I have mentioned in an earlier story that Sergeant-Chef Larreur, the senior N.C.O. of the 3rd Medical Battalion, knew about everything that was going on in his particular area of responsibility. He was like a spider in the centre of a web, and was well aware of every tiny tweak occurring at any of the extremities. I was operating at one of the extremities and was a small part of his intelligence gathering operation. Whenever we were near to his base at the Battalion office he would stroll over after supper for a chat. Amid serious discussions about English literature and the English sense of humour (both subjects where, I fear, I failed him badly) he would intersperse pertinent questions about events that concerned his daily activities. I well remember the time he asked me about the jeeps. Jeeps were small, four-wheel drive, utility vehicles containing four rudimentary seats, no doors, a folding windscreen and, in our case, a central mount for a heavy machine-gun.
We had been moving eastwards across France since the liberation of Paris some weeks earlier, pushing the Germans back, but without any recent major engagements. The Germans had developed a very obvious method of delaying us. Anyone who has driven in France is familiar with the long stretches of fairly straight road lined with avenues of trees at various stages of growth. On those sort of roads where there was a sufficient turn to prevent a clear view ahead, the felling of a dozen trees brought our progress to a halt.
Our "order of march" was a jeep in the lead with a crew of three or four, followed by two Shermans, then me with my ambulance and if we had more tanks, two or more bringing up the rear. The Germans realised that they had no need to man the road-block to cause delay. If they manned a few it would cause more time-wasting for us in checking the obstacle every time we came across one. They would on occasion leave one or two heavy machine-guns trained on the stretch of road in front of the fallen trees. The effect of this strategy was that every time the leading jeep rounded a bend to be confronted with felled trees it would be driven headlong off the road as fast as possible. If the jeep was undamaged and the road-block unmanned we would get going again quite quickly, but a frightened driver anxious to put distance between himself and an accurately aimed Spandau was not going to worry too much about damaging his jeep. If the vehicle was not useable it was abandoned and a message sent back to "repairs and recovery". The engineers did not give high priority to a bent jeep and so, frequently, by the time they arrived the vehicle had been spirited away by the local farmers to whom they were a godsend.
Chef Larreur asked if I could explain why our section and other similar small forward units were constantly needing replacement jeeps. Having watched the above pattern of events on several occasions I was able to give him the answer. The result was an immediate order that abandoned jeeps were not to be left unguarded. The duty of guard in such circumstances became a very unpopular task since, if anything, the "repair and recovery" people took longer to arrive when they knew that the object of their operation was, or at least should be, under guard.
After this stop and start progress across France had been going for sometime the Germans developed a refinement of their tactics that became much more serious. By this time they had been supplied with a good many of their deadly 88 millimetre anti-tank guns and they combined the use of these with the felled tree road-block. Instead of using machine-guns to attack the people clearing the blockage, they hid one or two 88s in the fields behind the area concerned. They then waited until the Shermans had been brought up to push the heavier logs out of the way. This gave them a clear shot which could be disastrous. I saw one tank that had received two hits with armour piercing shells leaving four neat round holes, entrance and exit sites, making the turret look like a huge piece of Gruyère cheese.
This new tactic was difficult to counter because the German gunners were past masters at the art of concealment. The day our section fell into the trap we had no jeep, having wrecked it the day before at an unmanned road-block. If a jeep was operating there was always great competition to be part of the crew. This sounds surprising but it was typical of the bravado of our tank crews. However, if there was no jeep and the lead tank had to go first, our philosopher Sergeant-Chef always took the tank commanders position himself. On the day concerned I watched him go round a very slight corner and at the same moment heard the unmistakable sound of an 88 firing in our direction. There are many louder noises, but I have never heard anything so full of menace. The shot missed and the Chef's tank reversed, then shot off to the left and disappeared in a coppice of small trees. The other three tanks, one ahead of me and two behind stayed where they were on the road. I had mixed feelings about them; were they each 30 tons of protection or sitting targets? I did not have long to ponder about this. We heard one more shot in the direction of the hidden gun, but it was a Sherman's shot. It was followed by a confused series of explosions. I turned my vehicle and followed the tracks of the Chef's tank expecting there to be work for me. I came up to the Sherman with its gun still trained on the smoking wreckage of the 88 and its German crew. They were all dead, either killed by the original hit or by the detonation of their stock of shells, which explained the later explosions. I got out just as the Chef left his tank and we walked together to see if there was anything I, or anyone else, could do. The Chef stood with bowed head and I saw his lips moving. I left him to his prayers, for those lying dead or for his own escape, I shall never know. He caught me up as I was climbing back into my ambulance. "One more of those deadly devils out of the way" he said.
There is a grisly photograph of this episode in the "Divisional History". The picture is entitled "Uskub a tiré avant lui", "Uskub" being the name of the Chef's tank. It is not a picture I often turn to.