Corporal John B Arthur

John Bruce Arthur voluntarily enlisted at Cowley barracks in Oxford in 1941 with The Ox and Bucks Regiment at the army depot. To him it was important to volunteer.

From there John went onto the young soldiers battalion in Ballymena, Northern Ireland for training. He was a fast runner and was fortunate to have a good Sgt who took him to one side and said “Look lad, when you start running, keep going , if you stop you’ll sink in the bog.” It took that one sentence for John to take on board and it is believed that John became one of the fastest runners in the regiment.

Training took place during cold weather and the huts were allocated a bucket of coal which was guarded with their lives. If left unattended seemed to go missing. John  said they burnt anything they could lay their hands on from pieces of wood to farmers fences as he said it was so cold they needed some heat.

While training there was a notice on the board for volunteers for the 2nd Ox & Bucks, 6th Airborne Division and John Volunteered. He was then transferred to Wing Barracks in Bulford to commence training.

As he had 20/20 vision he was a candidate to become a machine gunner.

He said they had a range to start with to hit pieces of corn/wheat and to start with they just missed everything until they were taught the rhythm which he still remembers to this day. Tap tap tap….and so on.

He said they started off training with an Italian 20mm Hispano which was unstable , they went from that to the Bren Gun and then onto the Vickers.

After training this led to the D-Day Landings. John was a Vickers machine gunner with his crew. John landed in a Horsa Glider at Ranville in the second wave of landings by which time the bridge had been taken by Major Howard’s team

Landing on ‘D Day’ as part of Op. Tonga, John took part in  battles for bridges further down from Ranville as that bridge had already been taken by Major Howard’s D Company.

John took part in various actions as a machine gunner, in and around Escoville, Herouvillette, Chateau St Come, and Breville.

John said, “It took some time before the hierarchy of the armed forces realised that the Germans were using Bleinheim Lake at Woodstock like a compass to find their way to all the important industrial Cities. Once realised the lake was covered over so no reflections showed.”

At Chateau St Come after the Black Watch was all but decimated and they took the Chateau back which was hard fought. John recalled how senior officers found a whole pile of files and two big ledgers, the Germans had set fire to before leaving. However with these being on stone floors the Officers fortunately saved the ledgers and they were taken back to England until they were returned after the war. What was not realised until returned was that they contained all the stud lines for every horse the Chateau had produced.

After the fighting, they returned to Wing Barracks at Bulford. Training commenced for the Ardennes Counteroffensive in December 1944.

Upon returning once again to Bulford for continuation of training for the next foray was for The Rhine Crossing on Op. Varsity, march 1945.

After this John’s regiment  marched 322 miles to Bad Kleinen. Where the division advanced north to near the Baltic sea, reaching Wismar by the end of the war.

John said that their job was to stop the Russians from proceeding , to stop them taking more ground.

“The Kossacks on their horses, approached them and the MP’s had to stop them with back up by the regiment and shot a few 100 rounds over their heads.” John recalled.

While they were there John was to be part of a guard of honour for the receiving of Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky for the signing of the Treaty with Field Marshall Montgomery. However the highest ranking member of John’s regiment told our soldiers after marching 322 miles, they were not smart enough to meet with Rokossovsky. They then had to find, combs, water, soap etc to get themselves smart enough to greet Field Marshall Montgomery. John said “Rokossovsky himself was quite informal with the British soldiers and spoke quite good English. I  was included in the guard of honour and afterwards was then invited to a meal with the Russians , they were served raw fish soaked in Vodka and bottles of Vodka to swill it down!”

After Bad Kleinen the 2nd Ox & Bucks in late 1945, deployed to Palestine. Its duties included enforcement of curfews and searches of cities, towns, and rural settlements for arms and guerrillas. In late 1947 the British withdrawal from Palestine began. John said, “As soon as one communications line had been fixed the men working with them from Palestine rigged up lines for them to be blown up. When called out to deal with issues he said the men were surrounded by the women and children and the men knew that the British soldiers would not harm either women or children so it was a sort of stalemate situation.”

The British units gradually departed the country, with the last of the  troops leaving Haifa on 18 May, only a few days after Israeli independence.

John said, “During off time (holiday allotment ) in Beirut and Syria they had camps set up for troops to enjoy the sun and sea. In every tent there were 2 Jewish soldiers that were in the tent with you to look after your rifle, having sent a post-card home made it sounded as if he was on holiday!”

John returned to Colchester Barracks as a Corporal to the ‘demob’ centre and then transferred back to Cowley Barracks from where it all started. He borrowed £50 from his father, a shop keeper and post office owner, at Kidlington to buy himself out of the army in 1950 for personal reasons after 9 years. From there returning to home as a civilian.

In 2017 John along with other Veterans was awarded the Legion d’Honneur Medal, France’s Highest honour at the National Arboretum by M. Mille for his part in D.Day and helping to liberate France amongst others from dictatorship and tyranny.

John sadly passed away 24 November 2024, aged 101.