Armoured horseman : with the Bays and Eighty Army in North Africa and Italy

239 Pages·2015·9.73 MB·English

by  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.