Typing up some war diary entries for one of our Dutch members and came across this, found it quite revealing. My Father only ever remembers having one visit to a mobile bath unit from Alamein to Bremen.!!!! He always remembered the Dutch people and especially the kids. Any of our vets have any similar memories? The following is for 17th October 1944, Best. Holland. Another quiet day. The enemy stirred us up at Dawn, by his second attempt to shoot down the Best steeple, and, after 20 minutes of undisturbed shooting, he had eaten away bit by bit, enough stone-work to bring this local landmark crashing to the ground. However the tower beneath the steeple remains, and our neighbours O.P. is in fact undisturbed. The commanding officer visited Easy company ('B' company 5/7 Gordon's) during the morning, and subsequently worked on an operation being planned. Snipers from the scout platoon did two successful patrols - claiming one probable kill in front of Lochaber Lodge, where one scout had lain up for some time waiting for a target. Captain Broadbent took a recce patrol to Fraser's Triangle in the afternoon and Easy and Able companies made recce's for fighting patrols planned to take place during the evening. The weather was still unsettled, very windy, with cloud and threatening rain all day. A draft of 17 men arrived at 'B' echelon in the morning. The first battalion leave party, consisting of Major Nigel Parker, Captain T.B.M. Lamb and 11 other ranks, left for Antwerp early in the day. A firm base for those on furlough had been organised on a Divisional level and individuals have devoted much time to calculating the date of their own particular departure. 'B' echelon bathed the writer in a mobile shower this afternoon. 'B' echelon - the phrase kindles a dream of paradise to the Jocks in their muddy wet douvres up in the woods - merits a few words, though in fact it beggars description. Driving back from Best, over the Bailey Bridge across the Wilhelmina canal, and away down a fine concrete road lined with trees up its whole length - ten minutes at a Jeep's exciting pace, brings one into a peaceful atmosphere where war seems far away (not 4 miles). Turn right by the C.P. and steer through the children for 500 yards and then in through a belt of pines to the park at Eindhoven. There in surroundings made for pleasure, resides 'B' echelon. Here is the domain of Captain 'Nippy' Milne, our redoubtable Quartermaster, and Captain McKillop, 'Veteran' M.T.O. The park is a maze of broad paths amongst convenient copses, and along these broad paths lie the parked vehicles of the orderly room, the company cookers, the C.F. truck and a dozen captured German lorries, together with many more of various heritage. And around them all are staring, smiling, silent Dutch children, sometimes with their Mothers, and more often on their own, looking a little pale and ill-nourished and dressed in anything from Knickerbockers to shorts and corduroy cloth. The whole atmosphere is reminiscent of the garden fete's at home, the Jock's and their goods running the stalls and the Officers (almost) raffling the pigs. Volunteers willingly peel the potatoes for the cooks, - one cook-house is on the stage of an open air theatre - and poor mites are always there for a scrap of food. And, of course, there are girls too. The Dutch appear quite surprisingly vivacious after all. Much progress is made by both sides, for a woman seems to break the Celtic reserve with ease. And this busy hive of activity touches its high spot of an evening when 'B' echelon finds a platoon for the line, and away it goes, as in the 'Tumbrils', to do duty over that Bailey Bridge in the woods of VLEUT. And after it has gone and the darkness comes down, the chattering crowds disperse and the night begins unbroken, save for the giggles in the copses and the chuckling Jocks coming home to their trucks after a good night out.
