Maurice Howard

Yes the 131 brigade and the other Queens 1/5^th, 1/6^th, 1/7^th because some of my mates, when I was at Ipswich some of our lads were called up to the 1/5^th, 1/6^th, 1/7^th and I think Joe Grubb I think his name was, I think he went in the 1/5^th because we met up with them at one point. I was having a rest, all of us were having a rest. The 131 and the 169 and I went and found him and at that time I Tie (Italian) was selling watches and there was a Corporal Swetman, he borrowed some money off me to buy this watch and when we were moving up once in Vanguard the battalion, 3 carriers Culver was in the front one, I was in the second and Scofield, these are the drivers I am talking about, Scofield was in the third one. We came off this artillery road and passed, came onto a wireless base with houses, farm houses, I forget now. Yes think they were farm houses. Anyway we came off, what they call in England an unadopted road. Just rough surface, earth, stone, potholes, well shallows and all with water in them and I was following Culver and I was standing up in my carrier keeping my tracks on the marks he left in the soft ground. I thought if he is going to hit a mine I should stop but in the meantime I am going to put my tracks on his track marks and follow that. Because any road like that was suspicious. Where there are potholes, water, even water they would put a mine in there, put the stones back on and even fill it up with water. You know to make everything look. I was always thinking, thinking all the time. Keep eyes open. Try and put your brain in Gerry's brain and what he would do. Main road smooth no problem but when you get to roads like that it is very dodgy. So then bang behind me and I was still standing up in the carrier. I looked back and there was a big cloud of dust and god knows what. The carrier had disappeared. Third carrier and what had happened. He had hit this mine and Corporal Swetman who had borrowed the money for a watch, he was stood here. He had taken his pouches off, his ammno pouches and stuck them in a bin alongside of him where the blast from the mine, it made the bottom of the carrier like a mushroom, blown off the tracks but this side track the right side was still able to drive but it could only go one way. It slewed into this farmyard and that is why I could not see it. It had just slewed in like that. The driver and the what's name were all shuck up, Crayford was the gunner. He got a bit of a splinter on his cheek but they were badly shook but not wounded. Corporal Swetman his pouches were hanging up probably on the electric telephone, I think it was too thick for, hanging on this blinking wire. You know over head cable. There was Swetman, where the ditch was bridged from the road to the track leading into the farmyard his head and shoulders were up here and his feet were down there. It had blown him right out of the carrier. He must have flown through the air and he finished up in the ditch. So I ran back and I said to him, his shoes, the nails were showing from upper to sole, the blasts had blown his shoes apart and all his legs were black and blue. All internal bleeding was shattered. Of course his inside was too because I could hear the old death rattle and all I could hear him saying was how am I going to pay for this blinking watch and there was this bloke dying. I said "don't worry about that the stretcher bearers will be coming up in a minute." He died in the ambulance going back. There is an instance there when you have to have your wits about you. By me following that track of Culvers carrier because when the bang went he stopped and of course I stop and there was the one behind. If he had followed my tracks he would probably been alright. The engineers came and they must have cleared about 12 mines all scattered about there. How we missed them god knows. In fact Culver had just straddled one when he stopped.