"At the time my story begins my Company had reached the furthest point the bridgehead ever reached before the break-out in May 1944, the outskirts of the little town of Campoleone. Our platoon positions were on the crest of a little rise with a narrow valley and a railway line to the north of us. Immediately to our right was a farmstead. We were in fact at the extreme point of the salient 1st Division created by their advance.
On the night of February 3rd/4th the Germans put in their first counter attack and they did the obvious thing; they nipped off the base of the Salient. My company was thus cut off from the rest of the battalion, though I didn’t appreciate this at the time.
It was like a gigantic fire-works night with coloured tracers flying in all directions. I could hear tanks moving in the valley below us and the sky was lit up when one went up in flames. The Germans then attacked us from the rear and we could hear them getting nearer and nearer. All the time they were shouting to each other, quite unlike our procedure at night. There was some answering rifle fire but not the amount I would have expected.
We (that is my section — I was section leader) were expecting it would be our turn at any moment, but it was not so; presumably they missed us in the darkness. So, one of the longest nights of my life dragged on. I remember trying to keep awake by very slowly getting through a packet of biscuits and a tin of syrup!
With the coming of daylight, the Germans apparently realised they had not mopped everyone up, because we were subjected to a sheet of machine-gun fire and a bombardment. All we could do was to crouch in our slit trenches; to have put our heads up would have been suicide. One bullet went right through my knapsack resting on the parapet of my slit trench. I thought my end had come.
The expected attack, however, did not materialise and all became deathly quiet. We had little idea as to what had happened in the night or what we were supposed to do, so as Section-leader I saw it as my duty to take some action. After a time of quiet I stealthily climbed out of my slit trench and crept on my stomach in best bird-stalking fashion back to my platoon HQ, but there was not a soul there. Carefully looking around I could see no signs of any other section either. It seemed all had gone bar the four of us.
I crept back on my stomach to my section and reported the situation as I understood it. We had no idea what to do next, but we did not have long to ponder. We became aware that a section of Germans was searching the farmstead 50 — 100 yards to our right and that there were a lot more Germans milling about at the bottom of the hill behind us. It was now quite clear that we were the last survivors and that we were well and truly behind enemy lines.
We were no suicide squad, so I gave instructions to the section to destroy their weapons as best they could. Then we put up our hands and shouted ‘Camarade’ in time-honoured fashion. The Germans searching the farmstead beckoned to us to come to them. As we dashed over to them the Germans at the bottom of the hill began firing at us. One of the section who had captured us ran out into the open and fired his rifle in the air as a signal for them to stop. I thought it was very brave of him.
They searched us for arms and ammunition, but made no attempt to take anything else from us such as watches and pens. They were far more disciplined in this respect than the average ‘Tommie’. We were then put into one of the rooms of the farmhouse with guards while they went to get instructions. The two or three guards proved very friendly. They tried to talk to us but we knew no German and they little English. All they could manage were such expressions as ‘war no good’ and ‘for you the war is over’.
After this we were given the job of carrying boxes of ammunition up to their front line. Whether this is permissible under the terms of the Geneva Convention I do not know, but we were in no position to argue the niceties of that Convention. At this point several of our shells came over. I remember thinking that the Germans seemed more scared than we were. A whole line of soldiers were strung out lying on the ground in the open and firing their rifles at random. We were told to pick up a stretcher bearing a wounded officer and carry him away from the line. As we began to do so a stray bullet from the battlefield hit and wounded one of the Germans escorting us. They were so upset that they threatened one of my section, but fortunately quickly realised it was nothing to do with us. The wounded man was given a pick-a-back out of the line.
As we walked along the German officer, quite a young man, started a conversation with me. He did not know any English and I no German, but we had both learnt French at school so we talked to each other in school-boy French. We only mentioned our homes and families, and of course did not touch on military matters. Later one or two presumably Intelligence staff joined us. They questioned us about our artillery and I was quite pleased I could honestly say I had no idea.
Eventually we reached their regimental H.Q. where we left the stretcher and its burden. An officer or Sergeant-Major gave instructions for one of the soldiers to escort us further. There then occurred an incident that caused us no little amusement (we were needing some light relief), though the Germans did not find it amusing. The soldier who had been detailed began to walk down the road with his rifle slung over his shoulder and kept looking back to make sure that we were following. The officer bellowed at the poor man and gave him a terrific dressing down. He should of course have walked behind us with his rifle at the ready.
So we walked along a long road away from the front. I had a number of letters in my pocket with the address referring to the 1st Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. As we had been instructed only to give our name rank and number if captured and not the name of our unit, as we walked along I slowly tore these envelopes to bits with my hand in my pocket, compressed each bit into a minute ball, and let it drop. In actual fact and to my surprise we were not searched again after the initial search for arms and ammunition when first captured.
At one point we passed a motorcycle lying by the road-side with a dead dispatch rider by it, presumably a victim of our shelling and a grim reminder that we were not yet out of danger. Eventually we came to a cave in the hill-side into which we were put and which was crowded with British Prisoners-of-war, presumably captured earlier.
So ended the 4th February my 25th birthday!"
~Robert Bennett Warren~
Duke of Wellington’s Regiment