The Scourge OF THE NAZIS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30480, 30 June 1964, Page 24

The Scourge OF THE NAZIS

OUR FINEST HOUR, 1940

So there I was, in March, 1940, an officer cadet at Sandhurst. It was clear from the beginning that I was Dot to tread an easy path. Some of the instructors were insufferably demanding, and there was one, in particular, who threatened to halt my career almost before it had begun. He seemed quite uninterested in money, and was on the point of reporting me for offering him several hundred petrol coupons when I found his weakness. He had a quite ridiculous affection for his children,, who had been evacuated, by sheer chance, to my own country estate in the Cotswolds and were in fact, among a large party living in my stables.

As top cadet for the course, I had a choice of careers in the service, but it was the evacuation of Dunkirk which shaped my thoughts on this. I decided, there and then, to become a free agent to lend my energy and planning ability and boy scout cooking badge to the war theatre most in need of me. I did not confide in anyone over this But the first night those poor fellows were being brought back from the scarred beaches of Dunkirk, I made up my mind. A vast wave of German bombers was reported approaching south-east England and I set off at once, in my Mercedes, for Newcastle-on-Tyne. I drove recklessly, throughout the night, and on arrival immediately took over all the arrangements for bringing hot tea to the wounded as they were landed. Not many of them actually reached Newcastle-on-Tyne

those first few days, but the blueprint for future operations of that nature was there for everyone to see, and I am glad to say that several of the better war histories have made reference to it It was soon after this that I had my first taste of amphibious operations. I was at Southend on a secret mission to do with a large unrecorded supply of boot polish on which I had stumbled, and I had invited a very charming

young lady to spend an evening with me on a wellappointed yacht I had noticed. I had meant to ask the owner’s permission, and regretted somewhat that I had not done so, for he might have been able to tell me how to start the motor, which I was rather keen to get going when, some hours later, we found ourselves tossing about in mid-Channel. At least when I did. My lady friend had, much earier, discovered a supply of very fine Burgundy with which she had become rather too familiar, and she took little interest in our plight So it was that, in the eerie hour before dawn, we beached somewhere near Fecamp, and I staggered ashore to be rid myself of my mal-de-mer. I had stumbled in to a grove of trees when I heard voices. German voices. They were speaking in German, a language with

which I was quite unfamiliar. But when we got back to Dear Old England—my lady friend, rudely shaken awake, confessed she had been out with my type before, and knew all about starting recalcitrant marine engines—I naturally made the most of my opportunity, and reported my discovery of Hitler’s plan to land a party of storm-troopers In

the Western Hebrides. And it was because of this success, and the unending conferences and interrogations. as well as all that publicity, that I took no part in the Battle of Britain which began in August, nor in the first R.A.F. raid on Berlin that same month, although I had bad several hours flving experience in the university aero club. But I was not in London either, for the heavy incendiary raid just after Christmas. I was in Northern Ireland, fishing. I believe the instruction for me to take several weeks’ leave had come from a Certain Personage himself. (To Be Continued)

This is the second of six extracts from the memoirs of Brigadier Jeremy Jonquil, the man once described by a senior member of the Provost Corps as “that puf-fed-up Pimpernel”: if the man was misled into .jealousy by the fact that the demands on Jonquil often made it impossible for him to be where lesser lights expected him to be, it was a not uncommon situation in those dark days, and darker nights.