Another news sheet, which compliments the first one, as it refers to the same incident!
2905
TEN YEARS AGO More extracts from wartime news sheets'
28/3/44 HENRY BOARDMAN "Just a few lines hoping to find you and the Old Boys in the best of health I believe Johnny Aspinall wrote you telling you I was in hospital again. It happened this way; we went into action on January 30th and lost a couple of tanks. My tank was about 20 or 30 yards behind another tank which got hit and immediately burst into flames. Not knowing where the shot came from we withdrew a little and after half an hour we went forward again this time without any opposition and finished up on the objective. We withdrew after the infantry had consolidated the position.
The next morning we went in again at about nine o'clock. Opposition was very stiff and taking up a position on a ridge we started blasting a few houses and haystacks which were in front of us. About three o'clock in the afternoon we got word from the infantry that Jerry had some machine guns in some six coaches on the railway line. We left our positions and went round to our right and blasted those coaches. After they were well on fire we returned to our original positions. By this time we had only two H E shots left so we put them into a haystack which caught fire and started exploding. My commander decided to fall back a little and pick up some more H E ammunition so we started to reverse off this ridge. This was when we got hit, the shot coming in by the driver?s seat and setting the tank on fire. A few of the splinters of the shot or maybe the tank hit me in the calf of the left leg and the back of the right thigh. Needless to say we baled out. I was doing operator at the time and so was last out. By the time I did hit the ground the remainder of the crew was out of sight. I was hobbling back, more crawling than anything else when my troop officer called me into a dug out where we stayed for about half an hour during which the area was heavily shelled mortared and machine gunned and I had a look at my damage. There was a hole about as big as a sixpence in the fleshy part of my, left leg and some three smaller holes in my right thigh -nothing serious but enough to prevent me walking or running properly. So between hobbling and crawling about 1000 yards I got to a regimental Aid Post where they bandaged me up and I went further back to the road to be picked up by an ambulance On the way I had to take shelter in a slit trench behind a house where I met some lads of ours one of whom said there was on engineer there who knew me. It turned out to be none other than Stan Grounds. We spent half an hour or more in his slit trench and had a bit of a chat but I'm afraid that by that time I was pretty well shaken up, I'm afraid it was nerves more than anything else and Stan could see it and told me to get going to the ambulance point but as I felt a **** sight safer in the trench than I would have felt making my way further back I stayed a little longer till things quietened down a bit and then got to the ambulance point where I got a cup of tea and a tot of brandy which helped a lot. The ambulance then took me to the Casualty Clearing Station and from there on a hospital ship to the 90th General Hospital. On arrival there I discovered that the seat of my pants was cut and all scorched. Then I realised that I had been very very lucky. Had the shrapnel broken my shin bone I would have been unable to get out of the tank before she brewed up. I spent 18 days in the 70th General Hospital during which time I came across seven more of our boys, I also had a visit from Major Evans and some more of our boys including Johnny Aspinall. They had been left behind with the echelon and were billeted about five miles from the hospital, I am now back with the echelon although my left leg has not healed up properly and I am still under the MO. The officer in charge of the echelon had me up for an interview this morning and if I had not been under the MO he would have sent me back again which I think more than unfair as there are quite a number of fellows here who have not long joined the unit and are doing nothing here. Ted Wilmitt went in the day I caught it. His troop was on the left. We have had news of the regiment such as casualty lists and as there has been no mention of Ted or Jimmy Mac, I take it they are OK. Johnny Aspinall has now gone up to the regiment. I am sorry that I did not meet Stan under happier circumstances as it was little more than hullo and goodbye. Give my regards to all the Old Boys abroad and at home and all the best to you and them. The papers say that it was worse than Salerno."
21/10/54
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If there are any family members of the lads mentioned in the news letters we would like them to contact us at the Shrewsbury Club.
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