The Durhams D-Day Diary, Sgt Charles Eagles, 9th Battalion Durham Light Infantry. Part 5: Death of the colonel.

WHEN I dropped Lieutenant Jack Williams at the medic's feet, he managed to say to me: "I'm okay laddie. Get yourself back." Then he passed out.

So I went back to rejoin the Battle of Lingvres, fought by the 9th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry against what turned out to be the Panzer Lehr Division, probably the best equipped division in the entire Wehrmacht.

And back to Colonel Humphrey Woods, the commanding officer, who we'd been detailed to bodyguard until our carrier had been blown apart by a mortar.

It was June 14, 1944, eight days after D-Day, and the Durhams were being mown down all around me. It was a First World War-style advance, and it was a First World War style-massacre.

Bodies were lying everywhere as I made my way back to my section. Some men pleaded silently as they lay helpless and in pain - these awful sights and sounds have never left me.

What remained of my section had re-grouped in the apex of a cornfield, Col Woods, a popular CO decorated with a Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross, was in charge. Following his orders, we scrambled through a hedgerow and spotted the turret of a Tiger tank trying to hide in a copse.

We scattered, throwing ourselves behind anything. Except the colonel. He stood still, taking in the situation and then issuing an order: "Get that tank!"

I couldn't believe it. I may even have laughed. It was an impossible task. It would have been sheer suicide. It is one thing to be brave; quite another to be foolish.

But then it happened. Some mortar shells landed between us and I threw myself into undergrowth. When I looked again, I saw the colonel was down. He spoke his last words: "Surely they haven't hit me!"

They had indeed. And how. He was virtually cut in half. He was 28.

I stood up. The dust had settled. The Tiger tank had gone. Things were quiet. But what a sight. I don't have the words to describe the horror, to describe the dreadful, ghastly, gruesome scene. Bodies were scattered everywhere, one or two of them gently moaning.

I noticed a handful of Durhams - I recognised only one of them, Corporal "Woodie" Wood - alive. They were sitting, filthy, by a trackside. "That Tiger's got a nasty spit," said one.

"It wasn't the Tiger," I said. "It was too close. Those were mortars."

We moved down the track about 50 yards towards a farmhouse and spotted five or six of our lads lying as if they were observing ahead. Woodie crept over to them.

He soon came running back, panting as he gabbled: "They're all dead, sarge."

In 90 minutes, in a battle beneath the ancient stone white church of Lingvres, the 9th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry had lost its commanding officer and 31 of its men.

At the aid posts and in the field hospitals there lay another 248 wounded.

It seemed as if just four of us had survived. We lay - shellshocked - trying to figure out what the hell we should do next.

Then I heard a little, polite, cough. "Ahem. Ahem." It was a German major, with a dozen or so German soldiers, standing almost on top of me.

Adapted by Chris Lloyd

* Tomorrow: Part 6: Surrender