German jet planes
13th to 15th February
“At Bedburg we drove into the spacious grounds of a hospital and mental home and settled ourselves into one of the less damaged wings. The hospital consisted of a large number of high buildings every one of which had been heavily shelled. On the previous night, we learnt, it had also been bombed by twin engined jet propelled German aircraft. There were we no patients in the battered wards, but many mentally deficient Germans wandered aimlessly in the grounds.
Some of the more intelligent of these were shown how to remove the jagged edges of glass from the window frames, and despatched to work on them all over the hospital. This, at first, seemed a good method of keeping them occupied. The disadvantage of the scheme became apparent when they could find no more broken windows. Then they went round breaking the good ones.
This position was some two miles behind the line, and we had artillery and heavy mortars positioned all around us. These kept up a continuous barrage which proved so tiresome that we were glad when we were again ordered forward. We moved outside the grounds to a row of modern houses which had probably been nurses' quarters.
We made ourselves quite comfortable here, and soon we had a pig and several fowl and rabbits in the larder.”
Narrative: My dad told me that, in the absence of any skills to capture and humanely slaughter a pig, this particular animal had been machine-gunned. The next diary entry will be on 16th February.