Ronald Ryder's active service in the 5th RTR - C Squadron

Discussion in 'RAC & RTR' started by David Ryder, Dec 16, 2019.

  1. David Ryder

    David Ryder New Member

    Ronald Ryder’s War

    Sources
    · 5th RTR Regimental Archives at the Bovington Tank Museum
    · 5th RTR Regimental War Diaries at the National Archives – Kew.
    · The book “Press on Regardless” by Edward Wilson
    · The book “The Tank War” by Mark Urban
    · Personal memories related by Ron Ryder to his son David
    · Ron Ryder’s service record.
    · Ron Ryder’s letter to his parents in 1944

    This has been compiled by his son - David Ryder

    Tank
    Cromwell serial no. T 189526. Probably a Cromwell 111A manufactured by English-Electric

    Tank Crew –
    Lt. J.B. Eckersley
    Tpr. E Taylor (14296336)
    Tpr. R.E. Ryder (14424156)
    Tpr. J Smith (7952211)
    Tpr. E.J. DeBourcier (14307915)

    My father was enlisted into the army on March 2nd 1943, the day before his 18th birthday. He had already tried to volunteer twice, however he had been refused on medical grounds. However when he was enlisted he passed his medical OK. He joined the Royal Armoured Corps on April 15th 1943 and was trained at Bovington Camp, Dorset. When the training was complete he was sent to the 5th Royal Tank Regiment camp at Shakers Wood, Thetford Forest, Norfolk before he left to join the regiment in Normandy.

    His tank crew joined the regiment on August 17th 1944. The regiment had taken heavy losses in the few weeks after D Day and were in need of replacements. He was among 40 fresh reinforcements and he joined at Le Mesnil-Robert near Falaise. He was the wireless operator and he had very little time to work out how everything worked before they set off at 3:30pm to Favieres. On the way they passed through Falaise which was the site of a dreadfully bloody battle, and when my father arrived the stench from all the bodies made him retch. He was 19 years old and had naively expected the war to be exciting and fun (like in the movies of the time) but he quickly realised it was very different. Two days later on the night of August 19th the regiment was attacked by Stuka dive bombers during the night, resulting 1 fatality, 3 wounded, and 10 A2 Echelon (supply) vehicles being lost. My father recalls that when the attacks started there was pandemonium, with people running everywhere and tanks trying to get out of the area as quickly as possible. However, in the middle of all this, their tank commander (Lt. Eckersley) suddenly told them to stop the tank. The rest of the crew were incredulous, but the reason why soon became clear. In all the confusion, somebody had dropped a very prized possession. It was a German officer’s all-weather sleeping bag that had an integral tent-like cover. It would be a fantastic thing for a tank crew member to have, seeing as sleeping in a tank was very uncomfortable, sleeping under one was very dangerous (they could sink into the ground over-night) so they just had to make do as best as they could. He wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to have one! The crew were shouting at him to get back into the tank so they could move off, but they were even more exasperated as he proceeded to carefully fold it up before they could leave! I guess he was a bit more experienced than his young novice crew and wasn’t so easily panicked by an air-attack.

    Over the next couple of weeks they made their way through northern France. The intense fighting of Falaise and Villers Bocage was over, but there were still skirmishes and smaller battles along the way. As they neared Belgium, their squadron was part of the ‘Ghent Force’ send to take the city of Ghent.

    On September 6th 1944 they were just south of Ghent and their tank became immobilised when one of the tracks came off. They were stuck out in the open in a field near the town of Gavere, about a mile and a half from the west bank of the River Scheldt (documents in the Bovington Camp library give exact co-ordinates of where the tank ended up, so I know to within a few yards). Now my father was always rather coy about how they lost their tank track. He once said something about hitting a tree stump. However I have another theory. His tank was a Cromwell. They were under armoured, out gunned, difficult to get out of in an emergency, and not very popular with their crews. However, they had one thing going for them, they were fast. So fast in fact, that sometimes the speed made the tracks come off. To get round this, regulators were fitted to the engines to limit the speed they could do. However some of the crews found out how to remove the regulators in order to get the higher speeds! My father was a very mechanically minded man who loved taking things apart and seeing how they worked. He also always had a sense of mischief right through to his old age. If his tank crew knew how to remove the regulator and wanted to do so, I think it’s quite likely that he would have been in on the plan! We shall never know…..

    They were told to stay where they were and a maintenance crew would be out to fix it in the morning. They tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible in the tank. Lt. Eckersley doesn’t seem to have been with them overnight, so maybe he had found a more comfortable bed in a nearby farm building. About 2:00 am on the morning of September 7th, they heard an armoured German column going along the road about 100 (?) yards away. They hoped that if they just stayed quiet they might not be spotted. However, apparently they were seen. Tpr Taylor (known as “Spud”) looked out of the turret and saw a group of German soldiers coming over to their tank to take a look. He asked my father to pass him a hand grenade and threw it at them. After that, my father said “all hell broke loose”. They were being fired at but weren’t sure where from. To try and cover all options they fired the tank’s turret machine gun continuously and rotated the turret to try and hit whoever was out there. The tank was then hit by a 75mm armour piercing shell (according to the Bovington archive). My father was hit by shrapnel in the face and the leg. Spud Taylor was wounded in the leg I think. Tpr. Smith and de-Bourcier got out of the tank uninjured and were taken prisoner. Spud Taylor, I presume got out somehow. My father was left in there, unable to escape. He had lost an eye, his nose and had other facial injuries. Immediately after the attack he couldn’t see out of either eyes and thought that he’d been totally blinded. For a moment he couldn’t bear the thought of living the rest of his life as a blind man, so he took out his pistol in order to shoot himself. Fortunately (especially for me) he soon thought better of that and started shouting for help. He was soaked in fuel and cordite and was expecting the tank to burst into flames at any moment and he would be burned to death inside. Soon he became aware of someone reaching inside the tank to help him escape, and he heard voices, German voices.

    He was taken to a nearby farm building where his captors removed his fuel soaked clothing and tended to his wounds as best they could. They were very kind to him. As dawn came, the German commanding officer who could speak good English asked my father if he could hear the sound of “American” tank engines in the distance. My father said he couldn’t (his hearing had been affected by the explosion and he couldn’t hear well at that time). The officer said “well I assure you they are there” and then explained that they were trying to retreat and that they would leave him in the building and that his own side would find him and take care of him. As they were leaving, one of the German soldiers asked him if there was anything else they could do for him. My father was on a bed under a blanket with nothing on except his socks. He told the soldier that he hated being in bed with his socks on, so the German removed them before he left.

    (A slight divergence here – but I find this an interesting point. The author and BBC journalist Mark Urban wrote an excellent book about the campaign of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment in World War 2 called ‘The Tank War’. On pages 315 and 316 he described 7 Troop being at Gavere on the morning of September 7th in the same area as my father. He says –

    “In the morning, off to the west and close to the first contact, they could see German half-tracks and self-propelled guns moving off. The squadron refused 7 Troop permission to engage them and so Stevenson and the others watched the enemy vehicles head back north, having failed to break out eastwards across Gavere Bridge”.

    What they saw was the same German column moving off that had rescued and treated my father, and it was their engines that the German commanding officer had heard. I am obviously very happy that their request to fire on them was refused as who knows what may have happened then.

    Later that day my father was discovered by some Canadian troops and evacuated to a field hospital. On September 15th he was returned to England. In a letter to his parents he said –

    “I have travelled around quite a bit. Firstly to Ghent Civilian Hosp, then to Brussels, then by air to a Canadian Base Hosp at Bayeaux, then by air again to Swindon Hosp & now I have finished up here”

    “Here” was Park Prewitt Hospital near Basingstoke in Hampshire. He was treated at the pioneering plastic surgery unit ‘Rooksdown House’ for the next 4-5 years by the famous surgeon Sir Harold Gillies who did a fantastic job of repairing the wounds to his face as far as possible. By means of plastic surgery, skin was taken from other parts of his body and grafted into a new nose which functioned OK. His eye socket was re-built and he was fitted with a prosthetic eye.

    As for the other crew members, Lt. Eckersley escaped, Tpr De-Bourcier was taken prisoner and was held at the Stalag 4F PoW camp until it was liberated by American forces in 1945. His daughter, Gillian, has told me that he was very malnourished at his release which probably caused him other physical problems for the rest of his life. He never spoke to his family about his experiences during the war. Only Tpr. Smith presumably died as no sign of him was ever found after he was taken prisoner. There was a mistaken report that he had been found wounded and was a POW, however that was found to be wrong. Interestingly there is a grave for an unknown allied soldier not far away at Destelbergen, near Ghent who died on September 7th. I often wonder if that is Tpr. Smith.

    Although my father’s time in action was comparatively short at just over 3 weeks, he saw things that affected him greatly and changed his attitude to war. For example he was very distressed to see the vengeance taken out on young women who had German boyfriends during the occupation. They were publicly humiliated and had their heads shaved. He was shocked at how some soldiers would simply kick in the door of a shop and loot it if there was something inside that they wanted. The fear experienced and horror witnessed made men do things that would have been unthinkable before they started fighting. Prisoners weren’t always taken. One infantry regiment had found some of their number who had been captured hung in a barn. For the next couple of days they didn’t take any prisoners themselves in retaliation. He recalls coming across a French resistance couple who had been made to watch their own daughter of about 2-3 years old being horribly tortured by the Germans. He said that nobody was in the mood to take any prisoners for a while after that. There was also an instance when his tank squadron was confronted by a number of very young German soldiers in slit trenches only armed with rifles. They never stood a chance as the tanks were ordered to just roll over them. I don’t know exactly what he saw and heard at that time but the memory still affected him deeply over 50 years later.

    My father passed away in 2000 and he never met any of his surviving tank crew members after the war. It was great to talk to Gillian De-Bourcier (Tpr. De Bourcier's daughter) and I would love to contact any more relatives of his tank crew and see if they have any memories of that 3 weeks in France from Aug 17 - Sep 7 1944. I know it's a very long shot now...
     
  2. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    After the disbandment of the 24th Lancers, at the end of July 1944, a number of former 24th Lancers also went to the 5RTR at approximately the same time around early/mid August 1944...

    Some pictures and accounts, links etc. Here...

    24th Lancer transfers to the 5RTR

    All the best,

    Rm.
     

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