Interview with George Ernest Teal

British guardsman served with 1st Bn Coldstream Guards, 7th Guards Bde, 3rd Infantry Div in GB, France and Belgium, 9/1939-4/1941; NCO served as tank commander with 1st Armoured Bn Coldstream Guards, 5th Guards Armoured Bde, Guards Armoured Division in GB and North West Europe, 5/1941-1945

REEL 1 Background in Beverley, GB, 1919-1935: family; education; employment in building trade during construction of RAF Leconfield. Aspects of enlistment and training with Coldstream Guards in GB, 1935-1936: reasons for joining Coldstream Guards, 1/11/1935; arrival at Guards Depot, Caterham; role as trained soldier; treatment by physical training instructor; treatment of deserters. Aspects of period as guardsman on ceremonial duties with 1st Bn Coldstream Guards in London, GB, 1937-1939: memories of Regimental Sergeant-Major Ronald Brittain; move to 'Coalbox' Company; work on Marlborough House guard and how he received five days punishment; harshness of punishment; satisfying Regimental Sergeant-Major Brittain; experience of Royal guards; visit to Paris, France, 14/7/1938. Aspects of period as guardsman with 1st Bn Coldstream Guards, 7th Guards Bde, 3rd Infantry Div in France, 9/1939-5/1940: meeting with divisional commander Major-General Bernard Montgomery; move of division to Cherbourg, 9/1939; payment of British soldiers; basing of battalion in Lannoy. REEL 2 Continues: leave in GB, 1/1940 including fight with two youths in Kingston upon Hull; attitude to service in France, 1939-1940; encounter with deserter from 1914-1918 war in Lannoy; brief visit to Maginot Line. Recollections of operations as guardsman with 1st Bn Coldstream Guards, 7th Guards Bde, 3rd Infantry Div in GB, France and Belgium, 5/1940: move to Louvain, Belgium, after 10/5/940; personal morale during first time in action; role as signaller with Headquarters Coy; foraging for food in civilian homes; plight of civilians; recruitment by senior officer to defend bridge at Nieuport, Belgium; nature of fighting for bridge, 23/5/1940; encounter with German Army tank officer, 23/5/1940; narrow escape from artillery shell at Dunkirk, France; being picked up off beach at La Panne, Belgium; Regimental Sergeant-Major Ronald Brittain's role in France, 10/1940. Aspects of period as guardsman and NCO with 1st Bn Coldsream Guards, 7th Guards Bde, 3rd Infantry Div in GB, 6/1940-4/1941: hospitality received from miner's family in Porthcawl, 6/1940; invasion rumours, 7/1940-9/1940; attitude of German Air Force pilot captured in Midsomer Norton; question of how battalion never recovered from German attack at Louvain, Belgium, 5/1940; role guarding Rudolf Hess, 1941. REEL 3 Continues: Aspects of period as NCO with 1st Armoured Bn Coldstream Guards, 5th Guards Armoured Bde, Guards Armoured Div in GB, 5/1941-6/1944: physical problem of tall guardsmen operating in tanks; inadequacies of British manufactured tanks; question of Polish pilot's attempt to kill general on Salisbury Plain, 1942; damage to farmer's crops in Yorkshire, 9/1943-10/1943; waterproofing of tanks during preparations for D-Day landings, 5/1944-6/1944; assembling of division in Brighton, 4/1944; illicit leave in London to see wife and daughter pre-D-Day. Aspects of operations as tank commander with 1st Armoured Bn Coldstream Guards, 5th Guards Armoured Bde, Guards Armoured Div in Normandy, France, 6/1944-8/1944: crossing English Channel; opinion of German Army; reaction of French civilians to arrival of Allied troops; role during Operation Goodwood, 18/7/1944; reputation of German tank commander SS-Hampsturmführer Michael Wittman, 7/1944; effect of Operation Goodwood on morale of battalion; cleaning up of battlefield in Falaise Gap; German bobby-traps in Falaise Gap, 8/1944. Recollections of operations as tank commander with 1st Armoured Bn Coldstream Guards, 5th Guards Armoured Bde, Guards Armoured Div in North West Europe, 8/1944-5/1944: how division held up by German armour at Heppen, Belgium; wounding of Lord Carrington and question of bravery of Brigade of Guards officers; liberation of Brussels, Belgium, 9/1944; reaction of Guards officer to plan for Operation Market Garden, 9/1944; problem of advancing to Nijmegen, Netherlands, 9/1944; reasons for division being stopped in Elst, Netherlands, 9/1944. REEL 4 Continues: billeting on Jewish civilians in Netherlands, 10/1944-11/1944; stopping Dutch female collaborator from being tarred and feathered; treatment of village priest, Germany, 12/1944; Germans Christmas trap, 12/1944; move into Belgium during German Ardennes Offensive; punishment of anti-British Belgian; drunken spell during Battle of Bulge; crossing River Rhine, Germany, 3/1945; nature of resistance after crossing River Rhine, Germany, 3/1945; occupation of Rotenburg on route to Cuxhaven, Germany; relations with German civilians in Rotenburg, Germany; treatment of German boy soldier covered in lice; hearing of concentration camps; memories of Major William Anstruther-Grey, 5/1945; surrender of German airborne troops in Cuxhaven, Germany, 5/1945; billeting with civilians in Bad Godesburg, Germany; victory parade in Berlin, Germany, 9/1945; rest and recuperation in Austria after VE Day, 5/1945; reasons for leaving British Army, 1/1946; attitude to having served in Coldstream Guards.