229906 Sgt. John William Roan Hatfield British Army from:Shrewsbury This is my dad Jack Hatfield's story as far as I know. He never told us what happened. This was told to us by my mother. He was in an armoured car in France with two army colleagues. The driver sitting at the front and the soldier making the maps sat in the middle facing forwards and dad was in the back doing the radio operating. The armoured car was bombed. Whether it was friendly fire or not we don't know because there were no identification marks on the vehicle. The driver was killed instantly because the main source of the blast was at the front of the vehicle. The soldier sitting in the middle had both his legs severely damaged above the knee and Dad had his jaw bone and facial area badly injured.
Dad managed to get the injured soldier out of the vehicle and dragged him to a small cave where he covered him with his greatcoat. The injured soldier was dead next morning through blood loss and Dad was in a poor shape. He was picked up and taken to a German field hospital. However, because they were making maps the British Infantry were not far behind them and they took over the hospital and sent the injured British soldiers home. That's as much as I know.
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