Forgotten Voices of D-Day

by Forgotten Voices of D-Day- A Powerful New History of the Normandy Landings in the Words of Those Who Were There (retail) (epub)

  I climbed a rock embankment and came to a piece of flat land where hundreds of men were digging slit trenches. When they got down about a foot-and-a-half they struck water. Some of them were lying in the water and I asked them if there was much shelling. ‘There is when there is,’ one man said. ‘Right now there isn’t; but when it comes, it sure comes.’ I asked him what German fortifications he could point out. He showed me some tunnels at the top of the palisade – the palisade rises above the beach along this stretch of coast. There were five or six positions I could make out, nothing particularly formidable.

  I walked over to an aerial, which seemed to mark a command post. A colonel and a major were sitting beside a slit trench half-filled with water and I said to the colonel, ‘Sir, I’m a war correspondent.’ He looked up from a map, fiercely, and the major said, ‘I think you’d better stop back later. You might try going up that path there where you see those men, if you can make it. Watch out for mines. It’s heavily mined.’

  A long column of men was winding up the palisade on a narrow path. They weren’t moving. At the skyline they seemed to be knotted up. To reach the palisade I joined a column who were wading across a slew. The water came nearly to their armpits and they had to hold their rifles and equipment over their heads. The water was rather warm but the bottom was a slimy mess. When a man got to the far side of the slew he would always stop, in a maddening way, holding the rest of us up. We shouted angrily but when we got there each one of us stopped too: the reeds on the far bank were loaded with mines. One man lay at the top of the bank, dead. The mines had been marked with bits of paper and soldiers at the top advised us just how to climb so as not to venture into dangerous ground. There were more dead men along the narrow path that led up to the palisade.

  The column had stopped moving and I began to step past men, following a captain. Suddenly a voice said, ‘Watch yourself, fella. That’s a mine.’ A soldier sprawled on the bank was speaking. He had one foot half blown off. He’d stepped on a mine a short time earlier. Now, while he waited for litter-bearers, he was warning other soldiers about other mines in that vicinity. I can stand the dead but the wounded horrify me and I only looked at him to thank him. He looked very tired but perfectly collected. ‘What you need is the medics,’ I said. ‘I’ll try and get them for you when I go back down.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But how will they get up here?’ He was right. The pathway was so clogged with men and so heavily mined that it was impassable. The engineers would have to get up there first.

  The column didn’t move forward. The captain I was following stopped and so did I. I asked him his name and he said he was Louis Hilly of Cincinnati. ‘It looks like they shell around here a bit,’ I said, pointing to some shallow craters. ‘No,’ said Hilly, ‘those are all mines.’ At the top of the palisade the knot of men had gotten to its feet and it looked like the line might move. One man darted over the skyline and almost immediately afterwards we heard the speedy burst of a German machine gun, then a few stray rifle shots. The bullets cracked overhead and everyone instinctively ducked lower. These were some troops who had never seen combat before and the bullets must have seemed close to them, although we were a hundred feet below the skyline.

  The line remained stationary and I looked down the beach and the sea. Landing craft of all descriptions were sliding in through the low surf disgorging men who moved through the water with amazing alacrity. As soon as they got ashore and saw the men moving about calmly they seemed to steady down and began to walk quietly themselves.

  I waited a spell longer and the line didn’t move so I began to make my way down the path again. It was slow work. The soldiers were so alarmed that I would step on a mine right next to them that one man told me to walk on his back rather than step off the path. I promised I would try to get the engineers up to disarm the mines. While I was going down the slope the Germans began shelling our area. It was hard not to throw myself down on the ground willynilly but the thought of those mines kept me from it.

  I took a last look at the greatest armada in history. It was too immense to describe. There were so many transports on the horizon that in the faint haze they looked like a shoreline. Destroyers were almost on the beach occasionally jolting out a salvo that was like a punch on the chin. Farther out, but still incredibly close to the beach, sat our huge battle-wagons and cruisers. Overhead, formations of fighters swept swiftly through the air with nothing to do. During this entire day I never saw a German plane or spoke to a man who had seen one.

  I reached a small command post on the flat where a dispatch had just been handed to two captains. It said that our troops were a mile inland, but we could still hear small-arms fire: they were apparently being harassed by snipers but so far had met nothing heavy in the way of emplacements or an armoured force. Just as I reached the beach the German artillery came down in earnest. I dived into a slit trench but a man was in ahead of me so I ducked under a bulldozer where I felt very safe. The only trouble was that I didn’t want to get out from under the bulldozer after the shelling had stopped. The stuff was coming in close enough to send pebbles flying in and I felt pretty badly shaken for a period.

  * Bill Dunn’s submerged AVRE, One Charlie, was excavated in 1976 and stands today on display outside the village of Graye-sur-Mer, behind Juno beach.

  Pushing Inland

  We heard the sound of bagpipes, and the firing all stopped.

  It had been noisy, what with us firing at Jerry and Jerry firing at us, and then you could hear the bagpipes.

  Securing a foothold on the Normandy coast was not the only British aim of 6 June. Troops landing on Sword and Gold, as on all Allied beaches, had been set additional objectives for that day. Consequently, as each beach was brought sufficiently under control, the assault and follow-up forces began fighting inland to achieve them.

  Advancing south from Sword, British commandos of Lord Lovat’s 1st Special Service Brigade made swiftly for the Orne River and Caen Canal bridges. Lovat’s orders were to link up as quickly as possible with the men of the 6th Airborne Division holding on inland. If that could be accomplished, the commandos were to cross the bridges and take up positions alongside the paratroopers.

  The principal thrust from Sword was aimed at the city of Caen. A series of enemy strongpoints and gun batteries – the British code-named many of them after motorcars – were to be neutralised en route. One, Hillman, proved particularly formidable. Prolonged resistance there slowed the whole southward advance. So did a counter-attack by elements of the German 21st Panzer Division. Although, by nightfall, a forward troop of the Staffordshire Yeomanry had made it as far as Lébisey, a mile from Caen, most of the city was not to fall to the Allies until 9 July.

  Inland from Gold, the men of the 50th Infantry Division successfully made contact with Canadian troops from Juno and in the evening captured the coastal town of Arromanches, which had been identified by the planners as a good spot for a Mulberry harbour. The division’s main objective, though, was the important road junction at Bayeux, eight miles from the coast. British troops reached the edge of the town that evening and it was occupied, peacefully, the next day.

  REACHING THE AIRBORNE

  Piper Bill Millin

  HQ 1st Special Service Brigade

  I was up front playing the bagpipes, Lord Lovat behind, the rest of the troop stretched out behind, and all along the side was these tall poplar trees and piping away there I could see a sniper in a tree on the right-hand side of the road. Then there was a flash and the sound of a shot and I looked round and Lovat was on his knee so I stopped playing. Next thing, about half a dozen commandos rushed past me firing at this character, he was struggling down the tree by this time, and then he disappeared into the cornfield. I could see his head bobbing up and down. Lovat was shooting, his rifle was blazing away, and then we stopped and Lovat sent some commandos into the field to drag the body out and we dumped him at the side of the road. Lovat said, ‘Well, start playing your pipes again, piper.’ He wan
ted the Paras to know that we were coming.

  Private Stanley Wilfred Scott

  3 Commando

  We was the leading troop of the brigade, 3 Troop of 3 Commando. It’s down in several books as 3 Troop of 6 Commando but everybody makes the same mistake. Five of us somehow got in front. One was Campbell; one was me; one was Jimmy Synnott, I think; Ozzy was another one. But there was five of us – a little detached party – like yellow jerseys going first. Not that we wanted to, we were just going.

  At Le Port opposite the church we passed a Para sitting with his leg up on a chair. He had a shattered leg and he was guarding this little knot of prisoners and as we come along, like, he looks at us, didn’t he? And what he said was unprintable. British Army language. Something like, ‘Where the flaming hell have you been? About time.’ There was none of the bagpipe-playing and cheering and all that crap.

  Commandos move inland from Sword Beach.

  Anyway, we turned left past Benouville and we’re looking down the road at the bridge, we’re about seventy-five yards from the bridge, and it’s like a beehive. There was rounds hitting it from all sides, there was rounds ricocheting off and splatting and hitting. Nobody’s round it. Everybody has got their heads down – it’s no good standing. Most of it’s coming from the maternity home in Benouville. The Germans was in there.

  Somebody says, ‘Get on your bikes and go like the clappers. You’ll probably get away with it.’ Well, you’re soldiers, you’re there to do a job. ‘OK, let’s go.’ We all jump on our bikes and away we go, pedalling like bleeding mad. I shot across that bridge and on the right-hand side there was a German vehicle burning and I shot behind that, and that’s solid, that’s protection. Jimmy Synnott and the others went to the left-hand side where there was a dip, like a ditch. They shot into there and got down. Campbell was just the unlucky one. He got clobbered. He got hit straight through the neck, fell down in one big lump, him and the bike and all that. We wasn’t there long as the rest of 3 Troop of 3 Commando come up.

  Private William Gray

  2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

  It was while we was in Le Port that we heard the sound of bagpipes, and the firing all stopped. It had been noisy, what with us firing at Jerry and Jerry firing at us, and then you could hear the bagpipes.

  Corporal W. R. Howard

  2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

  Lo and behold, probably five minutes later, chaps with green berets came streaming along the road who happened to be Lord Lovat’s commandos. Walking along with Lord Lovat was his piper, Bill Millin, blowing the bagpipes, and we just sat there and watched in amazement as these green-bereted commandos came along. There seemed to be an endless stream of them. There must have been six or seven hundred of them moving through.

  Piper Bill Millin

  HQ 1st Special Service Brigade

  I stopped immediately across the road from the café and there was a right battle going on and huge columns of black smoke. Even where I was standing I could hear the shrapnel or the bullets, whatever, hitting off the metal side of the bridge. The wounded were being carried up from along the canal banks and into the café. It was a real hot spot. Lovat went forward to speak to John Howard and he said, ‘John, today we are making history.’ Then Lovat came back to me and said, ‘Right, we’ll cross over.’ I put my pipes on my shoulder and he said, ‘No, don’t play. Wait until you get over.’

  Private William Gray

  2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

  We were firing from near the churchyard at Le Port, firing across the bridge into the trees where we suspected the snipers were. We couldn’t see them, we just did all we could to help the commandos get across the bridge, but they were under quite heavy fire and we saw loads of commandos killed. They were in single file dashing across in sections from one side of the bridge to the other side but they were getting heavy casualties. They set up a Vickers on the corner of the bridge and were spraying the trees alongside the canal, the side where the gliders had landed. In fact I’ve heard since that some snipers had got in amongst the three gliders and were using them as cover.

  Major John Howard

  2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

  A lot of them wore their green berets instead of their steel helmets and there were rather more casualties for that reason than there might have been. But their job wasn’t to fight around the bridges, it was to get across the bridge as soon as possible to help the Sixth Airborne fighting the other side of the river and they did that pretty well. They certainly didn’t hang about the bridges because there was too much shooting going on.

  Piper Bill Millin

  HQ 1st Special Service Brigade

  We got to the other side and Lovat said, ‘Right, play now and keep playing all the way along this road, about two hundred yards, until you come to the Ranville Bridge and keep playing right across that. No matter what, just keep playing.’

  Piping along the road, we come to the Ranville Bridge. It was a narrow bridge, metal sides with open railings, and I could see two Airborne on the other side in a slit trench dug in. And as I’m piping along I’ve got my eye on those two chaps and they were going, ‘Get back!’ and pointing to the sides of the river, meaning that this bridge was under fire. So I looked round at Lovat and he’s walking along as if he’s out for a walk around his estate and he was going, ‘Carry on, carry on.’

  I piped along that bridge playing the tune ‘The Blue Bonnets over the Border’ and got over and the two Airborne chaps in the slit trench were looking at me like I were crazy. And then Lovat came over, there’s several casualties following him on the bridge, and from across the road appears this tall Airborne officer, red beret on, marching along with his arm outstretched. And he said, ‘I’m very pleased to see you, old boy,’ and Lovat said, ‘And we’re very pleased to see you, old boy. Sorry we’re two and a half minutes late.’ We were more than two and half minutes late. Well, that’s the famous words of the link-up of the Airborne and the commandos.

  Private William Edward Lloyd

  2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

  We got a section dug in with the Sixth Airborne before the commandos got there. There was a company that set off and about nine men got through and Sergeant Thompson was there dug in on the River Orne with those nine men. They was only the few that got through out of a company of men. When you talk about Lovat we get annoyed ’cause everybody has the idea that the commandos went in first on Pegasus Bridge, which is wrong. Admittedly we wasn’t there in strength but we was there. Tommo will tell you he watched Lovat and his commandos walk on to the bridge.

  Sergeant Arthur Thompson

  2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

  When we got there, there was lots of firing going off but you couldn’t see where it was coming from. We just got ourselves dug in and remained there all night. And I tell you what, that place will never be forgotten because we were bitten to death. It’s all swamps around that side. The only thing we could find that would give us any peace was anti-gas ointment so we used nearly all this anti-gas ointment, rubbing around our necks, our knees and our arms and whatever, and our knees swelled up like footballs. It’s not bloody pleasant.

  THE DRIVE ON CAEN

  Captain Darby Robert Houlton-Hart

  2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment

  We went over with these airborne collapsible bicycles. It was intended, I think, that we were to cycle up the Orne canal and perhaps get as far as Caen, the first day. Of course, when we got ashore – a pretty average shambles – everything didn’t go according to plan and we dumped all our bicycles and reverted to being ordinary old infantry soldiers.

  Private Lionel Roebuck

  2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

  We set off through an orchard, and the orchard, because of all the shelling, was amazing. All the trees had had their branches ripped off
completely. It was just a load of trunks sticking up and all the branches were strewn around the ground.

  We came across a Bren carrier that was smoking and there were the bodies of two dead chaps inside. It had obviously been hit by a shell and then set on fire. There was nothing we could do for them so we just went past. All the animals as well, the cows and the horses and everything else, they were all laid on their backs with their legs stuck in the air just like posts, all stiff and bloated. Then I saw my first dead commando. He was laid out at the side of the road. He was the first dead chap I’d seen really close to. He’d got flesh just like a wax dummy, the flesh, so cold and solid.

  When we went into the village of Colleville, which is just a few hundred yards further on from where the dead commando was, a few more of my mates popped up from over the wall. Arthur was one of them and a lad called Winterbotham from Leeds and they looked over the wall and they warned us, ‘Careful, there’s a sniper up in a high building over in the village.’ Just then I noticed there was a woman stood in a doorway just on the right-hand side of the road and she had a small child with her and she just stood there even though the shelling was going on. She was dressed in dark, drab clothes with a long black skirt and she didn’t say a word to us as we went past. She had a real depressed look on her face, really unhappy, no greeting, just looked as we went past.