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| Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise Alcide, CC BY 3.0 |
Next morning we were off again, this time heading for Audenarde. No mail, in or out, of course, in all this time. We covered about 15 miles passing through St. Pol [1] when the C.O. [2] decided to stop for a rest. Just past the head of the convoy there was a large brick building and a smaller wooden one next to it. I was walking up the road towards it when, just as I was fifty yards away, there came a loud explosion and the roof of the wooden building blew off. I saw the flash shoot about six feet above the building.
When I got to it, I saw three men being brought out. By stroke of luck they were still conscious and able to stand. They were our C.O., a F/Sgt [3] and a Sgt [4]. The F/Sgt was the worst as he was black from head to foot. Some of his clothes had been blown off, skin as well and a lot of his hair was missing. The three of them were rushed off to a hospital and that was the last we saw of the two N.C.O.'s [5] It was a booby-trap that had caused the damage. I think that type of trap is aptly named as our people had no business in the building at all. Perhaps they wouldn't have called it looting. The C.O. did return to the unit for a couple of days but then it was discovered that he had broken a bone in his spine so then he disappeared.
From then on the adjutant assumed command.
After this accident we couldn't carry on with our pre-arranged plan so it was decided to move on to the next village and camp there for the night.
We had only travelled a couple of miles when we came to Brias and there we stopped to set up camp. We had the main part of the camp, that is, cookhouse, on the village green and all the other trucks parked around. Once again we were to sleep where we could find a place. As I was on guard for a period during the night I was able to lay my bed on some straw in a barn. Some of the boys went out that evening to see a flying bomb site that was just down the road. We found that apart from the Sappers [6] who had gone through the village checking for mines we were the first British troops the people had seen since the invasion.
- Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise
- Commanding officer
- Flight sergeant
- Sergeant
- Non-commissioned officer
- Sapper, also called pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties.
Leading aircraftman (LAC) Charles Francis (Frank) Stone (1923-2001), my father, wrote this Forbidden Diary (i.e. they'd been told NOT to keep diaries and the fact that it exists tells you all you need to know), as a 21 year old in 1944. (Entries are transcribed exactly as written, mistakes included. Attitudes are very much 'of their time'.)