19
The Beginning of the End

Between the beginning of May and the end of September 1944, Henry Porchester and the Blues and Royals inched their way along the broken roads and through the booby-trapped medieval hill towns of some of the most beautiful countryside in Europe. As the cold wet winter gave way to a warm spring, there were days of startling loveliness; days that might have been a pleasure, in another time, if it weren’t for the fact that they had to creep into houses looking for the remnants of the German Army and hoping they wouldn’t step on a mine or get shot in the back.

Henry and his troop were part of a reconnaissance unit, pushing cautiously onwards ahead of the rest of the 8th Army up the eastern flank of the country. They were searching for signs of where the enemy might still be in hiding or where they might have left a little trick to catch the Allied forces out. The Germans had become experts in laying traps, some of them extraordinarily ingenious, and Henry was part of the intelligence-gathering team that had to send information back down the line. Whole towns had been turned into obstacle runs and killing fields. Buildings were demolished to slow access and machine-gun nests set up to mow down the Allied soldiers as they picked their way through the rubble. Abandoned vehicles were fitted with trip wires that set off charges the moment a door was opened. Explosives were strung through trees so that whole avenues would explode around the advancing troops. Anything movable might be wired: Jerry cans, oil drums, abandoned rucksacks, a tempting crate of wine. Anticipating and evading the Germans’ latest strategy was dangerous, exhausting work. One thing that helped enormously was that some of the soldiers Henry and his troop were fighting alongside were veterans with a stock of hard-won experience. Some of the Blues and Royals had been out in the field for four years and in Italy for a year. They were deeply familiar with the Germans’ tactics. Even so, it was a battle of wits and nerves and it took its toll.

On 16 May a detachment was ambushed and Ian van Ammel, a friend of Henry’s, was taken prisoner. Henry wrote to his father that it ‘seems so odd since I was playing bridge with Ian three weeks ago.’ Two weeks later, on 1 June, Gavin Astor’s jeep was found just outside Gamberale. It was a total wreck, burnt to pieces and perfect booby-trap fodder. Henry Porchester was sent out to reconnoitre the area. He reported that there were no signs of blood on or around the wreckage. He could only hope that Gavin was now a prisoner of war.

On the opposite side of the country, the US 5th Army had finally taken Monte Cassino after four long, bitter months and four waves of attacks that cost 55,000 Allied soldiers’ lives as against 20,000 German. General Clark diverted from pursuing the fleeing German Army, and on 4 June marched into a virtually abandoned Rome. The empty gesture, in direct defiance of the orders of his commanding officer, astounded his subordinate officers. The result was that the Germans were allowed to fall back and dig in again across the country from just north of Pisa to south of Rimini. The Italian campaign was set to rumble on for many more exhausting, bloody months.

Catherine wrote to her son in June, thrilled that the Allies were nearing Rome. ‘I hope and pray St Peter’s will be spared—and my dear Father the Pope.’ Rome was indeed spared, though since it had been declared an open city by the two opposed armies, it had never been targeted. There was in fact a startling consensus that the great historic towns of Italy should be protected. Aside from Rome itself, Florence, Siena and Orvieto were also relatively unscathed. Not that Italy escaped devastation: Naples was not the only great historic city to suffer carnage, and of course the human cost of the campaign was vast, but there were considerable efforts made to preserve the exceptional fabric of Italy. Catherine would surely have been delighted, if perhaps rather confused in her loyalties, to learn that two German officers had in the autumn of 1943 convinced Church authorities and their own commanding officers to use German army vehicles to remove the contents of Monte Cassino’s library and picture gallery to Rome for safekeeping. Local people were paid in extra food rations and cigarettes to assist in the removal of the entire community of monks and more than 80,000 books and manuscripts and 100,000 prints, as well as countless paintings by Old Masters. The abbey had been founded in 529 AD and its library was described by historians as ‘a treasure literally without price’. This prescient forethought saved more than a hundred lives and an irreplaceable resource for humanity.

Catherine was about to start new work and had just bought a flat when she wrote to her son. Penelope’s return to the UK and to living with her had revitalised her desire to be in London, but though she loved the house at Wilton Crescent it was really too large for her, Pen and Doll. The new flat was on Hay Hill, just off Berkeley Square, Catherine told Henry. She was about to start work with the Women’s Legion in a soup kitchen down at the docks in the East End, where some of the poorest people in London were still struggling to recover their lives in the aftermath of the Blitz. One gets the sense that Catherine was finally starting to come through the dreadful sadness brought on by her loss of Geoffrey, and even to manage her anxiety over Henry. Her faith undoubtedly helped her, and she reported to her son that she had been seeing lots of friends and felt really well. She had even been learning to cook, under Doll’s supervision. The previous night Doll had bought a week’s meat rations and hovered at her mistress’s side as Catherine attempted a mixed grill of liver and kidneys. The results were pronounced extremely delicious.

Porchey came to have tea with her and inspect the new flat. He was preoccupied with his divorce. Catherine gathered that he’d served notice on Tilly and that he and Jeanne had had a farewell party as they were not supposed to meet in public while the case was being put together. ‘She’s madly in love with me,’ Porchey confided to Catherine. ‘And do you know, I think she’s absolutely wonderful.’ Catherine was sanguine and also a little sceptical. After all, she did know Porchey really quite well and she suspected that he might grow restless again once the divorce was settled. She was not the same woman she had been when they were married. Her experience as Geoffrey’s wife, and above all as his widow, had given her great confidence and skills of self-reliance. She only smiled at his comments and wished him well.

The main topic of conversation at Porchey and Catherine’s meeting, though, was not his divorce but their daughter’s marriage. At the beginning of June, Gerrit van der Woude had telephoned Lord Carnarvon at Highclere: he would very much like to give him a drink at the Ritz the following week. Porchey was not at all surprised. Pen had been fizzy with joy for the last few months, talking of Gerrit in terms that suggested he was indispensable to her happiness. Gerrit had now won over both Penelope’s parents—it was impossible to argue with the evident happiness of their daughter. Besides, she was a sensible girl with sound instincts and not inclined to flights of romantic fancy; they trusted her judgement.

Porchey gave his blessing over drinks at the Ritz. His only concern was that they should not rush into marriage until the war was well and truly over. In any case, Penelope couldn’t countenance getting married until her beloved brother was home, so the young couple agreed to a slightly longer engagement than they really wanted. For now it would be kept a private matter. The public announcement would wait until they could set a date for the wedding. Two days later Almina came to lunch with Catherine to discuss the wonderful news and both Pen and Catherine wrote to Henry to tell him. ‘Your father found Gerrit absolutely charming,’ wrote Catherine. ‘We are all really so happy and Pen is almost beside herself. The only thing now is that we so desperately look forward to you coming home.’

Penelope went to Highclere two weeks after she became engaged, for ten days’ holiday. It was the first time off from the Foreign Office she’d had since her day at Christmas and she was exhausted. Her father had told her that Robert Taylor was recuperating at the castle and she went to see him and meet his wife, Joan. She found them both tense, unable to let go of each other’s hands as they talked. Pen was moved by Joan’s fortitude despite the prospect of her husband’s imminent return to the battlefield. Beneath the carefully upbeat general conversation was a thick anxiety. There were no illusions left for Robert. He knew what the battle that was waiting for him looked like. He had been so lucky once; could his luck possibly hold long enough for him to see the end of the war?

Pen found Harcourt ‘Crinks’ Johnstone down there too, also resting up, but there was plenty of activity. Her father was busier than ever with Claims Commission business, and to his delight he had just been promoted to Colonel. He hosted a meeting on post-war agricultural policy. People were starting to believe that the war would actually end, and to prepare accordingly.

One visitor to Highclere during Pen’s stay who certainly had no doubts about the war having entered its final stages was General Patton. Since playing his part in Operation Fortitude to perfection, he had been given command of the US 3rd Army as they readied to make their push south and southeast from the Normandy beaches. He was now preparing to leave for northern France to meet his troops, who had been moved across throughout July. He and Porchey must have met when General Patton was out raising morale among the US troops who were waiting to be sent to France. In between his work on Operation Fortitude, Patton visited a great many US bases. Porchey travelled all over southern England for his work and was often at military functions. One imagines that they would have recognised something of the kindred spirit in each other. They were both bluff and direct, with an irreverent sense of humour. Porchey had suggested that he come to lunch at Highclere if he found himself in the area.

General Patton arrived on a beautiful summer’s day accompanied by his ADC and laden with goodies—golf balls, crisps and tinned food, mostly—for Lord Carnarvon to pass on. The power of American largesse was still proving effective, even as the conflict started to draw to a close. The golf course was still a wheatfield but at least Porchey could practise some driving shots.

There were just eight for lunch and it was a small and convivial group. Patton was on excellent form, his spirits restored by the prospect of getting back into the field. ‘When we get to Normandy,’ he confided to Porchey, ‘I have one plan and one plan only. I don’t care what Monty says, I’m determined to get to Berlin before those goddamned Russians.’

In between battle strategy, Patton was overflowing with wisecracks until he was stopped in his tracks by his ADC’s reaction to Mr Pell the butler. Asked whether he would prefer red or white wine, he responded, ‘I’d like a glass of milk, please.’ A silence descended on the table before Pell smoothly despatched a footman to see to it. Patton directed a powerfully dirty look in his unfortunate ADC’s direction, whereupon the lad went beetroot red, but the General managed to contain his normally forthright language.

Patton left the UK for France at the end of July. Robert Taylor left Highclere to rejoin his regiment just a few days before. The Battle of Normandy was in full flow; Lieutenant General Montgomery was moving steadily inland. Monty had been transferred from the command of the 8th Army in Italy just before Christmas the previous year and had been put to planning the British ground forces’ participation in the D-Day landings. Now, bolstered by the triumph of D-Day, he and his Army had fought their way stubbornly through Caen and were holding the Germans there as the US 3rd Army pushed its way east. The Germans were being driven back on two fronts, forced into an ever smaller area. True to form, Hitler refused to countenance a retreat when there was still time to avoid disastrous loss of life. The Allies seized the opportunity to encircle the Germans and trap them in what became known as the ‘Falaise pocket’, a scrap of land around the small town of Falaise that was transformed into an inferno of fighting.

It was a devastating battle. It raged for just nine days from 12 August but those days were a matter of pure survival. Robert was in command of a flame-throwing tank and was called forward to incinerate roadblocks as the Army advanced. The noise was a roaring that he couldn’t stop hearing for hours afterwards; the smoke that was belched back into the tank stained the men’s skin black so that it looked like charred leather. He saw remains of horses blown into trees, of carts and guns in twisted piles, rows of trenches where dead soldiers still seemed to stand and everywhere was the stench of death and exploding shells.

The tanks were not suited to this type of warfare. Many of the battalions had trained in England on wide, undulating spaces such as the estate at Highclere. The landscape of Normandy was a patchwork of high hedges, orchards and sunken roads. As a tank went steeply up over the crest of a hill it provided an excellent target.

The pocket was finally closed, after days of brutal hand-to-hand fighting, on 21 August. Approximately 100,000 German troops were left in the area, of which perhaps half managed to escape while the rest either perished or were taken prisoner. Thousands of civilians also died, along with countless horses and cattle. The villages and towns Robert and his regiment passed through were nothing but piles of rubble with blackened tanks lying askew and, everywhere, the bodies of the dead. General Eisenhower was conducted on foot through the area to review the damage two days after the battle ended. ‘Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest “killing fields” of the war … I encountered scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.’

Falaise was the decisive battle of the Normandy campaign. The Allied armies’ progress was now relentless: Robert was part of the force pushing eastwards through Belgium towards the border with Germany. Patton’s determination to get to Berlin first fuelled his Army’s remarkable two-week dash across Lorraine. But, as one force went east, another smaller one went south towards Paris. The news that the Allied Army had scored a decisive victory sparked an uprising by the French Resistance and, three days later, the 2nd division of the Free French Army swept into western Paris in triumph as the 4th US infantry division cleared the eastern sections. Vast crowds of ecstatic Parisians greeted them, and the following day the Germans signed their surrender as General de Gaulle made his first speech as President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.

Robert’s unit pressed on in pursuit of the Germans as Operation Anvil began: the invasion of southern France. Many of the troops had been transferred from the Italian campaign, leaving Henry Porchester and his men tightly stretched. Unconditional surrender had been declared the Allied goal more than eighteen months before but, so far, the Germans were showing very little sign of being willing to surrender on any terms. Von Cholitz, the military governor of Paris, was unusual. Most German officers obediently followed Hitler’s orders for counter-attacks and no surrender. As a result the Allies would have to fight for every inch of ground as they pushed the Germans through the battlefields of the First World War, back towards their own borders.

Morale was high, despite tough fighting, heavy casualties and food and fuel shortages. The speed of the initial Allied advance, combined with the fact that so many ports were out of action, led to huge logistical problems. There were two types of food packs that got delivered intermittently in cardboard crates and were labelled ‘A’ and ‘B’, containing different tinned rations. Robert and his men were grateful for either, but they always kept an eye out for the remains of an allotment where they might find some carrots or tomatoes.

The other great supplement to army rations was the hospitality of local people. As they made their way northeast through France and towards Belgium, Robert and his troop were met by euphoric and grateful crowds. People came out waving flags, singing their national anthems and offering coffee, champagne—and even, on one blessedly happy occasion, a plate of salty, crunchy chips.

The whole of Britain rejoiced at the Allies’ wins on the Western Front and the liberation of Paris. On the Eastern Front the Red Army was also pressing towards Germany, liberating Poland as it went. Finally it seemed that victory was a matter of when, rather than if. But the Soviets’ advances were also revealing horrifying evidence that confirmed persistent (and persistently overlooked) stories about a Nazi programme to annihilate Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other so-called ‘undesirables’.

The first concentration camp to be liberated was Majdenek, near the city of Lublin in Poland. Soviet troops were struck dumb by what they found: barely a thousand skeletal survivors, gas chambers and burial pits. Approximately 79,000 people had been exterminated in its gas chambers and hundreds of thousands more were worked to death and died of disease and starvation.

Majdenek was the first of dozens of camps that would be liberated over the next nine months. Its discovery was widely reported in the press; Western and Soviet correspondents entered the camp along with the Red Army. H. W. Lawrence, a journalist with the New York Times, wrote, ‘I have just seen the most terrible place on earth.’ Somehow, these reports were not given the full import they merited. The horror and the staggering scale of the Nazis’ Final Solution were impossible for the public to take in, even as more and more evidence built up. It would be many more months before, with Germany’s defeat secured, the world could set about the virtually impossible task of confronting the aftermath of the Holocaust.

That summer London was struggling to cope with a new German weapon of terror, albeit one on an infinitely smaller scale than the machinery of death in Eastern Europe. On 13 June the first V1 flying bomb was launched towards London from a site on the Pas de Calais coastline, part of a last-ditch attack on Britain. It landed next to a railway bridge in Mile End in the east of London and killed eight civilians. Between then and October, when the last launch site was destroyed by the Allies, more than 9,500 of what the British quickly christened doodlebugs rained down on southeast England, and London in particular.

The doodlebugs were extremely effective. They were difficult to intercept and destroy in the air and, though their impact was relatively limited, their capacity to inspire terror was not. A great many air-force resources were diverted to trying to shoot them down safely and, meanwhile, the bombs kept falling. Before long Londoners’ nerves were shot to pieces. The only warning of an imminent attack was the bomb’s pulse engine giving out, which meant the thing was about to drop. Everyone, from theatre audiences to schoolchildren to office workers, grew adept at keeping one ear out, first for the trademark buzzing and then for the awful silence. If a doodlebug cut out over your head you had less than a minute to dive into an air-raid shelter and hope for the best.

On 20 August, ten minutes after Pen had left for work from Catherine’s new flat near Berkeley Square, she heard the dreaded buzzing overhead. She stood still in the street and looked up, scanning the sky. There it was, a chubby, cigar-shaped missile bearing nearly 2,000-pounds’ worth of explosives. It was still moving. Then it stopped. The whistling it made as it fell was demonic. Pen felt its blast and knew it couldn’t have been very far away. It seemed to have landed in the direction of her mother’s flat. She started to run. When she got to Catherine’s street she saw broken glass all over the road but the bomb had not hit. It must have fallen a few streets further on. She rushed upstairs and Doll let her in, trembling. Catherine had been blown right across her bedroom by the force of the blast but remarkably she hadn’t been hurt at all, not even by the shattering glass from her window.

The three women knew they were lucky and tried to comfort one another, but though Catherine had recovered her calm by the end of the day, Pen was totally unnerved. She went to sleep on a mattress in the corridor for the next couple of nights, away from windows, tossing and turning and unable to relax. When she telephoned her father to tell him of the near escape he was sympathetic and reminded her that she could always come to Highclere. ‘I know it’s pretty bad up there. Poor Jeanne’s driving me mad,’ he added. ‘She’s so nervous from the damn doodlebugs that she’s really quite snappy with me.’

Things got even worse when the Germans developed the next generation of flying bomb, the V2, which they began to use in September. This flew at such an astonishing speed that it was impossible to shoot down and it fell without any warning whatsoever. It had a longer range than the V1 so it could be launched from German territory, and V2S terrorised London right up until the end of the war. Some 13,000 were fired, day and night, and killed approximately 9,000 people.

In Italy the Allied armies had been twice depleted: first by the transfer of several divisions to the D-Day landings and then again when men were sent to participate in the invasion of the south of France. In August Henry was asked to liaise with one of the more colourful special military units that worked alongside the remaining forces. Popski’s Private Army, officially known as No. 1 Demolition Squad, was a small force under the command of Major Vladimir Peniakoff. It had been formed in Cairo in October 1942 as an 8th Army special forces unit, tasked with attacking Rommel’s fuel supplies in the build-up to El Alamein. Peniakoff, who gained the nickname Popski because British intelligence operators had trouble with his surname, was a Belgian-born Anglophile and had studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge before enlisting as a gunner in the French Army and serving in the First World War. He was commissioned into the British Army in 1940 and proved himself to be a remarkably skilled and courageous special agent, who left the North African campaign with a Military Cross for his three-month stint behind enemy lines gathering intelligence on Rommel’s fuel dumps. From North Africa he and his men made their way to Italy as part of a special advance party. They specialised in intelligence gathering and clandestine operations and worked closely with partisans, but they could turn their hand to regular soldiering if required and held a section of the Allied front line when the D-Day landings diverted large numbers of troops. Officially they were eighty men, but they acquired a lot of strays along the way including Russian, German and Italian POWs. The international make-up of the unit meant that French was the common language. Henry spoke excellent French so he was tasked with liaising with Popski’s men as the Blues and Royals continued their advance towards Rimini, attempting to break the last line of German defence. The Blues had themselves built up extensive experience of reconnaissance and the two units swapped a great deal of knowledge and information.

As the Allies prepared to launch their attack on Rimini in late August, the Germans sent a small force into the neutral territory of the tiny republic of San Marino, just southwest of the city. When the Allied attack met with the usual severe resistance, the Indian and British forces, including the Blues, opted to push west towards San Marino, looking for a weak point where they could burst through the line. On 17 September, after a day of fierce fighting, they took control of the hills on the territory’s borders and started to press on towards the territory’s tiny capital city. Henry’s troop was the second to enter San Marino city on 20 September. By the afternoon the German surrender had been secured. Both armies suffered heavy losses in the course of the battle but at least it must have been a relief to be away from the defensive line, in neutral territory, and therefore in an environment free of the booby traps that had been testing their ingenuity and courage for the last six months.

San Marino was virtually the last action Henry saw. Three days later he wrote to his father to say he had heard ‘some interesting news’. All correspondence was heavily censored, so typically Henry confined himself to asking his ‘Darling Pups’ for news of the family, staff or the racing. He couldn’t divulge any details, but both Porchey and then Catherine, who received a similar letter, intuited that the news their son had heard was good. It was indeed. Half of Henry’s regiment had not been home for four and a half years. It was confirmed that those men and officers would be leaving Italy before the end of October. The question for the other half of the regiment was whether they would be amalgamated with another unit or sent home alongside their comrades.

At the beginning of October, Catherine received the letter telling her that Henry was coming home. She had been longing for this moment for so long that when it came she could hardly believe it. She started to cry, tears of sheer relief that brought Doll running to her, asking frightened questions. But this time, the news for Catherine was the best it possibly could be. Her boy was coming home. On 10 October 1944, the Blues and Royals boarded the HMT Monarch of Bermuda at Naples; they left port three days later, on Friday the thirteenth. Despite the inauspicious date, the only trouble they encountered was overcrowding. There were 5,000 men and 560 officers loaded onto three troopships and six destroyers and the officers were packed nine to a cabin intended for two. Henry and his friend John Ewart were too happy to be going home to mind. By some miracle the food was excellent and the sun was shining. They had survived one of the most brutal campaigns of the war and had the satisfaction of leaving at a time when the Allies seemed certain to achieve their objectives, not just in Italy but everywhere. With a mixture of euphoria and relief they set about playing bridge with their customary gusto. John was still losing, Henry still winning. Two weeks later they docked at Liverpool and were told they were going straight to Aldershot but would be discharged the following day.

Back in Italy, Popski and his men were still battling on. In November they took part in the liberation of Ravenna, where Popski was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Two days later he lost a hand to a German grenade. In Belgium, Robert Taylor’s tank regiment was held up in the stalled Allied push towards the German border, waiting for fuel supplies, bracing themselves for the last stage of the war. They knew it would be bloody. The Germans were clearly not going to give up until they had exhausted every resource, every tiny chance to resist what now seemed inevitable. But for Henry Porchester the war was over. He was on his way back to Highclere.