Eric’s Story

This is relating to my Father (Dad) who served with the 5th Guards Armoured during World War II. After the tough time at D-Day and actually extracting themselves from the countryside – they marched on toward Germany and liberation of the same. 5th Guards Armoured were then re-directed to assist at Arnhem and during that re-routing were halted and re-directed to the Ardennes to support the Americans after the Battle of the Bulge. During this element of the conflict Dads, tank got blown away and luckily survived that and with the Americans now back in control of the Ardennes once again, headed back towards Arnhem and Nijmegen – this time on foot supporting the remains of the Squadron. At Wiesel at river crossing had to be effected, but the Germans knowing this had it well fortified.

It was here that my Dad copped one from an MG42, which took his lower jaw away and he was , due to his injury, left as he was non responsive and assumed dead. This however was not the case, he was found by Dutch resistance patched up and taken to safety – where that was he had no recollection of course, but from the letters my Mother received, from the Dutch Family who had Dad, it was Nijmegen.

Here the Dutch managed to get Dad to the British Army Field Hospital, who managed to send a card to my Mother stating that Dad had been found but unlikely to survive due to his injuries. You can imagine the feeling back ‘at home’ especially as he had survived Dunkirk.