B Company

The standard weapon for the British soldier during World War II was the point three oh three caliber, bolt action Lee Enfield Rifle. It had a ‘sister’ weapon, a light machine gun (LMG), called the Bren Gun, which used the same ammunition. These weapons remained in service until the early nineteen sixties, when the Lee Enfield was replaced by the 7.62mm chambered, self loading rifle, better known as the SLR. This change in caliber spelled the end of the Bren gun, it being replaced by the 7.62mm GPMG, or General Purpose Machine Gun. The SLR saw some thirty years of service until it was replaced by the unloved, unreliable and difficult to maintain SA80, today’s weapon of the British Infantryman.

Somewhere in Bavaria, 1966.

The small group of soldiers were huddled around a military issue radio set. The company commander had allowed his men to catch the end of the game as the exercise was not due to really get going for another half hour. Whilst he attended the Commanding Officer’s briefing he decided that one small relaxation of discipline would be good for morale, since every man present missed seeing the game on television. They were camped on the edge of a forest in Bavaria, their vehicles almost invisible beneath the expertly applied camouflage nets. The radio volume was kept very low and the men strained to listen, but then the final words came through, " They think it’s all over, well it is now, and England have beaten West Germany to win the World Cup of 1966". A stifled cheer arose, loud enough to catch a short rebuke form a nevertheless smiling, Regimental Sergeant Major, "Keep the noise down lads" he ordered, and retune that radio to the regimental net now. Snap to it".

The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alistair Barrington-Goode had spread a map over the bonnet of his Land Rover. Clustered around were his company commanders and their senior NCOs. He began to outline Exercise ‘World Cup’. As CO it was his prerogative to name the various maneuvers that his regiment took part in, and he too carried a sense of humor and thought the name suitable, considering the timing.

"D Company have established an HQ somewhere in this section", he said, waving his swagger stick over an area of woodland at one edge of the large map. "We are, let me see, ah yes…. here" he said indicating again with his swagger stick, an area some twenty miles West of D company. They were at the edge of a forest. A firebreak some fifty yards wide ran down one side, snaking through the thick forest as if a giant hand had reached out and torn out the trees. " Those of you familiar with Regimental history may know that this is not the first time this regiment has passed through this region, however, on this occasion it is not the German Army with which we will do battle" , he laughed.

England, 1945

In March of 1945 a nineteen year old undergraduate was plucked from Oxford, given six week’s training and the single pip of a subaltern, and sent to war. That young officer was the same man who now commanded the very regiment that he joined then, young and fresh. The Allied front was seeping across Germany on all fronts and as they entered this region of Bavaria, a company was sent to flush out a suspected German position in the forest, a few hundred meters from where they all now stood. Barrington-Goode was not part of that patrol as he was, at that time, on his way from GHQ to both find and join his new unit. A few days later a Belgian Paratroop unit passed the same route and found the naked massacred bodies of the entire company, but strangely, not one piece of clothing or equipment. The company was laid to rest at a small Allied Cemetery some ten kilometres to the North.

The War in Europe ended with the German surrender on Lunenburg Heath, in May of 1945. Europe lay in ruins and the task of rebuilding her was about to begin. Germany provided the engineers of Europe, Italy the style and France the cuisine, (and a British Army Major re-established the Volkswagen plant). Most people if asked to name something or somebody both famous and also Belgian, will reply chocolate, beer or may possibly cite Agatha Christies’s hero, Poiroit. Few, if any, would name engineers, inventors or gunsmiths. Within a few short years of the end of the War, Belgium had established Fabrique Nationale, an embryonic small arms industry. Just fifteen years from the German surrender, the Belgians were manufacturing a new fully automatic rifle, the 7.62mm FN. In a slightly modified form (it was changed to semi-automatic fire), this weapon was adopted by the British Army and several other countries, and was called the SLR. The 7.62mm GPMG followed.

Bavarian Forest, 1966.

"The local people tell all sorts of tales about these woods" continued the CO, "They talk of ghost patrols of SS troops and gunfire heard at night" He paused to chuckle,"Well gentlemen, you know what these Bavarians are like, next they’ll tell you that Hitler and Goering live down the road in a Gasthause ! Well men, ignore all this nonsense. Now then, D company are here." He pointed to another location on the map." Its not a bad choice for them and you can see that to the rear their perimeters is in fact a wide river, which will be easy for them to defend. Your job of course, is to capture the D company HQ."

He paused once more, this time to light a bowl of tobacco that he had been tamping down into his pipe. Satisfied that he now had a viable smoke he continued, "Gentlemen, A B and C company have the mission to see which of you can capture the D company HQ first. You will all wear blue armbands, D company will wear red. You are in competition with each other, but only D company are classified as enemy." He looked at his watch, "We move out at eighteen hundred hours. Brief your men, and good luck", and with that the group was dismissed, each man making his way back to his own company.

Captain McNee had always been a bit of Gung ho, Maverick officer. The youngest Captain in the British Army, his leadership and soldiering abilities had him marked for rapid advancement from the day he collected the sword for best cadet at Sandhurst. He had earned his paratrooper’s wings while on secondment to 2 Para, and had completed the equally grueling Commando course, for the sheer hell of it. His application for transfer to the SAS was made only days before the SAS were due to approach him, and after the exercise and a spot of leave, McNee was bound for Hereford – HQ of the SAS. He gathered his men around him and outlined the battle plan,.

"So what we are going to do chaps" he said "Is to tab like hell through this area" and he indicated the route on his map" until we hit the river. We’ll get a bit wet there, but we can cross it and catch D company having breakfast. I want one section to go with Sergeant Fields and take the vehicles…" he paused and looked at his map, selecting a suitable rendezvous point, then pointing said "…here. The rest of you will come with me. We don’t want to let the other Companies know what we’re up to so its heads down for a couple of hours and we move out at zero one hundred hours. Any question ?" There were none and the group was dismissed.

The Commanding Officer, driven by his Adjutant, was now on his way to brief D company on the coming ‘hostilities’. As he drove the Adjutant, Major Hugh Roberts said, " I have read up a bit on the Regimental History Sir, but there isn’t an awful lot recorded about that action. Weren’t you here at the time, as I recall from the articles that I have read ? The CO was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke.

"Its an interesting story Hugh, and as we have a way to go to reach D company, I may as well tell you. It goes back to the closing days of the last war. I had just been commissioned and I joined the Regiment a few days later, or rather I should say that I found the regiment a few days later. When I came through here, well it was all over. Just some Belgian unit doing some mopping up."
"Belgian Sir ?" said Hugh.
"Yes, I’ll come to that. As the war was coming to an end, in this case that was March of 1945, the last die hard fanatics of Hitler’s army were giving up nothing. Hitler’s best troops without a doubt were the Waffen SS and of them the Death’s Head division were truly formidable. Make no mistake, they were butchers it is true, and fanatics too, but they were great soldiers. There was such a company encamped in those woods, but of course we did not know that it was they whom we were up against at the time. Now this is where things get a bit, hum ah, difficult ." He had struggled for a word with which to continue the narrative. He glanced at his map and said, "Take the next left Hugh. Now, where was I ? Ah yes, the SS were in the wood. A company was sent in to flush the blighters out. Well it was a disaster. The only facts we have about what happened come from German documents that were recovered a little later, but I’ll come to that part. Our boys were wiped out, left naked to be found later by those very Belgians that I had passed by earlier in the day. It was they who buried our boys. "

"But the weapons, the equipment, their clothing ?" pressed Hugh.
"Ah yes, that. You will know that the Germans had many secret research centres, all over Europe ? Just a few kilometers away is the tiny town, more a hamlet really, of Bad Neustadt, and there the Germans had a weapons research factory. It was the scant few records that were recovered there that told us some of what happened in these woods."
"But Sir, what’s the connection ? Why would they be interested, especially at that late stage of the war, in a British Infantry unit ?" Hugh queried.
"From what we can make out, it seems that this particular company was not quite equipped as other companies and the Germans were indeed very interested in their equipment. As to the why, well we don’t know, after all this time we still don’t know. "
"But the records you said we found, and why Beligans?"
"Well as to the records, we did get some documents, but things were pretty chaotic. In those closing months we had Free French, Poles, Dutch, Americans, Canadians, even some Belgians, all fighting with the Allies. When the dust settled the booty, so to speak, was carved up. The Yanks got Von Braun and built rockets to the moon, and it was the Belgians who got Bad Neustadt., and all we got from them were a few half burned documents. From that evidence we pieced to together what had happened, as far as we can tell, and the damn Belgians have held on to the rest ever since."
"So we will never really know what happened then Sir ?"
"No, not until the hundred year secrets sanction runs out and we are both long dead and gone. Ah, take that track on the right " he said, pointing to a gap in the forest, " I think we will find D company in there somewhere".

Hugh spun the wheel and the Land Rover bounced up the track, disappearing into the thick forest. He shook his head and muttered to himself, "Belgians ?"
The night was dark now, the only light came from the bright stars and the moon that shone in a clear sky. Inside the forest it was an inky darkness. B company applied smudges of black greasepaint to their skin as the company sergeant major passed around four magazines of blanks and two thunder flashes to each man. "Now remember lads, this is all you get, so go careful now, and when you chuck the thunder flashes make sure that people can get clear – they make quite a bang", he instructed. At exactly zero one hundred hours they crept out into the firebreak, crawling across the open ground for the cover of the forest beyond. One of the soldiers lost his water bottle during the crawl, but hadn’t noticed. They regrouped in the woods, some of the less fit men breathing hard from the fifty yard, belly down slither. Captain McNee unfolded his map, and it was then that the first shot rang out. The bullet took the company sergeant major just above his left eye and he fell to the ground in front of the shocked soldiers.

"Get down !" shouted McNee,"Take cover !", as he crawled over to the sergeant major’s body. A quick look was all that was needed to tell him that he was dead.
"Cease fire!" shouted the Captain, "You are using live ammunition ! We have a man down !"
For a moment all was quiet again. The man who had been standing next to the sergeant major was being violently sick behind the cover of a spindly Pine, as at the same time he was trying to wipe the blood away, that had spattered over his face. Another soldier was sobbing, laying in a shallow ditch. A third man had remained frozen in fear, rooted to the spot he stood in full view of their antagonists. "Get down Blake !" shouted McNee to the man, but Blake just stood there, ashen faced, a stain appearing on the front of his combat trousers and then the urine dripping down, over his boot.

The German soldiers appeared like wraiths. Nobody heard them approach or saw any movement, one minute there was nothing and then they emerged from the darkness, a complete German Unit, in black uniforms. Their uniform was familiar yet somehow ‘wrong’. They formed a loose circle around the prone men, but none spoke. One of the Storm Troopers, for this is indeed what they were, carried a Mauser rifle, unlike his comrades who each held a Schmeisser machine pistol, except the officer. The officer wore a cap with the Death’s Head badge and he held a Luger pistol in his hand. He motioned to the man with the Mauser who then in a sudden vicious movement, clubbed Blake to the ground. McNee was outraged. " Now look here chaps, this has gone way too far" he said as he stood in protest, " Do you not realize we have a man dead here ? I want your names and your unit. NOW !" As he turned to tend the prone form of Blake, the German officer casually placed his Luger close to McNee’s ear and squeezed the trigger, the Schmeissers chattered death briefly, and then once more the wood was quiet. B company lay dead. An order was given and the German soldiers quickly stripped the bodies. The officer picked up one of the rifles and worked its action, held it to his shoulder and took a bead on a tree branch, then stood for a few moments examining the weapon with interest. His troopers gathered up the other weapons and equipment and then they all melted back into the forest.

‘A’ company attacked the HQ from their left flank at dawn . While this was in progress, the crafty C company commander maneuvered his men around to the rear (where they got a little wet in the shallows of the river), and won the day. Exercise ‘World Cup’ was over. Of B company there was no sign. There had been a great deal of noise during the battle, blanks being fired, thunderflashes exploding, umpires shouting "That man !, you are dead ! That Personnel Carrier has been blown up! ", and so on. As the evening drew in the CO grew concerned. The vehicles of B company had now arrived, their drivers having waited at McNee’s RV far beyond the agreed time limit, they had finally made their way to D company. The CO ordered all companies to make a wide sweep back up the field of battle, to form up once more at the staging point of the exercise. Under their company commanders the men set off. The CO and the Adjutant made their way back in the Land Rover, arriving well in advance of the main body who were on foot, and tackling the thick forest.

The CO got out of his vehicle, climbed up onto the bonnet and scanned the area. Then he put his binoculars to his eyes and repeated the exercise. It was as he looked out across the fire break that he spotted something out of place. He jumped down from bonnet and set off towards the thing he had seen, which lay about half way across the break. When he reached it he saw that it was a water bottle. He bent down to retrieve it and as he did so, he saw something else, half buried in the mud. Frowning a little he picked the second object up too, knocking a clump of mud away. As he straightened he glanced into the forest ahead and then, just for a moment or two, he froze. He slipped something into his pocket, then holding the water bottle returned slowly to his Land Rover, looking back over his shoulder once or twice as he walked.

"Okay Sir ? You look a bit peaky " said Hugh as the CO returned. The CO looked a little pre-occupied, but then he just said, "On no Hugh thanks, I’m fine. Its just that this business, well its all a bit of a worry. I can’t imagine where McNee has got to – or for that matter what mess he has got himself into this time. Found this water bottle out there in the field so one company at least must have taken that route."
"Well no doubt one of the other companies will find him somewhere on their way back here. Brew up Sir ?"
"Yes, damn good idea Hugh."

No trace was ever found of the missing B company, other than the water bottle that the CO had picked up. The search area was widened once a general alarm had been raised, and other units drafted in. A nearby German garrison fielded its men and used its helicopters to search, but they too found nothing. As far as the press was concerned a ‘D’ notice was posted and no word of the incident was published until the military, after three weeks, called a halt. It was decided at a cabinet level that the full circumstances should not be revealed and so an announcement was finally made to both the press and the surprised search teams that the missing men had been found. In this briefing it was disclosed that a German forestry team, clearing woodland some distance down the river, had stumbled across the men, who it was assumed, drowned whilst attempting a night crossing in order to attack the HQ. "The river", it was said "was deceptively fast, and deep, and could easily have swept away the heavily equipped men", or so it was said., "and after their time in the water and the attentions of wild animals, it was decided that their remains would be too distressing for their relatives to see. Accordingly, full military funerals would be made in Bad Neustadt at the Allied War Graves Cemetery. The coffins would be closed". Of course, men talk, particularly soldiers, but gradually talk changed to other things and the matter forgotten. There was a closed, full inquiry which apportioned no blame whatsoever to Barrington-Goode, the commanding officer. Three months after the inquiry closed, Barrington-Goode was promoted to Brigadier, and then retired to grow Roses in the gardens of his family seat in Sussex. Seven years later he received a knighthood, but never took his seat in the House of Lords.

Littlefields, West Sussex. October 1999.

Tomorrow will be my seventy fourth birthday. In three months time it will be Christmas and then a new millennium beckons. My physician tells me that I will not see Christmas this year, the disease that is destroying my body will have run its course within the next three of four weeks, and so it is time to close the story on the tragic events that happened during exercise ‘World Cup’ in the summer of 1966. I have never spoken of this before – indeed had I done so I doubt anybody would have believed me and as for the physical evidence of my story; well for that there is no logical explanation. I have wrestled with my conscience over these past thirty years, but now I have little time left. Now it is time to tell. I swear by the God I am soon to meet that this account is true.

The coffins of B company that lie at rest in Bad Neustadt contain not the mortal remains of my men, the men that I lost on that terrible day, but sandbags. In truth, no bodies were really ever found and it is for that reason alone that the coffins were sealed and a story concocted about their inexplicable loss.

The object that I recovered from the soil of the Bavarian forest is in the bottom left hand drawer of my desk. It is much as I found it, just a little older now, as indeed I am also. Though heavily rusted and somewhat corroded, it is clearly recognizable. I surmise that when I found it, it had lain in the ground, undisturbed for ten or twenty years or so. It is obviously a rifle magazine and you will find that it is fully loaded. The rounds it contains are all blanks. You may think that had I produced this at the time then certain questions might have been asked, and I have often thought about this. We live in a world governed my science and logic. Science may have proven something, but science may also have concluded something else altogether; it is a scientific fact that metal objects rust and corrode at very different rates in different soil and weather conditions. To my mind the only sense of it, is what follows next, and who in their right mind is going to believe what I now have to say and swear to be true ? You must make up your own minds.

When I bent to retrieve the magazine, my attention was diverted for a second or two by some movement in the forest in front of me. I looked up and saw quite clearly, an Officer in the black field uniform of the Waffen SS. So clear was he that I could see the death’s head badge on his cap, identifying him as ‘Totenkopf SS’. He was not looking in my direction, but was intently inspecting a weapon that he held across his waist. The weapon that he held would, without doubt accept the magazine that now lays in my desk drawer. Even as I watched, dumbstruck, he seemed to just fade away. He did not move, or duck down for cover or even vanish as if in the blink of an eye, but just faded out like the end of a film in the cinema. For those moments that I saw him and the weapon that he held, he was as clear as if he had been standing beside me. The weapon however was a British Infantryman’s rifle, an SLR. Of that I am quite certain.

Brigadier (ret’d) Sir Alistair Barrington-Goode, KBE,MC,DSO

(c) Mike Houghton 2005