Don Aiken recalls the end of Briquessard: “After a week or two in this position we were relieved by an Infantry Regiment. Apparently Lieutenant General Horrocks*, the Commander of XXX Corps, had noticed that we had been placed in this defensive position and ordered that we be withdrawn. He was a very experienced General, who knew how important it was to prevent his future spear-head troops from developing a defensive attitude to the war.” (Republished from the BBC People's War website by kind permission of Don Aiken)
* At the end of July XXX Corps was still led by Lieutenant-General Bucknall. He was replaced by Lt. General Brian Horrocks in August 1944.
Colonel Brownrigg noted that “Whenever our General* visited us he was most upset about our casualties. ‘This isn’t really your job,’ he said. ‘I want you for recce-ing the crossings over the Seine.’” (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lieutenant-Colonel P.H.A.Brownrigg D.S.O.)
*Brownrigg may have been referring to Lieutenant-General Bucknall of XXX Corps or Major-General Graham, the popular Commander of 50th (Northumbrian) Division.
Eric Postles says “We were even more pleased than the Americans to be relieved as it was so restrictive. We watched a large force of RAF heavy bombers raiding Caen, which was quite awesome. With some movement at Caen and by the Americans on our right, the German positions at Tilly became less secure for them. Panzer Lehr, the armoured division, had to withdraw to check the Americans.” (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)
Sandy Handley remembers coming out of his trench:
“As this ten days came to an end and this area got quieter we risked a little stroll along to the next slit trench. Lt. Williams was seen calmly smoking his pipe. He asked if we were OK.
Well after ten days in that cramped slit trench I found it difficult to climb out, with the stiffness of the joints. I was twenty four years old* but felt much older. I thought about those boys in the 14-18 war in the trenches, not 10 days and nights but months and months in the mud and hell. What a wicked war they had, terrible. Our ten days in this situation was nothing compared with what they had to endure. We should never forget them. At least in that ten days at Briquessard it hardly rained so goodness knows what it would have been like knee deep in mud.” (From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)
*Dick was 23 on 28th July 1944.
However, the 61st Recce were still not safe from attack according to Anthony Rampling:
“When we came out of these trenches after 10 days my brother, who was a Liaison Officer in the 4th Armoured Brigade, saw my regimental signs and he came up to see if he could see me. And he came to the back of Briquessard Wood in his Dingo Armoured car and I actually waved to him but he couldn’t stop because the Germans saw the dust that the armoured car had raised and they started mortaring the area …. so we were pleased to see the back of him.” From Anthony Rampling’s account of 61st Recce (pers comm).
Tony remembers the only time he disobeyed one of Dick’s orders, at the end of Briquessard:
“Dick Williams, or Lieutenant Williams, was my Officer and I found him quite quiet. He never chased us around. He gave us the orders, one of which I had to disobey. When we came out of Briquessard we hadn’t slept for 10 days and he said “You’re on guard”. I said “Sorry Sir, I couldn’t keep awake” and I couldn’t have done. I never heard any more about it.
Tony liked Dick as an Officer: “He never interfered with us much.”
On 28th and 29th July, Assault Trooper Eric Brewer was out on patrol again:
“Went on patrol. Three of us met two Gerry patrols – they threw grenades at us but luckily we are in a dip with spandaus*.”
His letter home on the 29th is, however, characteristically good-humoured and re-assuring: “they haven’t got anything for the Recce to do out here as Gerry is right in front of you…it’s impossible to Recce because you know where he is so the 50th kindly put us out of the way or on the shelf until we are needed.” “…roll on the next two or three months; then I will be enjoying steak and chips with onion instead of tinned something – I’ve eaten so much in tins since I’ve been over here that I seem to rumble when I walk.” (Extracts from Eric Brewer’s diary and letters included by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)-
*The British name for the German machine-guns, which were manufactured in the Spandau district of Berlin so had plates of that name on the guns.
29th July 1944 – a series of bombing raids on Stuttgart by the RAF come to an end. 73,000 bombs have been dropped and 900 people killed in the city in south-west Germany.
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