McNair's Howitzers
Operation Plunder, Mar 1945

“An incident at Rees”.
From Martin Lindsay’s “So Few Got Through”

When I reached C Company, I found them full of enthusiasm for McNair, who was attached to us for the operation with three 3.7 howitzers. These are the little guns that one has seen naval teams take to pieces at Olympia, pass over an obstacle and put together on the other side. For three years, they have been training near Inverness for mountain warfare and were rushed out here specially for this operation, being the only artillery which is small enough to go in a Buffalo.

They have a range of 6000 yards and a 21 pound shell, and much more accurately than any other gun as they guarantee the strike within 80 yards. This was McNair’s first action, and such enthusiasm for battle as he showed can seldom have been seen before – in fact it was rather easy for some of our more battle weary officers to be quite funny about it. For each situation in the street-to-street battle McNair had some excellent suggestions for using his gun. He hauled it over rubble, rushed it over round corners, laid it on a house that was giving trouble, dodged back again prepared his charges and then back to fire them. He even took it to bits and mounted it in an upstairs room.

“Exactly which window is the sniper in?” he said and then when the sniper fired at him, “Oh, that one” and laid his gun on it. It set the house on fire as well as any crocodile, and the effect on the enemy was devastating This very brave officer took incredible risks; finally he ran out into the street which was under fire and pulled in a wounded officer. He and his gun became the talk of the companies, and already, in a few hours, he had become an almost legendary officer.

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