Bernard R Gildersleve

In the Winter of 1944 I was a wireless operator in the Royal Signals Special Communication Unit 8 working in a small Special Liaison Unit attached to the U.S 9th Tactical Air Command, advancing through Belgium. We had been at Verviers but when Von Runstedt launched his Ardennes ‘Battle of the Bulge’ we were evacuated to Liege and thanks to the Americans, we were stationed on the top floor of what had been a girls’ school, a modern all-glass building, all the rooms glazed from floor to ceiling. Liege was under continuous V1 Doodle-bug flying-bomb attack, day and night, as well as suffering from hit and run bombing raids and some night air raids.

During one of the latter raids (normally we took little notice of them) we decided to see what was happening downstairs. We were on the fourth floor and instead of walking we went down in the lift, very unwisely, to the basement, which we found was full of sheltering Americans. One of them, standing near the lift, remarked “it must be getting pretty bad up there, even the British boys have come down”