Cyril (Ash) Ashley - Kings Own Scottish Borderers
17/05/11 11:56
Arnhem
“Chance played such an important part really, a most momentous one for mine, we were making a night advance and I was lead platoon. Every half hour the lead platoon would move to the back of the column, and all the platoons would move up on so the next cha took lead platoon, and within minutes of my moving back to the rear, the platoon which had taken my place, commanded by a great friend of mine, a Lieutenant Murray, 19 years old and son of a Brigadier, came under fire from a German patrol in the woods and he and his platoon were killed. That was in minutes of me moving from that position to the rear.
It was not long after that we were captured. We were all lined up and the German officer came along shaking our hands congratulating us on the scrap we had put up. That takes a bit of believing doesn’t it?! So that was a good side, or one of the little good sides I saw. The conversely, marching away into captivity and the Dutch people would come running out from their houses with water and apples, anything to help us along the way, and when the guards turned round they would all fly back into their homes, and then they would come out again. And then something happened, which although we had the good and bad in our units, I don’t think a British man could have done. They turned round and fired into that crowd of women and children. And I just can’t believe that an English soldier could do that, bad as he may be. So that was the two extremes. Then, of course, we had the other side which people will often say to me – were you frightened? – Now, I can honestly say that I wasn’t frightened. We were young, fully trained, anxious to have a go, all the adrenalin flowing; but later on when we were put in the cattle trucks to be taken down into Germany, we pulled into Koblenz and the populace was not very happy, and the station was crowded with women banging on the doors of the cattle trucks, screaming, and I was frightened then. I was glad to get away from that station at the time.”
“Chance played such an important part really, a most momentous one for mine, we were making a night advance and I was lead platoon. Every half hour the lead platoon would move to the back of the column, and all the platoons would move up on so the next cha took lead platoon, and within minutes of my moving back to the rear, the platoon which had taken my place, commanded by a great friend of mine, a Lieutenant Murray, 19 years old and son of a Brigadier, came under fire from a German patrol in the woods and he and his platoon were killed. That was in minutes of me moving from that position to the rear.
It was not long after that we were captured. We were all lined up and the German officer came along shaking our hands congratulating us on the scrap we had put up. That takes a bit of believing doesn’t it?! So that was a good side, or one of the little good sides I saw. The conversely, marching away into captivity and the Dutch people would come running out from their houses with water and apples, anything to help us along the way, and when the guards turned round they would all fly back into their homes, and then they would come out again. And then something happened, which although we had the good and bad in our units, I don’t think a British man could have done. They turned round and fired into that crowd of women and children. And I just can’t believe that an English soldier could do that, bad as he may be. So that was the two extremes. Then, of course, we had the other side which people will often say to me – were you frightened? – Now, I can honestly say that I wasn’t frightened. We were young, fully trained, anxious to have a go, all the adrenalin flowing; but later on when we were put in the cattle trucks to be taken down into Germany, we pulled into Koblenz and the populace was not very happy, and the station was crowded with women banging on the doors of the cattle trucks, screaming, and I was frightened then. I was glad to get away from that station at the time.”