Lance-Corporal Eric G. Lancaster
Unit : Signals Platoon, HQ Company, 7th Parachute Battalion.
Army No. : 14498689
The 24th of March 1945 is remembered by many of us as the date of operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine. Although it was the largest airborne operation in history a participant can only recall his own small part in the events.
The Seventh Battalion of the Parachute Regiment had been moved to a transit camp near Saffron Walden in Essex and the day before had been issued with special equipment such as white silk gloves would you believe! Actually the gloves were made of rayon. We were shown a model and aerial photographs of the dropping zone but in the event there was too little time to get one's bearings between leaving the plane and landing on the ground and there was also considerable battle haze.
The morning of the 24th March dawned dry and clear but we were up before dawn sorting out our equipment in the Nissen hut where we had spent the night. Suddenly there was a loud bang which reverberated around the hut and I realised that I was standing back-to-back with a corporal who had fired a shot from his Sten gun. I turned around and grabbed the gun from him thinking of the mayhem had he discharged the contents of a magazine in a crowded hut - but there was no magazine; he must have cocked the weapon, pushed a cartridge in the breech, and having carefully positioned his foot over the concrete kerb around the heating stove, shot himself in the foot. A good start to the day.
One of the items I had been issued with was a phosphorous grenade but, having a vivid imagination, I did not fancy dangling at the end of a parachute with a phosphorous grenade burning away in a pouch so I dumped it in a wall cupboard in the Nissan hut.
In the Ardennes and over the Rhine I was signaller to the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Pine-Coffin, DSO, MC, and, as signallers worked in pairs the Lance Corporal and I had to decide who was to drop with the wireless set in a kitbag. I asked him and he said "I took it on D-Day you can bloody well take it this time" - the matter was resolved.
We eventually got onto the three tonners and were driven to the airfield where the Dakotas were lined up. We boarded the aircraft and immediately had to get off again; Captain John Rogers, the Adjutant, who was jumping number two wanted to take a photograph of the stick.
A surprise awaited us. A large brown paper bag of oranges was passed down the aircraft, something we had not seen since the beginning of the war. As few people were interested. I took three, opened the top of the kit bag and put the oranges in with the wireless set. Funnily enough I do not remember eating them but I must have done.
Before we took off there was a disturbance. A jeep came racing across the tarmac to our Dakota and out jumped two redcaps and what turned out to be a prisoner. He was hustled half way up the steps so that his head appeared at about floor level and then from the cockpit end of the aircraft appeared the battalion provost sergeant ceremoniously carrying a parachute which he presented to the prisoner and in the Language of Kings Rules and Regulations said "Number 123456789 Private Smith G. (or whatever) I order you to take this parachute." From the lips of the frightened soldier came a whispered "No." This little drama was repeated three times and then the refusnik was put back in the jeep no doubt to finish up in a glasshouse.
We took off at 0700 hours and soon we joined an armada on the three hour journey to Germany and could see through the windows many mare Dakotas and occasionally the glimpse of one of the fighter planes which were acting as escort. The weather remained fine so there was little turbulence as we droned our way across Holland.
From the flight deck there appeared a little American soldier who looked rather unhappy, he wore a flak jacket, parachute and steel helmet and was carrying what looked like a steel bucket which he upended and then sat on as near to the back of the aircraft as he could. This was the Crew Chief and the bucket presumably was to protect his backside from enemy fire.
We were told to hook up and after checking the parachute of the man in front we moved towards the door becoming aware of anti-aircraft fire which we could see and hear exploding around the plane. My partner on the wireless set was supposed to be jumping number one but he suddenly moved into the corner behind the crew chief and held onto the aircraft ribs seemingly intent on staying behind. Captain Rogers was shouting at him to come back but the green light had come on and we yelled a warning to Rogers who turned back and jumped through the door; we all shuffled after him.
When my parachute opened instead of the quiet sounds of the countryside to which we had been accustomed it was as if all hell had been let loose, anti-aircraft and small arms fire and, to add to the atmosphere, there was a considerable haze near the ground. Neither did it help when I realised that we had been dropped from much higher than normal.
After letting down my kitbag I could see that I was heading for some trees so manipulated the lift webs so that I landed at one end of an oblong field which was perhaps 300 yards long and surrounded by trees. After getting out of the parachute I grabbed my Sten gun all ready for action and then realised that the magazines were in my ammunition pouches under the jumping smock - must remember for next time.
At the transit camp some Johnny know-all had said never mind unfastening the kitbag, pull out your fighting knife and slit the canvas. Ever tried cutting through a canvas kitbag? A waste of time. As I hurriedly unfastened the kitbag someone started firing at me from the other end of the field so I pulled the 68 set out of the kitbag whilst hiding behind it, a very difficult manoeuvre.
I heaved the wireless set onto my back and legged it as fast as I could away from the inefficient sniper to the nearest trees and found a dirt track down which I proceeded warily, not having a clue where I was. Round a bend and there, leaning on a five barred gate as if he was in his native Somerset was Bert Stokes of the signal platoon. "What ho: Bomber (being named Lancaster I was known as Bomber), looking for Battalion HQ? Turn left, up the hill and you'll find it near the top." "Thanks Bert" said I. Obviously Bert had arrived yesterday and sussed out the lie of the land.
But Bert had not mentioned the air bursts which were making the position of Battalion HQ uncomfortable and sure enough a particularly loud explosion. I was blown over; the C.O. who was standing next to me caught a piece of shrapnel in his face and 'Ginger' Dunn, another signaller, who was about 100 yards away told me later, that he was looking in my direction and thought that the airburst had landed on my head! I remember seeing the C.O. at a re-union a few years later and the mark on his face looked rather like a duelling scar.
Prisoners were coming in and were being corralled higher up the hill. One very old (he must have been 40) and frightened German soldier was propelled up the hill by a regimental policeman and as he passed I said, "There goes Sad Hans!"; Sad Hans being a cartoon character in the divisional newsletter.
The C.O. decided to visit all the companies and he set off at a very brisk pace. We made the briefest of stops at each location but still moving at a gallop. When we got back to battalion HQ I was just in time to see another signaller, 'Spud' Purdy, being carried away on a stretcher; I was too far away to see how badly he had been injured and never found out. He was a cheerful and popular character who came from Northern Ireland.
In the afternoon things quietened down quite a bit and the signal sergeant took over my set and told me to go for a walk so I did just that. I went out of the trees and down onto the dropping zone which was mainly a large flat landscape of fields. The wounded had all been treated and taken away and most of the dead had also been moved.
The area was littered with a multitude of gliders, some of which looked as if they had landed without any trouble but most had been badly knocked about by anti-aircraft fire and when they landed, some had burnt out; there were also a few Dakotas which had crash landed. So many of the gliders were virtually matchwood that I was glad that I had arrived by parachute.
One Dakota had nose dived into the ground so that the exit door was about fifteen feet above the ground and for a couple of hundred yards behind the plane a line of parachutes was stretched out presumably belonging to those whose chutes had not opened in time. The only man left was on his back, hanging out of the door with his head split open.
I walked into another field where German prisoners had just dug a huge grave about 30 feet by 15 feet and bodies were being placed in it. A lot were badly burnt and some looked like large pieces of charcoal.
As I left the field there was a German soldier sitting with his back against a gatepost sneering at me; I was just about to give him a good kick when I realised he was dead and the sneer was actually risus sardonicus so I left him to his dreams.
Another body, which remained was that of an American parachutist whose chute had not opened properly and his limbs were at peculiar angles where he had landed in a shallow ditch. How he had finished up on the British DZ I could not imagine.
Other details on the dropping zone now escape me but the general effect was of a stage when most of the actors had fled. Later in the day we advanced towards the gunfire and started our long walk across Germany to link up with the Russians at Wismar on the Baltic.
My thanks to Stephen Lancaster for this account.