Wright | Gordon
Faces from the past
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Overloon, popularly known as the English Cemetery, contains 281 graves. Each with its own story. In this series of reports, the Overloon War Chronicles Foundation highlights one such special story each time. This time grave number 2, section IV, row C and grave number 3, section IV, row C.
Gordon Wright (1924 – 1944)
Robert Silman (1925 – 1944)
Caught in the Jackal
“I have returned several times over the years to pay homage to them, and to ask them for forgiveness for not being able to help them to get out of the turret. Their cries for help are still with me today, 54 years later.”
(Source: letter of Bob Dare to Bill Hutchinson, 1998)
It is a nightmare: being trapped in a tank, on one square metre. And not being able to escape in time when you come face to face with fate.
Gordon John Wright is born in 1924 in Sheffield. He is the son of John William Wright and Jane Wright.
A year later, Robert Edward Silman is born in Bristol. Robert is the son of William Henry Silman and Rose Silman.
Gordon and Robert’s paths cross when they both end up in the British Coldstream Guards, 4th Bn.
Together with Commander Garner and tank driver Bob Dare, Gordon and Robert, both manning the turret, form the crew of a Chuchill tank MK V, equipped with a 95 mm Houwitzer. Like a lot of tank crews, they have given their tank a nickname: ‘Jackal’.
On 14 October 1944, the Jackal is deployed in a tank operation during the Battle of Overloon.
Because the co-driver of the Jackal got injured earlier, Lieutenant Sergeant Johnny Lambert comes over on 13 October, as a replacement co-driver from another tank crew whose tank was blown up earlier.
But on that 14 October, in the middle of hell of the battle and driving towards the Loobeek and Venray, things go all wrong. The tank formation moves steadily along a narrow road. In the process, they are bombarded mercilessly by German Nebelwerfers, called Moaning Minnies by the British. Bob Dare drives on. An order follows to turn left, across hedges and bushes, followed by open ground near the Overloonseweg, advancing in a V formation. In this formation, the Jackal is the forward tank.
You can read how it continues in the full version of “Faces from the Past” below.
Photos
The Overloon War Chronicles Foundation received valuable information and photographic material relating to Gordon through Denis Crookes and Sylvia Crookes-Wright.
In the search of the Overloon War Chronicles Foundation for a photo of Robert Silman, so far it has not succeeded in finding a photo of Robert, despite the foundation’s connections in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. If a reader of this article has a photo of Silman, please contact the foundation.
See the sources information in the full document.
