Live ChatLes Collins was a Wireless Operator for the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers during the Second World War, formed in 1943 in preparation for the D-Day landings. He fought in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. Now 95 years old, he has vivid memories about his time in the war and VE Day.
Start of the war
Les grew up on the Old Kent Road in London and was from a poor family. He joined the Auxiliary Fire Service as a messenger boy in 1938, training in preparation for the war the country knew was coming. His school had been evacuated, and at just 14 years old he wanted to find a role to support the effort. He would work 48 hours on and 24 hours off, sleeping on the floor of a warehouse in Farringdon Street in London.
When the Blitz began, it was decided he was too young to carry on his role, and he joined a cable manufacturing company as an apprentice instead.
“One morning, I turned up for work and the building had been badly bombed, with people sheltering underneath all killed. It was my old fire crew who turned up to deal with it. It was a strange scene.”
“I was young, and during the Blitz I never really thought of the danger, but I remember being sat next to my father one night during the bombing. He was crying, absolutely terrified. He was having flashbacks of his time serving in WWI. He’d had to have his leg amputated after he was wounded and spent three and a half days sheltering in a shell crater, and the wound turned gangrenous.”
Serving
Called up in June 1943, Les was sent on basic training for six months in Aldershot, and then trained as a driver and wireless operator. He then joined ‘The Funnies’ Assault Squadron (79th Armoured Division) where he was trained to break the defences and assault the ‘West wall’. They were equipped with Hobart’s Funnies (Churchill Tanks with specific modifications such as bridge-laying equipment to handle anti-tank ditches). His first mission was on D-Day.
“We landed at Gold Beach, while being bombed. We managed to capture Bayeux on the first day and went on to Caen.
“We were there for weeks and a lot of people were killed in the destruction. We were under fire all the time and were being shelled constantly. I was lifting anti-tank mines and dealt with the Channel guns firing at Dover from Calais. We were there to make gaps in their defences. It was extremely dangerous.
“Eventually after a long time fighting, we managed to draw most of the German defences to us so the Americans could breakthrough at Saint-Lô. The Germans retreated and we got through France, Belgium and Holland – including to support in the Battle of Arnhem.
“In the Netherlands, my tank was replaced with a Crocodile tank (a form of amphibious tank). I transported troops and supplies across to the many islands based on the River Scheldt. I was the radio operator, passing messages on.
“We tried to capture Arnhem but were forced to retreat, and moved back to Nijmegen for the winter, sleeping in a tobacco factory.”
Eventually Les moved across the Rhine at Goch in Germany and ended up in in a field outside Bremen.
“We became hard. We weren’t soft or civilised, because we’d seen things. We’d seen people get killed and we could smell death all the time.
“We used to live off the land a lot. We were moving so fast that supplies of food didn’t always get to us, so in Germany if we got to a farm and fancied a pig, we’d have a pig, or we’d have chickens. In France and Holland however, people would give us stuff to eat.
“Don’t forget that for weeks on end all we lived off was bully-beef and biscuits. We didn’t have any bread or anything like that. We didn’t have anything like a bath either. We had shower lorries and that sort of thing, but things were very primitive. You forget it now, but every place you stopped you had to dig a latrine. That was muck and wet and was just a compo box with a hole cut in the top or something. We had to live like that - that’s what you did. You lived in the ground at times – not always – but at times.
“Being in a group of engineers, we were pretty handy at making things. We slept in the field and used canvas from the lorry as a sheet to sleep under. One morning, I woke with a start, the sheet was on fire. I managed to pull the other three men out, and luckily we all survived, but the tar from the canvas melted in my hair and as I tried to get it out, clumps of my hair felt out. I was stood in snow with patches in my hair, in just a shirt and pants – luckily some others lent us clothes and boots to wear and stay warm.”
VE Day
Les was in Germany in the last stages of the war and was the first in his troop to receive the news that Germany had surrendered.
“We were still in operations and it came over my radio from a Lieutenant that they had surrendered. I had to decode the message. I had my earphones on, and it came through in ‘slidex’ letters. “Surrender” I was told, “Germany has surrendered”. And the first thing we saw after was the German Army marching up the autobahn, 20 deep by 20 wide, whole columns. I didn’t know there were so many.
“Seeing them march down and past us, with British troops around them… it was fantastic. Don’t forget, we were overjoyed that they had surrendered. We had been living rough for 12 months. We just felt freedom, at last!
“A week before the surrender we had captured two places. One was a small brewery where we found a drum of sherry brandy. The other was a place in Solingen that made beautiful cut-throat razors, the best in the world, so we had a few of them too.
“That night, on the surrender day, we decided to broach the sherry drinking it in white pint mugs. We had pint mugs for tea. Big white mugs – filled them up. Naturally, we all got drunk. They found some of our blokes wandering around the fields somewhere. I haven’t been able to drink it since!
“In the morning we were still drunk, and we got up for duty in the muddy field and the Lieutenant said “go on, go back to your bunks”. We weren’t in a fit state… we were right-halved! But we drank because of the relief! We’d been near death many times.”
After the War
Immediately after VE Day, Les became part of the army of occupation, based in Germany dealing with the aftermath of war.
“We went on to Hamburg – that was terrible. You could drive five or six miles and not a single building standing. If there were bodies in there, a black cross had been marked on the brick.
“We had to deal with displaced persons and rioting. Everything went so fast. And there was no fraternisation.
“We weren’t allowed to communicate with the German people for the first six months, but when we did, surprisingly a lot of them could speak English, though the elderly people didn’t. They were ordinary people like everyone else, really. And some of them were starving too. I remember some of them at times going through our dustbins to get food. So, it wasn’t all fun and games for them. They had been bombed very heavily. Far more than we were.
“Everyone you spoke to claimed never to have supported Hitler. They were lying through their teeth of course. Everyone supported Hitler. He was once their saviour, but he went too far, and he went under. It was a dictatorship, and as for the SS… well I won’t swear!”
As the war in the Far East continued, Les and his squadron were detailed to come back to England, because they were going to be sent to Japan. The allies needed veteran assault troops. But when they got back the atom bombs were dropped, and they were sent back to Germany again.
Les was stationed in Hamelin barracks on the River Weser, where Irma Grese and Josef Kramer, both officials at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, were held before they were tried and hanged. Some of his colleagues were responsible for guarding them.
However, for Les, his time in Hamelin was a welcome change.
“We still did training, we still did PT, but as far as life was concerned it was luxurious. We had proper meals.
"We were handy with explosives and I remember going with several of my mates with canoes across the River Elbe with small detonators: tied in the fuse and a little explosion and all the fish would come up.
“We used to have NAAFI’s (Navy Army Air Force Institute) out in Germany and there were cafés and bands used to play to us.
“I learnt to ride in Hamelin because the barracks we were in was once a German cavalry barracks, and the German Sergeant-Major was still there. He used to train us so that was a bonus. Although I did take all the skin off my knees.
“I remember coming home on leave.
“We had become a little uncouth – and ‘manly’ - because of the war. I always remember apologising to my mother because I’d picked up some habits. Not everyone I had spent time with was a gentleman! I was friends with all sorts and finesse became blurred with the necessities of life, shall we say.”
Becoming unwell
“When I was back home my elder brother, who was an SOE man out in Yugoslavia, had got sick with Tuberculosis. Our father had died from it as the war went on. So, I went and got checked too.
“When I got back to Germany, I went to the 29th British General Hospital in Hanau. The doctor said “oh, you’re alright”, but as I walked out of the hospital and an orderly came and sent me back to the doctor. He said “I’m sorry, but you’ve actually got a lesion on your left lung. Drop everything. I will send for your kit. Straight into bed.
"I was then put on a hospital ship and brought home, then taken by train to the British Legion Hospital in Maidstone. I was there for 18 months, just sitting in bed because that’s all I could do. While I was in there my mother died, and my brother was in hospital with TB over at the Post Office Sanatorium, so I was on my own then.
“After a while I got home but had to have weekly treatment for 5 and a half years, until eventually in 1952 I was given medication to cure me.”
Living in Peace Time
In 1952, Les left the Army and went back to work for the cable firm he started in during the war. He stayed there for 50 years. He also became a Lay minister.
“I was going to become a monk, because I was on my own at the end of the war and I always had a religious bent, but instead I became a minister in the Church of England. I would do a lot of research into all sorts of religions. War never shook my faith”.
Remembrance
Les has been back to places he served during the war several times, and regularly takes part in Remembrance services and parades.
“I think about my old friends. There’s nothing about pride or anything, I’m remembering old friends, because you get really close.”