Description
Object description
British NCO served with 1st Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 71st Infantry Bde, 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div in GB and North West Europe, 6/1943-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Oxford, GB, 1925-1943: family; education; employment. Recollections of enlistment and training as private with British Army at Colchester Garrison, GB, 1/1943-5/1943: reasons for volunteering for British Army; choice of unit; reception at Colchester Garrison; issue of kit; accommodation and rations; initial talks on army life; cleaning kit and equipment; best battledress; kit inspections; cleaning rifle; march discipline; internal economy in barrack room; physical training; adjusting to barrack life; letter writing to family; guard duty.
REEL 2 Continues: introduction of army numbers, late 1942; social activities in Colchester; his girlfriend; current affairs lectures; opinion of padres; light infantry drill; route marching; gas training; sporting activities; rifle training; weapons training; grenade training; bayonet practise; attitude of instructors; leave.
REEL 3 Continues: character of battle drill; hand signals used. Aspects of period as private with B Coy, 1st Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 71st Infantry Bde, 42nd Armoured Div and 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div in GB, 6/1943-6/1944: joining battalion on Salisbury Plain; character of senior NCOs; reception on arrival at battalion; weapons training; joining B Coy; breaking up of 42nd Armoured Div and joining 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div, 10/1943; nature of training at Stanmer Park, Brighton, 12/1943; reaction to joining 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div; move to Faversham; character of unit's officers; anticipation of move to Normandy, France; issue of new style gas masks; writing of will; move to transit camp at Hassocks after 6/6/1944.
REEL 4 Continues: embarkation at Newhaven, 6/1944. Recollections of operations as private with B Coy, 1st Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 71st Infantry Bde, 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div in Normandy, France, 6/1944-8/1944: landing on Juno Beach; advancing on track through minefield; move to Bernières-sur-Mer; character of commanding officer; degree of knowledge of situation; move into Scottish Corridor; terrain; reaction to battalion casualties; casualties on taking over positions from 15th (Scottish) Infantry Div; preparations for attack in reserve positions; reaction to waiting for German attack.
REEL 5 Continues: use of artificial moonlight for night attack at Cahier; execution of battalion attack at Cahier; under German machine-gun firing on fixed lines; German use of parachute flares and capture of German positions; accidental shelling by Royal Artillery; holding German positions and relief; German Air Force dive-bombing of battalion; unit casualties and promotion to lance-corporal; arrival of reinforcements; construction of slit trenches; move to defensive positions at Bougy volunteering for reconnaissance patrol; encounter with German Army sentry and mortar crew on patrol near Évrecy.
REEL 6 Continues: evading German Army patrol; accuracy of German mortars; dead cows; degree of sleep available; advance to contact with Germans through wheat field; withdrawal from captured positions; crossing Argentan-Falaise Road; type of radios used; impressions of the devastation in Falaise Gap; sight of Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoon aircraft attacking German forces. Recollections of operations as NCO with B Coy, 1st Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 71st Infantry Bde 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Div in North West Europe, 9/1944-5/1945: advance towards Belgian border; arrival in Antwerp, Belgium; problems of marching on cobbles; character of rations; water supply.
REEL 7 Continues: state of troops' health; required standard of appearance; censoring of letters; visit to theatre in Antwerp, Belgium; advance up the Arnhem corridor to Eindhoven and Nijmegen, Netherlands, 9/1944; defensive positions at Bemmel, Netherlands, 9/1944; move to s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, 10/1944; capture of crossroads at Heer en Beek, Netherlands, 10/1944; patrol to reconnoitre bridge and German destruction of it; contact with Dutch civilians at s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, 10/1944; conditions in Netherlands, winter 1944-1945; disruption of preparations for Christmas celebrations, 24/12/1944; rapid move in Kangeroo Armoured Personnel Carriers in winter conditions to Namur, Belgium; arrival at Marche-en-Famenne in Ardennes, Belgium; taking over positions from United States Army troops; nature of fighting in Ardennes, Belgium.
REEL 8 Continues: return to Netherlands, 1/1945; billeting and training in Brussels, Belgium, 1/1945; character of new recruits; preparations for operations in Reichswald Forest, Germany, 2/1945; conditions for tanks in Reichswald Forest, Germany, 2/1945; terrain during initial advance; character of creeping artillery barrage; loss of platoon commander Lieutenant Arthur White to friendly fire in Netherlands during advance towards Reichswald Forest, Germany, 9/2/1945; entering forest; conditions in forest; night attack out of Reichswald Forest against German airborne troops at Asperden, Germany, 2/1945; question of German using tricks to get British Army troops into open; crossing Hamburg-Bremen Autobahn.
REEL 9 Continues: entry into Hamburg, Germany, 5/1945; method of dismantling roadblocks in Hamburg, Germany; billeting in Hamburg, Germany, 5/1945; memories of listening to Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech, VE Day, 8/5/1945; importance of having section billeted together; duties guarding Italian prisoners of war; leave in GB from 8/5/1945. Aspects of period with 2nd Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 6th Airborne Div in GB and Palestine, 6/1945-7/1947: posting to unit at Bulford Camp, 6/1945; arrival in Jerusalem, 9/1945; duties guarding Government House. Reflections of military service, 1942-1947: demobilisation process, 7/1947.
REEL 10 Continues: question of signing on for further military service; adjusting to civilian life; attitude to having served with 1st Bn Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during Second World War; question of effects of military service during Second World War.