236852 Sgt. John William Roan Hatfield British Army Recconaisance Regiment from:Shrewsbury This is my dad, Sgt. Jack Hatfield's story, he never told us what happened, but this story was told to us by my mother.
He was in an armoured car in France with two of his army colleagues, the driver sitting at the front and the soldier making the maps sitting in the middle facing forwards and dad sitting in the back operating the radio. 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 force 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 the 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.
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