"We were not attacked all morning, although it was unpleasant with airbursts and a certain amount of probing by German infantry, but nothing really spectacular. Then about one o'clock . . . there was a rumble of tanks . . . .
They were German tanks which had come up from the direction of VillaBocage and they'd overrun the position. Well, I wasn't going to be made a prisoner if I could help it, so I ran along the inside of the hedge in the direction of the enemy. I decided it was time I do some damage before dying a hero's death, so I leveled my Sten gun, which is a horrible little thing, at two German officers. . . . They were shouting at me "Englishman surrender" or "eeglschreish hurschencher," so I pressed the trigger and the damn thing jammed!
I thought better of my gallantry and retraced my steps 'round the edge of a field . . . . I thought 'the field has four sides, I've been on 3 sides, so I'll get up a tree on the fourth side and stay there and won't be noticed during the night'. But when I climbed up and looked through the bottom of the hedge (it's one of those big Boccage hedges) they were digging in a German battery of guns. So I crawled into the middle of the field . . . with hay in it and went to sleep. I was awakened by some very kind but rather belated smoke which had been put down by our own gunners to enable our physicians to be evacuated. It was a bit difficult to avoid coughing as these smoke things were landing all around me. Anyhow, during the night things quieted down and so I crawled to the edge of the main road, ran across and got on the same track the German tanks had used when they were shadowing us . . . .
Then I caught my breath because I suddenly realized that what I thought was an old cow sleeping was some Germans who were covered up in their great coats or blankets, sound asleep with their rifles piled up beside them. Well, they didn't wake up, so I pressed on . . . .
I came round to the British side of town, and suddenly I heard a command "Halt!" I didn't know, and I still don't know, if it was British or German. If you drop the H it's still the same. So I froze for awhile, and then dashed up the bank, careened down a hedge, and dived into it, just as they set up a Veralite. But again, they didn't catch me, and I spent the night moving along, creeping along, sleeping or resting, until I passed by a noise which I thought was perhaps English, and walked into the headquarters of one of the tank regiments, totally unmolested."
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From an interview conducted March, 1993. Used with permission of Christopher Milner and Discovery Communications, Inc.
