Bert Hardy (No.5 A.F.P.U.) and Mac Hastings (Picture Post) followed the advance into Bauchem on the 18th November 1944 18th November 1944, we entered Germany for the first time, crossing the border near Bauchem. Mac and Harry and I had to leave the jeep and follow the advance across the fields on foot, being careful only to walk in the tracks left by our tanks, so we didn't step on any unexploded mines. There was smoke everywhere, and the smell of cordite, and every now and then a German soldier would loom up with his hands on his head, surrendering. The troops didn't bother much with them: they just took their weapons away and told them to keep walking to our rear. Bauchem itself was a pile of rubble. The fighting was still going on: German soldiers hidden in basemants of houses putting up a rearguard action, while our boys were trying to flush them out by chucking grenades and firing machine guns into the ruins.
Macdonald Hastings was Max Hasting's father. Macdonald Hasting reporting from the Normandy campaign,reported the warning from the front of "Dust means Death" relating to mechanised movements creating dust and attracting the attention of the enemy. There are abundance photographs as I remember showing the warning notices on roadsides. Flur as I see it denotes the type of housing in the strasse. Is the personal weapon in #1,a Sterling or a Sten?.The soldier in the middle seems to be carrying a Bazooka on his back.
