khaki coloured American towel I kept for myself, it was so much better than the skimpy little white thing we had been issued with. Later, to get a right old dressing down for having a dirty towel, would you believe?

Near were we had harboured, there was a hill that looked down on the Enemy position, while far away at Vire, there was a "railway gun" a huge thing, it was too big to put on the road and when fired, it hurled huge shells at this hill, it was possible to hear it coming for some time before the mighty explosion occurred. A loud wobbling and whistling sound as the shell approached, it took some time before it arrived. Then, huge amounts of earth were blown sky high every time a shell landed.

About this time our C.R.E. came to see this unkempt and scruffy bunch. Colonel Tiger Urquhart. DSO. R.E. A fine imposing gentleman was our "Tiger" His reputation of conducting a private war with the Enemy was well known, sometimes, to be seen crawling back to our forward troops, who were amazed to find Tiger had been out in front of them. "How do you men feel about staying at the front line all the time so that you can get into action quicker" indicating in the general direction of that hill, we told him "Fine, if you can sustain the casualties" (Normally, we harboured just behind the front line, and there created a solid base from where we could sally forth into the thick of it).
Sapper Brian.
welcomes comment, for this time was absolutely crammed with incident.