Chapter 3

June 5th, 1944.

I woke up to find a mist covering the woods. I made tea and ate some cheese. Today was the day, and my nerves were jangling; I cleaned my weapons again. I did not want to leave the cottage that day; I wanted to get stuck in and take the battle to the Germans, but I knew I had to wait until the right time. If all the lads that had been in camp with me made it to their allotted areas, we would make quite a bang when we all went to work.

In the afternoon, I slept on and off for three hours. Then, I ate the last of my food. As night fell, I got my gear together and made my way to the bridge. I stowed the guns in the undergrowth. All I needed was my knife and the explosives. I rubbed mud over my face to try to camouflage myself. I was dressed in black, so I did not want my pale face to give me away.

The lights were on, and I saw Germans sitting around smoking and chatting. Then the lights went off, and half an hour later, there were just the two guards. They walked the same pattern as they had when I had been watching them the other nights. I just sat and waited.

I glanced at my watch; it was eleven fifty-five. I pulled my knife from its sheath. I heard an engine and a staff car drive along the road that the bridge led to. It did not stop; it just headed past the huts. I knew the guards would be swapping over soon.

Once they had swapped, I would have a four-hour grace period to complete my jobs.

June 6th, 1944, 0 00.05hrs I saw the new guards coming across the bridge. Once they had done a handover, they started their patrols. The first guy was yawning his head off, and I knew that he would be easy to take out. I moved to a stand of bushes not far from where he turned; it was the extent of his patrol. I put the explosives down and waited for the right moment.

As he walked toward me, I had my knife in my hand, and I was like a coiled spring. When he got to the bushes he paused, and I saw him take some food out of his pocket. It looked like a half-eaten sandwich. He took his time eating it, I was tempted to just go for him but facing me as he was, he would have a better chance of raising the alarm.

He threw a crust of bread to the floor; it landed six inches from me. Then he turned.

I drew myself to my full height and took six quick steps. I clamped my left hand over his mouth and thrust my commando knife up between his ribs and into his heart.

He tried to wiggle free, but I held him tight; I pulled the knife out and thrust it back into his heart. I felt warm blood oozing between the fingers that were clamped over his mouth.

The blood and his life drained from him. I held him tight until I was sure he was dead. Then I dragged him into the stand of bushes. I cleaned the blood from my hand on his tunic.

Once I was sure he was hidden well enough I turned my attention to his mate. I made my way around to the other side of the bridge and spotted him. He had just got to the end of his patrol route and was about to turn back.

I sprinted over to one of the guard huts and hid inside. I knew he would be level with me in five minutes. I held my breath and tried to stay as still as possible. My main worry was that he might notice his mate was not there.

I heard his footsteps on the gravel pathway. He walked past the guard hut and stopped. I moved my knife to my left hand.

I heard him shout out to his mate.

“Otto, mein Freund, wo bist du?”

As the last word left his mouth, I stepped out of the guard hut and felled him with a savage haymaker of punch. I heard him grunt with pain as he hit the ground. I was on him in seconds; he was a strong bugger. He must have seen the knife, and his hand gripped my wrist. His grip was vice-like.

His right hand gripped my throat, and he was trying to throttle me. I punched him hard in the face once, twice, three times, but his hands gripped me harder.

I could see little stars floating in my eyes. I knew I had to do something soon before he throttled the life out of me. I grabbed the wrist of his right arm and managed to pull his hand from my throat. He was quite a handful; he was a big lad, and it was taking all the strength I had to keep his hands busy.

He was trying to roll me over; if he did that, I knew I was a gonna. I pushed his arms outside and head-butted him as hard as I could. I heard his nose break, and his grip on my left hand weakened.

I twisted my wrist and pushed down; the point of the dagger slid into the flesh of his neck. He was still struggling; he knew he was fighting for his life, as was I.

I pulled the dagger upwards and plunged it into his neck again. Blood spurted out. He tried to cry out, but I got my right hand over his mouth.

That left his fist free to throw punches at me, and I felt them hitting my ribs. I plunged the dagger into him again, and blood flowed from between his lips. I felt his energy sapping. I punched him twice in the face and then plunged the dagger into his chest.

He was dead seconds later. I got up and dragged him to the far side of the path, where there was a dip that would hide him.

He had water bottle on hip belt kit, I ripped it off and drank from it, at the same time making sure no one was around, that the sound of the fight had roused his mates.

It was a cold night, but I was sweating like a pig.

I ran back to where I had hidden the explosives. Then I ran back to the bridge and slid down the grass bank at its side. We had been taught about the makeup of a bridge. This bridge had two arches and they were held up in the middle by one pier.

It was the pier that was my target, blow that up and the arches would fall and make the bridge was unusable.

The river was deep so I climbed the brick work until I could see the pier, there was an out crop of bricks running the length of the bridge, I jumped up and gripped the out crop and I swung out over the water and moved slowly to the pier.

It seemed to take for ever and my arms were burning by the time I dropped on the stone bed of the pier. I found two holes that were just made for the job. I inserted two sticks of dynamite into each one, then inserted the timer pencils. They were both the three-hour model.

The guards were due to change over in three and half hours, so they would be ideal. It gave me time to get to the Anti-aircraft guns. I set the timers to go and jumped up and grabbed the outcrop and made my way back to the bank.

I drank more of the Germans water and then tossed the water bottle into some bushes. There was no time to dilly dally, I walked back to where I had stowed my kit, gathered it up and headed back into the woods.

It took me two hours to get back to my hide opposite the Anti-aircraft guns. I dug out the bag of explosives. I could see three men guarding the guns.

I wrapped my revolver up in the bag and slid down the bank and slid into the water as quietly as I could. Luckily for me the water was only waist deep and I was able to wade across.

I used the ditch to work my way around the side of the camp. The guards were wandering around, they were all smoking and wandering around aimlessly. They were young lads and I guessed they had not been soldiers for long. Their field craft was not up to scratch.

One of them started to walk down the side of a hut, I unsheathe my knife and put the bag of explosives down under a bush. The lad was in a world of his own. I scrambled up the bank and was soon a few steps behind him.

I stepped in closer, clamped my hand over his mouth, and ran the razor-sharp edge of my knife across his throat. It took seconds for him to die; I wiped the blood off my hands onto his jacket. I dragged him behind the hut. One down, two to go.

I moved around the camp and tucked myself away behind a hut.

The second man made my life easy. He came past the hut, put his rifle on the floor, and unbuttoned his jacket. As he slid it off his shoulders, I pounced. I grabbed his head with both hands and twisted it quickly and savagely. I heard his neck click, and the lad dropped to his knees. Then he toppled over and was face down on the ground.

His neck was broken; we had been shown the method by the parachute regiment’s unarmed combat instructors. We had all said it would be harder than they had said, but it had not been that hard. I dragged the lad backwards and hid him along the base of the hut I had hidden behind.

The third guy put up more of a fight. I got close to him, and he turned. I was not sure if he had heard me or just sensed me. He had a rifle with the bayonet fixed. He tried to fire the gun, but it seemed to jam.

He tried to slice me open; he thrust the blade at me, and I sidestepped and threw a punch into his face. He dropped to his knees but, at the same time, thrust at me, and his blade pierced the fabric of my trousers. Luckily, it didn’t pierce my flesh.

As he tugged the gun backwards, I smashed my fist into his face. He fell backwards and took the rifle with him. I kicked his rifle away from him, and then he was on his knees, and he had a knife in his hands.

He slashed at me, and I jumped backwards. He was on his feet, and he came at me, slashing back and forth. I took my time and watched his eyes. I stepped to my right, and he stepped with me. I stepped left, and he did the same. In my head, I was worried that other troops might come my way.

I needed to deal with this guy and get to work on the Anti-aircraft guns. I stepped back, and he stepped forward; his arm was outstretched. I stepped in quickly and smashed the butt of my knife down onto his wrist, and his knife dropped to the ground.

He stooped to pick it up, and I kicked him in the face; he fell backwards. I kicked him hard in the balls. His hands went to his groin to protect them, and I jumped on him. My left hand grabbed his hair, and I swept the razor-sharp blade of my knife over his throat. He tried to shout, but it just came out as a bloody gurgle. As his life flooded out of him, I rammed the dagger deep into his heart.

I held it there and twisted it. He was dead as I stood up and cleaned the blade on the dead lads’ trousers. I glanced around and made sure I was still alone. Once I was sure that there were no other troops coming to help their mates, I ran back to where I had hidden my explosives; I got my revolver out and headed over to the Anti-aircraft guns.

I glanced at my watch; I wanted to be an hour away by the time these babies blew up. I got the dynamite and the timer pencils out and placed one set next to each gun.

I knew my best bet was to slide them into the barrels. I set a one-hour pencil into the stick of dynamite and used the wheel at the side to lower the barrel. I activated the timer and slide the dynamite into the barrel and then used the wheel to elevate the barrel. It took longer than I thought it would as the barrel wheels were normally operated by two men.

One down, two to go. I had just elevated the second barrel when I heard a truck coming my way. It was trundling along the gravel road that led to the AA gun camp.

I rushed over to the third gun and lowered the barrel. I slid the dynamite stick into the barrel and spun the wheel. The truck was getting closer.

I knew if they found the guards missing or dead, they would check the guns and find the explosives. I had to hold them off for a while. I only had my knife and my revolver.

I ran back to the second guy I had taken out and picked up his rifle. It was a Gewehr 43, a carbine, semi-automatic rifle. I had fired one a few times during training. I searched the guy. He had five of the ten round box magazines. I ran around to the first guy. His rifle was on the floor, the same make and model. I stripped the magazine and searched him. He had four magazines.

The third guy had a Gewehr 41 bolt action rifle. I knew it would be of little use to me in fire fight. I had eleven magazines. I had to use them to keep the Germans at bay. I glanced at my watch and saw that the first gun would explode in thirty minutes.

I searched the huts; one was full of ammo, one of the others was being used as a canteen, and the last was an office, and it had a telephone. I ripped the cable out of the wall and threw the phone onto the floor, stamping on it. It was soon smashed to bits.

Then I prepared another stick of dynamite I set the timer pencil for two hours, I tossed it behind a wall of ammo cases.

I ran out of the hut and the noise of the truck told me it was almost there; I found a good place to give me cover but gave me a good exit into the river. There was a small stand of rocks that would give me some cover.

I had the magazines spread out next to each other on the ground. I had to hold the Germans off for twenty minutes there or there abouts.

I decided that the first thing to do was to disable the truck. I did not have long to wait. The truck pulled into the camp and the passenger dropped out of the cab. Judging by his uniform he was some sort of officer.

I lined the rifles sights on the driver’s side tyre and fired. Then I fired into the passenger side and them into the grill, I guessed the grilled covered the radiator. I was reward with a flume of smoke coming from the grill.

The passenger was trying to get back into the truck. I fired twice. The first round hit his leg, the second his torso. He fell to the ground.

I could hear the men in the back of the truck shouting at the driver. I lined up my sights and fired. The first round took out the windscreen, and the second hit the driver in the chest. He slumped to one side, and I heard the engine stall. I saw two men drop out of the back of the truck, and they headed around the back of the huts. Two more dropped out and came my way. My first rounds missed them but smashed the truck’s wing mirror. The men dropped to the ground. For a few minutes, nothing happened.

Then I saw another two men jump out of the back of the truck. Both ran around the side, they were carrying MP40 submachine guns, us Tommys called them Schmeiser’s. They were a serious bit of kit; they had a great rate of fire.

As the blokes ran, they fired in my direction; I ducked, rolled, and fired. I got the first guy in the leg, and he dropped to the ground. I rolled again and fired. This time, the round smashed into his head. His mate made it to cover and started to fire at me.

The Schmeisser is a very powerful submachine gun. I was covered with rock chips and debris as it churned up the ground in front of where I was hiding.

I rolled across to the other side of the rocks and waited for the machine gunner to move as he surely would. He fired three bursts at the far side of the rocks and then ran toward one of the huts. My first shot hit him in the gut; the next shot hit his chest, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Gunfire rained down on me from the right; the other men who had dropped from the truck had opened fire. I fired out the magazine and swapped it out. I dropped the empty to the ground, but it was of no use to me.

I glance at my watch; I need to hold them back for at least another ten minutes. I saw one of the men moving; he was trying to get closer to the hut where the phone was.

They would want to call up reinforcements. I was more worried about the gunfire being heard.

I waited until the lad had got close to the hut’s door. I put two rounds in him, one in the legs and the other in his arm. He dropped to the ground; I doubt he was dead, but he was not moving.

His mate fired three rounds at me, and at the same time, more gunfire came from the bed of the truck. I could see that one of the Germans had cut a hole in the truck’s canvas cover and was firing like mad. I fired four rounds at him; he ducked, and they all missed.

I kept firing, switching from left to right to keep the Germans at bay. I knew they were not front-line troops if they were I would have been taken out five minutes ago. They would have worked in two teams to out flank me.

One of the Germans on my right headed towards the hut, and I winged him. I put a round into his upper arm, and he dropped his gun.

I fired again but he was rolling back toward the huts, I heard the engine of another truck, and I glanced up the road, more Germans were coming. I knelt up and fired out my magazine and dropped to the ground and swapped mags.

The other German truck had just turned into the camp gates; I fired into the windscreen twice. The truck jerked to a halt, and six men jumped from its bed. I was badly outnumbered now.

They were all armed and all firing. I took two out, and then I had rounds coming my way from three directions. It was time to get out of there. I edged back toward the river and slid down the bank.

I saw two men running across the camp. I fired four rounds; one missed, one took a German in the face, and the other runner was hit in the leg and the gut. I fired out the rest of the mag, threw the gun away, and slid down the bank and into the cold water.

I swam across the river; I could have waded but it was quicker to swim. I was three quarters of the way across before rounds started buzzing around my head.

Luckily for me, they were not great shots; I scrabbled up the bank and dashed over to where I had hidden my guns. I took the sniper rifle out and knelt down.

I held my breath as I put my sights on a German lad who was firing his MP40 at me. The round took him down, a chest shot. My second round hit another German in the leg. The rest of the soldiers on the opposite bank hit the ground or took cover behind the guns.