On 2nd September we advanced again, this time to an existing airfield just outside Amiens, only a day behind the enemy, as the Germans had left the previous day. The work entailed filling bomb craters but in one area the bombs were unexploded, placed in cylindrical chambers in the centre of the runway with an explosive charge and detonator strapped to the bomb. We were supposed to wait for bomb disposal, but they were delayed and I became impatient, removed the detonators and charges by cutting through the wires. We pulled out the bombs and got on with the rest of the job. However, when the experts arrived he asked me if I had checked under the charge for booby traps and I got a roasting because I had not. I had a narrow escape I think!

On 4th September we moved again, this time to Lille. Here we were so close to the retreating Germans that there were pockets of infantry on both our flanks, and they mortared our camp at night (we were in huts so they knew the location) but fortunately only spasmodically and with no casualties. On the way to Lille F/O Hawkins had been tragically killed on his motorcycle, which, of course, depressed us all. We again had the task of filling bomb craters to make the airfield serviceable and completed this fairly rapidly.

On 7th September we moved into Belgium, and made camp at Hull, a village near Brussels where we stayed for four days during which time we had the opportunity to “liberate” Brussels which was untouched. We bought perfume and stockings for our girlfriends and families and acquired a taste for champagne and “sole belle meuniere”! We also met Florence Desmond, Kay Cavendish and Flanagan & Allen, all well-known stage personnel in the street, and chatted to them. They were giving an ENSA show, so civilisation was still close at hand! On 11th September we moved on again to a site near Diest, where we were to build a 1200-yard Somerfield Track strip. The work took four days to complete.

On 17th September we set off for Bourg-Leopold en route to Eindhoven and we camped in a ruined German barrack building until 21st September. There we saw the aircraft and gliders passing overhead on their way to Arnhem, operation “Market Garden” had begun. We moved on 22nd September but just beyond the Escaut Canal we were stuck because the road had been cut further on by the Germans. This was the road between Eindhoven and Nijmegen and a major tank battle had taken place on it. Burnt out tanks, some with blackened corpses in them, were all over the place. We spent most of the day there, feeling very cut off and slightly apprehensive and sick, and then had to turn back and reached Eindhoven in the evening.

I am a little hazy about the geography in this area and still suspect that we may have wound up north of Eindhoven by mistake. We worked on the repair of Eindhoven airfield until 18th October, by which time the situation as far north as Nijmegen was stable and we moved up to the Maas River to repair the airfield at Grave, taking over from 16 Group Royal Engineers. The airfield was sodden and in a sorry state, and we had our first encounter with jet propelled aircraft, the German ME262 which bombed us from a great height and could not be challenged by the slower propeller driven Allied aircraft. We were billeted in a Franciscan Monastery at Megen. We managed, at this stage, to put on a pretty basic camp concert which was successful but it was a miserable, wet period in our lives.

We returned to Best near Eindhoven on 3rd or 4th November and were billeted at the Bata shoe factory. The move back was, I suspect, due to the start of the German thrust through the Ardennes which was to end in the “Battle of the Bulge”. We worked at Eindhoven on airfield repairs until 25th November when we moved back into Belgium to Diest (south of the Albert Canal), and worked there very hard until the airfield was complete and functioning, enabling better (closer) air support for the tanks fighting the Ardennes thrust.

On 18th December we moved back to Holland to Valkenswaard near Eindhoven and were billeted in the town. We spent the whole of a hard and difficult winter there, working to try and keep Eindhoven airfield serviceable. It’s number B78 and we first started on B10!.

New Years Day 1945 remains forever in my memory. Travelling to the airfield in a tip truck to put salt on the runway for de-icing I heard an aircraft noise and looked up to see a Stuka diving down at us. Into the wet ditch I went without a second thought. As soon as we could, we pressed onto the airfield where all hell had broken loose; petrol and ammunition dumps were exploding with bombing and machine gunning in full swing. We got the men under cover and we sat the raid out before we tried to do anything. No deeds of valour, I’m afraid!.

The squadron suffered three fatalities that day. It was the Germans last fling of the Ardennes thrust, and I scarcely recall being under fire again during the rest of the campaign.

We moved into Germany to Vorst in the American sector (Rhineland) on 23rd March 1945. We stayed at Huls in the area until the PSP work at Vorst was completed. Then we crossed the Rhine at Xanten in the first week of April, on through Bocholt and Ahaus to Nordwelde where we spent the night. The next day we moved on again across the Dortmund-Ems Canal to Hopten, where fighting was still in progress. Work commenced on 8th April on the airfield, excavating and refilling bomb craters on the runways. This was airfield B112.

On 30th April we moved a long way on into Germany, paused and camped for three days en route, and finally moved to Lubeck on 3rd May to take over the airfield from the Germans. The war in Europe ended on 8th May, but we worked there until late May when we moved to Stadthagen near Buckeburg (Hanover area) to build a major airfield. 5357 Wing was disbanded at the end of 1945, and I was posted to an air disarmament unit of the occupation forces at 2 Group until my demobilisation in December 1946.

The main features of my life in the European campaign 1944-45 that I remember most vividly were the lucky escapes. Two in Normandy under sudden daylight attack, a third when I learnt that the place in Bayeux where I had often tuned my motorcycle had housed a landmine which subsequently killed the RE Colonel in charge. Also numerous other incidents along the way culminating in the Stuka attack on New Years Day in 1945.

There was also time for humour. A “jerry can” supposedly containing water to be heated, was put on the fire but alas contained petrol. We found it funny, the CO did not!. Also, “the case of the missing 3 ton truck”. Nobody noticed during the long winter at Eindhoven that the driver had sold his vehicle to a Dutch contractor. Unfortunately the MP Officer found out in the spring and a court martial resulted. There were many other things I could mention but my memory is too hazy to be accurate!.

And finally, the comradeship – something never ever repeated in the after years!.

At the same time, I have to say that my visit to Normandy in May 2004 has made me feel very humble, making me realise that, compared to the front line troops, we hardly suffered at all. Sure, we were shelled, bombed, mortared, even machine gunned on occasions, and once I had to “clear” a wood of snipers on the insistence of the French Resistance. But the attacks missed 98% of us. We never had to face the onslaughts that the infantry had to face

D.R.Gibbs

9th June 2004