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Lieutenant Joseph Stephenson Davidson Hardy
Unit : Signals Platoon, HQ Company, 1st Battalion The Border Regiment
Army No. : 258048
Awards : Military Cross
Joe Hardy was born in Annan, Scotland, in 1917. He had eight brothers, all of whom fought during the Second World War, and three of them with the Border Regiment. He joined the 1st Border in 1933 and qualified as a signaller, which proved to be his occupation for most of his military career. When the Battalion returned from Palestine in 1939, Hardy was promoted to Sergeant and continued to serve with the Battalion when posted to France in 1939. Like everyone, he spent several hours queing in the water at Dunkirk for a boat to take him back to England. Just as his time to be evacuated came he found that a young officer was organising the men being loaded onto boats, Hardy felt that the man had clearly been doing this job for a very long time and had all the looks of someone who could not take much more before he went under. Hardy insisted that this officer should be the first man into the next boat whilst he took over the duties, which he continued to perform for an unknown length of time before he in turn handed the responsibility over to another Sergeant. Hardy returned safely to Britain. He later said "...compared with Arnhem, Dunkirk was a quiet weekend."
The Battalion got its first taste of Airborne warfare during the invasion of Sicily, but the glider in which Hardy, now a Lieutenant, travelled in, like so many others, landed in the sea. They were, however, only 200 yards from the shoreline, and it was therefore vital that they make it to land before daybreak and they become an easy target for the machine-gunners who they knew were nearby. Hardy fought his way out of the fuselage and swam for the shore with Captains Stafford and Black, with the intention of taking out the gunners. They had, between them, just three revolvers and 54 rounds of ammunition. When they reached the shore they found themselves confronted with a sheer cliff face, which was impossible to climb in the dark. As they waited for dawn, a Wellington bomber crashed close to them and left Stafford badly wounded, though miraculously neither Hardy or Black were injured. The Commander of the 1st Border, Lieutenant-Colonel Britten, arrived on the scene, and at first light he and Hardy scaled the cliff-face, at the top of which they were confronted by an Italian machine-gun crew who, after offering their immediate surrender, then donated a pair of boots to the shoe-less Hardy and instructed them how to operate their weapon.
At Arnhem, Hardy described his landing on Sunday 17th September as: "it was not at all easy for our pilot to pick a stretch of turf to make his landing that did not have a glider wing sticking into it from the left or right hand side, but he managed it. There was gliders all over the place... Happy to be safely on the ground, the fact that we were 60 miles behind enemy lines seemed of little importance."
"On my way to the RV, I came across two very young soldiers who had the idea that everything was so very normal that the obvious thing for them to do was to take off their equipment and brew a cup of tea. I explained, in the way that an ex-Sergeant usually explains things - that was, by screaming as loudly as I could - that we were about sixty miles behind the enemy lines, that we were surrounded by German troops, and that this was not really the time for an afternoon tea party. I managed to keep a very straight and very stern face for the few seconds that it took them to get on their way, and as soon as they were out of earshot I allowed myself a good hearty laugh. It was a terrific morale booster to see two kids, who, in a situation of that sort, thought the most important thing was a cup of char."
On Monday 18th September, Hardy was ordered to mount a Jeep and join "B" Company at Renkum; on the way he captured two Germans in quite a theatrical fashion; "I saw the outline of two soldiers... walking towards Arnhem... then I tumbled to the fact that they were not B Company men at all... Jock slammed the brakes on, and I half-leapt and was half-thrown over the bonnet of the jeep, landed at the feet of the two German boys with my automatic pointed at their guts, and the only stupid thing I could think of to say was "How about it chum?"... Two Dutch interpreters questioned the Germans, and they told us that they were a part of a unit that was marching along the Utrecht-Arnhem road..."
For his later actions with "B" Company, Lieutenant Hardy was awarded the Military Cross:
On 18th September 1944 at ARNHEM, Lieutenant HARDY, as signal officer, was ordered to lay cable from Battalion H.Q. to B Company which was an isolated detachment two miles from the remainder of the Battalion. Shortly after arrival in this Company area the enemy attacked in considerable strength and the Company was surrounded. Lieutenant HARDY immediately assumed duties as Second in Command of the Company, and under intense mortar and machine-gun fire he toured the Company area encouraging the men to greater efforts. When orders eventually reached the Company to break out and rejoin the Battalion, Lieutenant HARDY personally led the first troops, and though still under intense fire he succeeded in breaking out and was largely responsible for the successful withdrawal of B Company back to the main Battalion position. Had this withdrawal not been successful the whole Battalion position would have been gravely jeopardised. Throughout the entire operation Lieutenant Hardy's vigour and contempt of danger were an inspiration and source of encouragement to all around him.
"B" Company made good their escape by keeping as quiet as possible and creeping along the riverbank until they were out of the clutches of the enemy. Of the moment that "B" Company arrived back at the Battalion's positions, Hardy later remarked, "We were greeted as conquering heroes. After all, we had knocked off quite a lot of the enemy; we had been surrounded by a far superior force; and we had fought our way out. It hardly seemed necessary at the time to tell people that we had sneaked out through the back entrance."
Later in the battle for Oosterbeek, Lieutenant Hardy had assumed the responsibility of directing artillery support after the Forward Observation Officer had been killed. On Sunday 24th September, he asked for fire to be brought down in front of "C" Company's positions, and expecting to receive the customary reply from the Light Regiment that they were out of ammunition, he instead found himself talking to an American officer in command of a Regiment of heavy guns. These duly opened fire with great accuracy and broke up the attack on "C" Company.
On the night of the withdrawal, Lieutenant Hardy was at Divisional HQ and ordered to set free the last of the carrier pigeons which had been brought in with the Division. There was little food left for it and the eyes of hungry soldiers had been looking its way, so it was decided that it should be given a chance to survive. Hardy asked Major Cousens, the acting Commander of the 1st Border, what he should write, "Anything you like" was the reply. He wrote his message, set the pigeon free, and as luck would have it the bird managed to find its way to VIII Corps HQ. The message they found attached read: "Have to release bird owing to shortage food and water. About eight tanks laying about in sub-unit areas, very untidy but not otherwise causing much trouble. Now using as many German weapons as we have British. MG 34s most effective when aimed towards Germany. Dutch people grand but Dutch tobacco rather stringy. Great beard-growing competition on in our unit, but no time to check up on the winner. Please repeat to Brig R. H. Bower and REAR HQ HSG."
Joe Hardy safely withdrew across the Rhine with the rest of the Division. He later reflected on the operation: "Many historians writing of the Battle of Arnhem are inclined to classify the whole affair as a failure, the fact that we had to 'pull out' I suppose helps them to think that way. Most of us that fought there do not take that point of view at all. We were supposed to hold the bridge for twenty four hours, and it was held for much longer than that. We were supposed to find in the Arnhem area very few Germans, all of whom were supposed to be anything but first class troops. There was not supposed to be any German armour in the area. In effect, there was quite a lot of enemy troops in the area, on top of which there was a complete Army of them that came at us from the west, and a Battalion that was actually in the dropping area..."
After the war, he joined the Durham County Fire Brigade before leaving for Australia in 1956. Joe Hardy died in Melbourne on the 1st January 2005.