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Travels of a Captain R.E (Searchlights)

GAVIN W.S. DUDLEY, O.B.E.,

Croix de Guerre (BELG) (avec Palme)
Chevalier de Leopold II (avec Palme)

PART TWO 鈥� 1941 and beyond Utah Beach

1941

In May 1941 the Blitz ceased (more or less). Why, we did not know until in early June, 1941 鈥�.. Hitler had invaded Russia through Poland with everything he could muster, and, of course, the Germans had to give up the idea of conquering England. The Blitz had ceased, so we could relax a little and concentrate on new ideas and plans to reorganise the air defences in this S.E. area of England.

The war against Germany and Italy continued without any sort of let-up. ADGB was always busy. The Germans, with most of their military and air force, were in Western Russia up against Leningrad, Moscow, and the oilfields around Odessa. History was being made daily, even hourly.

ADGB in England used our time as follows: the Germans now started to bomb London, especially the docks with FW190鈥檚 鈥� fighter bombers, dangerous and very fast 鈥� by night with the occasional raid by day. The searchlights batteries were continually in action all through the long winter of 1941/42, now radar equipment flowed in and training continued with some engagements of great excitement.

On December 7th, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and declared war on Britain and the United States. Next day, Germany declared war on the US.

I had collected the whole of troop HQ to listen on my small radio to Churchill鈥檚 speech 鈥� he said: 鈥� Now we know that the Allies will eventually WIN the war and defeat the evils of the Third Reich 鈥� and went on about the new world coming to rescue the old world, etc: I felt encouraged and elated, and I am sure my troop did too.

In early 1942, I was promoted to the rank of Captain R.E. and sometime in the spring of 42, we were involved in a new system of 鈥楢ir Defence of London鈥� at night. There were seven sectors positioned around London, each with an airborne Beaufighter, circling at around 20,000ft awaiting any German night bomber which could be caught in the searchlight beams. It was quite effective in catching the enemy bombers during the outrun and during the winter or 1942/43, the 31st SL Regiment RA was able to lay claim to two 鈥榗ertainties鈥� and one 鈥榙oubtful鈥�.

1942 鈥�43

As far as the Air Defence of London was concerned, the war against German air-raids continued without much interruption. The raids on London dwindled, though certainly continued on military and civilian targets in England and Wales. The ring of 3.7-inch Heavy AA guns around London, the increasing number of searchlight sites in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Bucks and Berks and in Essex and Suffolk, with their attendant radar installations, became obvious.

We were kept fairly busy though we used to pray for fog, mist, heavy cloud when we could rest 鈥� and train for the as yet distant invasion of France and Germany. And of course, the war had developed into a World War 鈥� Africa and the Near East; Italy from 1943 onwards. Japan and the Far East and now, thank God, the U.S.A.; the war at sea; and the massive build-up of American troops, armour, aircraft and supplies. To the above must be added the constant news of the German battles in Russia and the terrible retreat from Stalingrad in the Ukraine in the winters of 1942 and 1943.

Lastly, many of us who were concerned with radar were worried about some of the reports coming out of occupied Europe about new weapons of mass destruction being made in Germany.

Altogether life was hectic and hard work with little rest.

1943

In early 1943 I was posted as Captain R.E. (Training) to 27th AA Brigade near Biggin Hill, north of Sevenoaks. I toured around the various SL Batteries in Kent, Surrey and Sussex either on my BSA army motorcycle or on my 10 cwt Austin truck. Often I had to report to Ops Room, Biggin Hill, as duty army officer, tracking German raids on civilian cities and towns, called the 'Baedeker' raids (on Exeter, Salisbury, etc. and in the Midlands).

I remember that on one occasion we learnt that the radar installation at (I think) Northolt, had 'bent' the German direction control radio beam for a large group of German HEIII, bombers so that, instead of dropping their load of shit on Coventry, the electric/radio beam had been 'bent' so that these bombers flew towards the west, crossed the Irish Sea and dropped their bombs on Dublin 鈥� to the anger of the Irish Government, but to our great pleasure. I believe that this happened more than once! Was Liverpool saved on that particular occasion.?

Another interesting time while I was at Biggin Hill was when I was ordered to go to a Bomber airfield of the RAF in Norfolk, to take part in a night-bombing exercise. This airfield was a night-bombing training centre for the RAF using 2-engined Wellingtons and 4-engined Lancasters. So off I went, arrived at the airfield for dinner in the officer鈥檚 mess and entered an aged Wellington with three other officers, to take part in a three-hour exercise, trying to dodge out of the range of searchlights on the ground.

It was great fun. I was seated in the co-pilot's seat. To escape from some searchlights around Norwich we had to climb over a bank of cloud. So the pilot-under-training had to open his engine throttles, increase the pitch of the propellers and CLIMB - fast. Now, the Wellington had two Bristol radial engines. The exhaust from a radial engine is collected in a steel ring or cowl around 12 cylinders. The starboard engine was, I suppose, 2-3ft outside my glass window and, when under full power, the exhaust manifold glows red, then bright red, then white-red!! I remember nudging the trainee pilot and pointed to the white-hot engine outside! A smile and he wagged his finger at me鈥� 鈥淚t鈥檚 OK鈥�.

Well, we commenced our return to the airfield. All of us had to stand in the centre of the Wellington near to the navigator and his maps. We heard the engines throttle down, and then almost immediately, instead of landing, the trainee pilot revved his engine and circled the aerodrome again. This happened three times and even the navigator was a bit worried.

Finally, on the fourth attempt, we landed! In the officers mess, having bacon, eggs, sausages etc. at about 4am., the trainee pilot came to greet us and said something like, 鈥淪orry chaps, I hope you were not worried - not as much as I was, for tonight was the first time I had flown a twin-engined bomber at night!鈥� Oh dear, Oh dear! I was glad to get back to Biggin Hill (and they had just had a minor bombing raid by three J.U.88s thirty minutes before!)

In late 1943 I was posted as a Captain R.A. (Training) to the 1st Searchlight Regiment, RA stationed in Dover. The Regiment鈥檚 108 searchlights were placed all around the East Kent area from West Malling, Marston, Canterbury through Dover to Folkestone, Rye, Dungeness etc. Battery HQ was placed on the outskirts of Dover and 2nd SL Battery RA was a key battery being in charge of the defences of Dover Harbour. This was the time when the Germans operates two very large bore, long distance, heavy guns at Cap Grice, just south of Calais. Dover was within range (22-23 miles).

Dover was, of course, busy mainly with MTBs, 2 or 3 frigates etc. and countless other small naval boats 鈥︹��.and by this time, 1944, the American build-up was proceeding apace. Dover was protected by 6-8 barrage balloons, and by at least four high-powered CHL (Coast High Level) Radars and many guns. Dover Castle, high above the harbour, was the centre of the air and sea defences of that area; by day and by night it was also the focal point for the German guns 22 miles away.

The cliffs under the castle were honeycombed with rooms, Ops centres with around 2,000 men and women tracking aircraft, surface ships and submarines etc. While in a little shelter on the top of the castle tower was the radar and visual communication centre, a cold and draughty room at all times and in winter, freezing. To control the Searchlights 1st SL Reg .RA had to provide one officer 鈥︹�nd of course, I had to take my turn up there! Our 鈥榯our鈥� was of 3 months duration.

During early 1944 I cannot remember any really exciting contact with Hun aircraft at night. We were bombed at least six times and the Calais guns hit shipping only a few times, most of the shells falling short in the sea or over our heads on to the outskirts behind Dover Castle.

Spring, 1944.

The long-awaited Invasion of France was becoming more and more obvious. Tanks, guns, armour, transport, stories of all sorts and, of course, many, many soldiers all were being collected under cover of trees, camouflaged canvas, tents etc. The undercurrent excitement was tremendous. Yet, as so often has been reported, very few Hun aircraft ever penetrated out over our S.E. coastline.
(Now, sixty years on, we all know that this build-up was part of a huge hoax against the Germans and formed one of many deception camps 鈥� all part of Patton鈥檚 fake Army)

I suppose that 1st SL Reg. with 108 SL sites around Kent and Sussex were able to help in misleading the Germans across the Channel, for we were allowed to let slip an 鈥榰nguarded鈥� word here and there, that Gen. Patton (old 鈥楤lood and Guts鈥�) with the U.S. 9th army, was assembling in East Anglia - which news we now know led the Germans to think that the oncoming invasion would cross from Kent and Sussex and from East Anglia into Northern France!

(The excellent film 鈥楾he Longest Day鈥� portrays vividly the German doubts on this matter).

D. DAY JUNE 6TH, 1944

I was still a Captain RE attached to the 1st Searchlight Reg. RA and posted to Dover with the 2nd SL Battery RA.

As you can imagine Dover had become extremely busy with much armour, tanks, landing craft and soldiers gathering in the harbour and on the South Downs around Folkestone. And as June 1944 approached, if I had been a German officer watching out from Cap. Gris-nez or Boulogne, I would have sworn that the invasion was going to be launched from the Kent and Sussex coast! The misleading wireless messages to and from 鈥極ld Blood and Guts Patton鈥� in E. Anglia must have made the Hun think hard.

Anyway, as we now all know, all the above was beautifully carried out camouflage. We know that some of the tanks and aircraft and, it is said, some gliders, dotted about the environs of Folkestone were indeed dummies made of wood, or else damaged training aircraft - in fact anything to confuse the Hun! But I myself don鈥檛 remember seeing (or hearing) even one Heinkel or Fokker Wolfe fighter/bomber straying over the Channel in the direction of Dover!

By the 9th June, 1944, most of the armour and troops and naval boats, landing craft tanks (LCTs) had GONE! Quite uncanny.

I remember asking where were the German shells from Cap Gris-nez??? Where were our patrolling Hurricanes and Spitfires? Within a few days, we learnt the full extent of the Allied landings in Normandy!

I remember being overwhelmed with excitement especially after the 麻豆官网首页入口 radio announcements by Churchill and others - the tide had been turned. The war, this terrible war against the loathsome Germans would be over by the end of the year, 1944, with the enormous power of the Americans on our side. Berlin, Germany, we鈥檙e coming鈥�. and, like so many others, I wanted to be there too.

Little did we know or even guess at what lay in store for England, Britain, America, Canada and for the British Empire, the largest empire since the Romans.

We knew nothing of the V1 (the first of 4000 only a week away): the V2 (the unstoppable ballistic missile again the first of 1100 only 2 months away). Did we know of the deaths of over 2 million Jews in camps etc., of the terrible hellish experiments being carried out against Russian and Eastern European POW's. Of course we knew that Germany was retreating from Russia, leaving thousands upon thousands frozen to death outside Stalingrad, Moscow, the Ukraine etc.----and added to this was the news of the naval battles in the Pacific where the Americans were slowly pushing back the hated, cruel Japs at terrible human cost.

June, 1944. I discovered from my Colonel, Col. Ord, that the 1st SL Regiment RA was to remain in and around Dover for the foreseeable future. I therefore, decided to leave 27th AA Brigade and go to a R.H.U. (officers) and volunteer to join any AA or SL Regiment.

On the 10th June, 1944, I saw the first V.1 (flying bomb) flying on its way to London. I remember watching it disappearing to the west of us, and very apprehensive at the guttural sound of its engine. This one was followed by other V.1鈥檚 not all towards London - a few cut out and landed close by and I think I remember seeing one of the early attacks on a V.1 by a Spitfire (or Hurricane).

It must have been early July, 1944, that I first received news of a new posting - to a Staffordshire AA Regiment, due to go to Normandy. I accepted straight away. I then travelled to Andover and found my new unit, the 5th South Staffordshire SL Reg. RA hidden under an avenue of trees alongside the Andover-Salisbury main road.

They were a good bunch and Major Hurst was my Company Commander and a Capt. Dickson welcomed me in (and Capt. Dickson eventually followed me - or I followed him)- together more or less right up to Brussels, Louvaine, the Rhine, Antwerp, and then to Dunkirk at Christmas, 1944, to the end of the war in May, 1945 鈥� lovely new equipment, searchlights, new multiple cannon, the latest sound-locating equipment, new trucks, etc. awaited me.

We were to be attached to the American Army! Our orders were to be at Southampton before the 22nd July, 1944. Having joined the 5th South Staffs: AA Reg: RA at Andover, we finally arrived at Southampton (with the loss of one SL and one lorry - from an accident) and were shown to an enormous warehouse by the Docks. Our first meal, taken with thousands of US troops was that of sausages, spinach, and marmalade 鈥� all in one 鈥榖eaker鈥� - with bread and cheese separately. Almost immediately we were loaded onboard a US liberty ship, direction Normandy Invasion beaches. One thing I remember to this day, was the delicious American coffee once on board 鈥� mug after mug as we neared the Utah Beachhead.

22/23rd July, we landed at UTAH beachhead at the base of the Cherbourg peninsula. The Regiment unloaded from the Liberty ship, one of about 15 in that particular convoy, and straight away started to place our 100 searchlights, generators, stores, transport etc. in the fields of France around St. M猫re Eglise, now flattened by bombing, and facing up towards the Port of Cherbourg - still in German hands.

All that I remember of late July and early August, was that after Cherbourg had been freed from the Germans (with about 28,000 POW鈥檚 taken) the port was being opened-up ready to receive the thousands of tons of stores, petrol, rations, guns, ammunition & transport needed. The latter was a sight never to be forgotten. Hundreds of wooden crates were lining up in the fields outside Cherbourg and at the far end of each line, out of these cases, would come jeeps, small Brengun carriers, small trucks, etc: , with drivers from the various units (particularly in the 9th Army) now moving hard and fast towards the Falaise Gap --- and Paris. And, may I say, if an officer had 2 or 3 bottles of 鈥楯onnie Walker鈥� from the NAAFI, he could exchange them for one jeep. This I know happened to one 5th South Staffs officer 鈥� I remember him in his new US army jeep !!!

In early August 1944, Gen. Patton, who had been in hiding from the Germans since June (not in East Anglia where the Germans had been led to believe he was) but in Somerset, was flown over to the Cherbourg Peninsula to take charge of the 9th Army, USA and his orders from Gen. Eisenhower were to go to Paris as quickly as possible and to enable Capt. De Gaule (as he then was) and the newly reformed Free French Army (under Gen. Le Clerque) to receive Paris undamaged from the Huns.

This Gen. Patton was able to do and Paris surrendered on the 26th August, 1944, and de Gaule became a Col. and then a General. I, a Captain RE, was only 2 days behind De Gaule, on my Norton 500cc army motorcycle!!

I was met, of course, by beautiful French girls with flowers, as of course my 5th S. Staffordshire Battery (No.2, I think) - and we had to take over Le Bouget Aerodrome, E. of Paris. But all good things have to come to an end and, within one week, I had to go back all the way to Cherbourg to meet up with the rest of the Regiment - a motorcycle was far faster than the movement of 100 searchlights, generators, VIE equipment and 250-300 lorries and trucks.

THE RED BALL EXPRESS

To get back to the Arromanche area, I had to travel against the enormous flow of transport, munitions, petrol, spare parts etc. coming out of Cherbourg.

This was the then famous 鈥楻ED BALL EXPRESS鈥�. Hundreds and hundreds of trucks of all sizes, plus jeeps, staff cars, tanks, all travelling eastwards towards the Falaise Gap and Paris - and almost the same number returning empty. All the trucks had flashing red lights (one on each truck) - and I had to get out of their way!! Particularly when loaded ones met the empties going back to Cherbourg!

Only one main road out of Cherbourg, through Carentan, St M猫re Eglise, St. Lo, Alencon鈥攁nd each and every town had been bombed FLAT with of course hundreds of shell holes, bomb craters and mounds of brick and stone.

My Norton motorcycle gave me no trouble except a weak front tyre and inner tube. The wire-beading rim of my front tyre was weak, very weak, and the inner tube at irregular intervals would escape from the front wheel and blow itself up like a balloon. So one had to stop and let the air out (before it burst!), then put the tube back again in the tyre, then blow it up again with the Norton鈥檚 tyre pump - oh, dear, a few miles later, just as a Red Ball Convoy was approaching, the inner tube came out again from the tyre - and the same process as above.

I was hot and dusty and very thirsty and this damned tube must have been put back at least a dozen times - I was also tired . So I threw away the Norton into a field and luckily, within thirty minutes, along came an Austin army utility truck bearing the 21st Army Group markings, and dropped me off at the officers鈥� mess - 5th Staffs! Was I glad to get back in one piece!!

Having got back as far as St. Lo, the Regt. reformed and our orders were to join 21st Army Group (UK) and aim for BRUSSELS and the RHINE. Having passed through Paris a second time, most of the regiment was deflected north to the coats between Le Harve & Dieppe. This formed a second interlude; where my battery was ordered to veer away towards the coast East of Le Havre and to find and examine any Flying Bomb (V 1) delivery sites. There were many. All the Flying Bomb rail tracks were directed onto Portsmouth ! I myself examined at least four small chateaux, all fairly well camouflaged and all directed to Portsmouth. None had at that time been used, thank God.

So on to Brussels with 21st Army Group of the British Army.

Continued in part three

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