Armoured Horseman : With the Bays and Eighth Army in North Africa and Italy

174 Pages·2015·9.7 MB·English

by  Peter Willett

Previously Published Books by Peter Willett:
An Introduction to the Thoroughbred (Stanley Paul, 1966)
Five Times Champion (Pelham Books, 1968)
The Thoroughbred (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970)
The Classic Racehorse (Stanley Paul, 1981)
Makers of the Modern Thoroughbred (Century Hutchinson, 1986)
The Story of Tattersalls (Stanley Paul, 1987)
A History of the General Stud Book (Weatherbys, 1991)
Dick Hern (Hodder & Stoughton, 2000)

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Peter Willett 2015
ISBN 978 1 47383 421 7
eISBN 9781473857421
The right of Peter Willett to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Contents
List of Maps
Introduction
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Service Tradition in the Family
Chapter 2 In the Ranks
Chapter 3 The Road to a Commission
Chapter 4 The Road to the Desert
Chapter 5 The Gazala Line and El Alamein
Chapter 6 Second Alamein
Chapter 7 The End in Africa
Chapter 8 Interim Days
Chapter 9 Approach to War in Italy
Chapter 10 Coriano and Montecieco
Chapter 11 The End in Italy
Chapter 12 Post War
Chapter 13 The Racing Years
List of Maps
1. North Africa(general)
2. The Gazala Line
3. Operation SUPERCHARGE
4. Italy (general)
5. The Gothic Line – Point 153 and Montecieco
Introduction
Iserved as an officer in The Queen’s Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards) from June 1941 until
September 1946 – not long enough to earn the veteran’s soubriquet of a ‘bloody good
old Bay’ but not bad for a temporary officer in a regular regiment.
The Bays, as they were commonly known for short, were one of the oldest cavalry
regiments. They were formed by James II in 1685, but changed sides and fought in the
army of William III at the Battle of the Boyne five years later when James’s forces were
defeated. They took part in many of the major campaigns of the next two centuries, but
missed Waterloo, when they were stationed in Scotland. They fought as infantry on the
Western Front at times during the Great War, distinguishing themselves particularly at the
Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. They were back on their horses for most of the time
between the two world wars, where they excelled at mounted sports and various military
competitions. In 1931 they won the Inter-Regimental Polo Tournament at Hurlingham for
the first time. The team consisted of George and Evelyn Fanshawe, Tom Draffen and Alex
Barclay, all of whom afterwards commanded the regiment, the two last-named being my
first two commanding officers. Mechanization began in 1935, but it was not until three
years later that the regiment was able to turn out in full strength as an armoured regiment.
Equipped with wretchedly inadequate cruiser and light tanks, the regiment fought
rearguard actions in the later stages of the Dunkirk campaign before being evacuated from
Brest in the middle of June. After several moves they arrived in Marlborough at the
beginning of June 1941, and I joined them there two weeks later.
In the Second World War an armoured regiment such as The Queen’s Bays consisted
for battle purposes of a regimental headquarters of four tanks, and three squadrons, each
comprising a headquarters of four tanks and four troops of three tanks each. The regiment
was commanded by a lieutenant colonel, each squadron by a major with a captain as
second in command, and each troop by a lieutenant or second lieutenant. In addition there
was a headquarters squadron comprising all the administrative and supply elements
necessary to sustain a regiment in the field. In practice the regiment seldom entered a
battle at full strength because the numbers were almost invariably reduced by preliminary
actions, breakdowns and lost tracks. For example, B Squadron was launched into the
notorious Point 153 attack in September 1944 with no more than four tanks.
Casualties in armoured regiments were light compared with the wholesale slaughter
of the infantry in the trenches of the Western Front in the Great War. The battle of
Montecieco, which included the attack on Point 153, was the Bays’ costliest day of the
war, but the regiment suffered only sixty-four casualties (killed and wounded) altogether,
including five officers and thirteen other ranks killed. The regiment’s casualties in the
much longer battles of the Gazala Line and Second Alamein barely exceeded a hundred.
Nevertheless, these casualty rates have to be seen in perspective. The tank crews of a
squadron at full strength numbered no more than sixty-four, so a small number of
casualties drastically reduced a squadron’s fighting strength. Moreover, it was rare for the
whole crew of a knocked-out tank to be casualties (killed or wounded), but the survivors
were eliminated from the battle until a fresh tank could be provided for them. That might
take hours or days.
The casualty list at Point 153 provided one remarkable, and tragic, example of the
contrary fortunes of war. Captain John McVail had been the principal architect of the
astonishing escape of five members of C Squadron from behind the German lines on the
Coriano ridge two weeks earlier, but he was killed at Montecieco. In the meantime he had
found time to write a 3,000-word account of the exploit, which was printed in Major
General Beddington’s History of The Queen’s Bays, in spite of the fraught circumstances
of taking over fresh tanks and the move forward over rough countryside and rutted dust-
laden tracks. It was an astonishing achievement. A précis of his account is included later in
this book.
I count myself very lucky to have served so long in The Queen’s Bays. In the ranks of
training regiments, and indeed Sandhurst, I had been alone, isolated and unprotected, with
nobody to appeal to in case of trouble or injustice. But once established in a good regiment
I was accepted as a member of a family and could count on advice and support whatever
the circumstances and however blameworthy I might be. For my three commanding
officers, Tom Draffen, Alex Barclay, and Daniel Asquith, who embodied that family
feeling, I have nothing but affection and respect. In 1959 the regiment amalgamated with
the King’s Dragoon Guards, and the joint regiment became The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
(QDGs).
Author’s Note
In the chapter ‘In the Ranks’ there is frequent incidence of the soldier’s vernacular used
for emphasis. I have renounced the mealy-mouthed evasions of blanks and asterisks
because all they do is draw attention to the fact that the writer is straying into
forbidden semantic territory. In any case the reader knows perfectly well what the blanks
and asterisks stand for. In the soldier’s vocabulary the ‘F’ word has no crude or sexual
connotation. It occurs as naturally as, say, ‘damn’ in the mouths of educated speakers. So I
see no valid reason at all for artificial restraint in recording the utterances of my comrades
in the ranks.
Acknowledgements
Although this book is based on my personal recollections of events many decades
ago, it could never have come to fulfilment without the generous help of many
individuals in the recent past. I wish to record my deep gratitude to: Brigadier
Henry Wilson, the Publishing Manager of Pen and Sword, without whose constant advice
and encouragement the book would never have got off the ground; my editor Richard
Doherty, a truly professional military historian, for correcting many crass errors and for
his essential contribution to maps and illustrations; the late Mike Tomkin for a graphic
account of the opening phase of the second battle of El Alamein; to Major General Robert
Ward for the gift of a very special photograph; Brigadier George Powell for invaluable
documents relating to the Battle of the Gazala Line; Lieutenant Colonel ‘Basher’ Brace for
great support from Home HQ 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards; the Regiment for
permission to reproduce Joan Wanklyn’s painting of an incident at the Gazala Line; Lady
Stanier for permission to quote from the privately published autobiography of Field
Marshal Sir John Stanier; to Rupert Mackeson of Marlborough Sporting for his confident
support; and Katharine Hipwell for her indispensable secretarial work.
Peter Willett
March 2015