Forgotten Voices of D-Day
Page 30
Troops and vehicles wait to move forward from a point just beyond Sword Beach.
Private William Snell
1st Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers
As we passed through one village a thing that has always stuck with me was that I looked up and there was a pair of legs stuck on the telegraph wires and I looked along the pavement and there were bodies of East Yorkshires, dead. Some of them were without heads, without legs.
Trooper Berkeley Meredith
Sherman tank driver, Staffordshire Yeomanry
The fields of Normandy are divided by hedges, which are called bocage, and are very good for sheltering infantry or if you want to shelter behind and just peer over the top. And we saw some movement in the bocage, we guessed it was a platoon of enemy infantry, so we shot at them with machine-gun fire. There seemed to be some movement still but no response so we edged out to look over the hedge. What we’d done was to hit some poor old French cow which was in agony. Another ludicrous thing was that in Normandy, in the heat of battle, we felt that we couldn’t leave this wretched animal in its agony. We tried to depress the machine gun but we were too close to it, so I took the breech-block out and then we sighted this poor animal down the barrel of the gun and put it out of its misery.
Sergeant Major Russell King
2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
In front of us was a big gap in a hedgerow and I remember this tank in front just flame-throwing this gap and, when we got up, there was this bloke, charred, like a bit of bloody coal, stuck up against a tree. Terrible.
Passing a memorial to French dead of the First World War, British troops press inland from Sword Beach.
Captain Darby Robert Houlton-Hart
2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment
We got into position behind a hedgerow. Another officer and myself were the only two who had been in the Dunkirk thing – none of the others had seen any action – and we were being shot at so I thought it was my duty to try and see who was shooting at us. I went to the end of the hedgerow and by a big tree I searched the ground with my binoculars. And I’d half turned to go back when I got a whole burst of Spandau fire which hit the rifle I was carrying which shot up in the air. I thought I’d been stung by a bee, but I hadn’t: I’d had a finger removed and the top of another one. And that was me. I was patched up by the stretcher-bearers and I was told to shove off. I went back to the field dressing station and I felt a bit bogus there. I remember taking tea round to some wretched fellow who had been in the Tank Corps and he was all burnt and was lying on a stretcher.
Private William Edward Lloyd
2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
I took part in the attack on Daimler, which was a big gun position, a 155-millimetre gun. When we attacked Daimler I think they’d had enough. We came from the backside of it and we flung a few grenades in and I think the gunners had really had sufficient and we took about seventy prisoners there.
Private Lionel Roebuck
2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
In the blockhouse there was a picture of Hitler in a frame about two-foot by two-foot-six on the wall by the desk. I smashed it to the ground with the butt of my rifle in anger. To think that that chap had caused all this trouble for us.
Corporal John Barnes
Sherman tank commander, 13th/18th Hussars
The infantry were held down so we were told to come back and help out towards the front of Morris. The squadron leader told Mr Smith to take five tanks and go and see if we can make an impression, see if we can’t force Morris to surrender by pumping more rounds of ammunition into the steel doors. So we set off across this field in arrow formation and half way across I got hit twice, another tank got hit and Corporal Collins’ tank got hit, and we turned round and got into a safe position. I think they were only two-pounder guns as they didn’t go through my tank, they hit the side, but one driver had his eyes taken out and Corporal Collins had his leg taken off.
Corporal Arthur John Blizzard
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
B Company took Morris. Morris was easy. Hillman was where we lost quite a few.
Private Leslie Perry
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
The American air force was supposed to bomb Hillman on the morning of D-Day but they said that there was low cloud and they couldn’t see it properly and not one of their bombs hit the target – they landed in fields all around it. And we were supposed to be supported by naval gunfire from one of the destroyers but the Royal Navy forward observer coming off the landing craft was hit and knocked out on the beach with his signaller. So no messages got back to the ship and we got no naval gunfire, so it had to be taken using just infantry and sappers. We had two tanks that was firing at the steel cupolas over the machine-gun positions but the seventeen-pounder anti-tank shells were just bouncing off.
Sergeant George Rayson
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
We was the first platoon supposed to be in this Hillman attack. It must’ve been the size of a bloody football pitch, really, with several guns on the top, which we couldn’t see. It looked as though they’d piled up dirt and then built this place in the middle, like. There was an underground barracks, electric light, a hospital; everything was done there. I think there was about twenty gun emplacements on the top, machine guns, and round it triple Dannet [wire] and a thirty-foot minefield.
We’d trained for this so we knew exactly what to expect. We had an engineer officer and two men and they cleared the mines from the first lot of wire, about six foot wide, and put some white tape out. The idea was to run through there, you see. And along came these D Company blokes and put a couple of Bangalore torpedoes out. I don’t think they went off at first, as the officer had to go back. Anyhow, they blew a great big void and we ran in.
Well, the first two blokes got killed to start with. Right opposite was a machine gun in a turret, the turret was made of glass of all things, and all the guy in it done was put the gun down right where we were and killed the first two, a corporal and a private soldier. Of course we all got down quick and he couldn’t get the gun down further, otherwise he’d have had the lot of us. We laid there quite a long time and suddenly everything went quiet. The bloke had disappeared inside. The company commander came running over and he said, ‘Come on, Rayson.’ There was six or eight in front of me and they turned inside that gun by the bank and I got fired at and I threw myself down on the ground. Landed behind the corporal that had already been shot. Cor, his head. Just a mass of blood, brains and bone.
Private Leslie Perry
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
One of our chaps, Jim Hunter, he was in a sunken road very close. He got up close to the wire and then when they blew the second lot he was laying up the bank. And this German kept firing this machine gun and it kept spattering him with earth and he said to his mate, ‘I’ve bloody well had enough of this,’ only his language was a little bit stronger than that as British soldiers sometimes use. He said, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to have a go,’ and he picked up his Bren and advanced on this German position firing as he went. He said afterwards, ‘There was bullets spattering all around me but I was so annoyed I just didn’t care.’ This German saw him coming but he ducked down and he dropped a couple of grenades in the emplacement, then he jumped down into the zigzag trench and as he turned one corner of the trench a German came round the other. They both fired together and Jim is only about five foot two and the German’s bullet went right through his helmet and out the other side and creased across the top of his head. He got the German in the chest and killed him and he carried on and got one or two others and cleared the position. He was awarded the DCM for what he did.
Sergeant George Rayson
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
I found myself in a deep trench. Course, the others had gone up the front, I was in there all alone and I couldn’t see over the top,
I wasn’t tall enough. Talk about feeling lonely. And I went up and kept zigzagging and eventually I caught the few up ahead of me. I said, ‘What you all stopped for?’ There was a corporal amongst them and he said, ‘Round the corner, Captain Ryley, Lieutenant Tooley, Corporal Stares, they’re all dead.’ Apparently they went round the corner and got a burst of machine-gun fire.
Of course we didn’t know what to do, really. We was there trying to work things out and Jerry chucked some stick bombs and they just missed us. One or two of our blokes threw some stick grenades back and that quietened them down and everything went quiet. And we were just deciding what to do when the runner came round the corner and he said, ‘You’ve all got to get out as fast as you can!’ Cor, we didn’t want no telling. I beat all Jesse Owens’ records going out there. I did and all. What had happened was, they’d decided it was too much and got hold of some more tanks.
They got the tanks in a line and we went behind the first tank. That went up the slope and turned right and the other went straight up and the other turned left, there was a group of men behind each and we took the place without a lot of bother after that. The tanks blew up all the guns and Jerry done a bunk down below.
Corporal John Barnes
Sherman tank commander, 13th/18th Hussars
There were a lot of slit trenches around Hillman and you couldn’t get the guns down so a lot of crew commanders just threw grenades in the trenches. You wasn’t worried. It wasn’t like it was before: ‘Play up and play the game.’ You didn’t care who was in there – they got it this time.
Corporal Arthur John Blizzard
1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
Next day we had to bury the dead and if you’re a young fellow and you haven’t buried the dead before it’s the biggest pain of all. What we done was, we got the Germans and buried them as well as we could and took their tags off and our own boys’ tags and sent them back. We were all that day burying the Germans. It was a terrible battle, this Hillman.
Inside Hillman I saw a big metal cupboard in the corner and opened the door and it was crammed with bottles from the top to the bottom, and when I picked one up it was five-star brandy. I said, ‘Look at this, Alec.’ He said, ‘Is it all right?’ I pulled the top off and stuck my finger in and tasted it. After me and him had drunk the first bottle, I said, ‘We feel better now, don’t we?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’
Inland from Sword Beach, an M10 ‘Tank Destroyer’ provides support for troops of the 2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment.
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘There’s a door here.’ And I pulled the iron bolt back and opened the door and there they all stood. Sixty-odd Germans, I counted. There was Alec and me and the commandant of the area with his hands above his head. He gives me his camera, he gives me his dagger and he says, ‘Kaput.’ Well, he could have ‘Kaput’ us as easy as pie if he’d wanted. But I lined them all up and marched them down the road to the platoon where Sergeant Booth took over and I never heard another word about it. Only lies in books about how they were taken.
Private William Edward Lloyd
2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
Me and a lad called Heslop was taking some prisoners and there’s this officer stopped us and said, ‘Where you two going?’ We says, ‘We’re taking these prisoners to Brigade HQ,’ and he said, ‘Well, B Company are very short of men, so one of you has got to go to B Company.’ Before I could say anything, this Heslop turned round and said, ‘I’ll go to B Company.’ That left me with these two prisoners.
Every time their hands dropped a little bit I just tipped them with a bayonet and how they managed to keep their hands up I don’t know. But if they hadn’t kept their hands up there was no two ways about it, there was only one answer and that was to shoot them. Because, let’s face it, the Geneva Convention is all thrown to the wall when you get into action. I don’t care what anybody says, it’s all thrown to the wall.
Trooper Berkeley Meredith
Sherman tank driver, Staffordshire Yeomanry
We saw some prisoners of war. There was no way we could stop and deal with them and they just wandered on. They looked jolly relieved to be going in the direction they were going with their hands up. I don’t think they were very high-quality troops.
Further in we were signalled to by a German who wanted to surrender. To this day I don’t know why we did it but we stopped. We didn’t know what to do with him. There were no ground troops with us to whom we could hand him over, we weren’t prepared just to let him wander in case he did any damage to anybody further back, so we’d got two options. We either finished him off or we could take him with us. In the event we put him in our turret. That tends to amaze me now. But he did as he was told because I’d got my pistol out and we got rid of him very quickly when we came across some infantry.
Lieutenant Lionel Knight
Sherman tank commander, Staffordshire Yeomanry
My troop were down in a dip prior to going up a lane to Lébisey when a counter-attack came in from the Germans which would basically have cut us off. But the rest of our regiment, which was behind me, could see it coming and they were able to fire down on the incoming tanks fortunately and we were OK. Well, we went up the lane and the first sighting I had of a German on French soil was when a motorcycle-sidecar came round the corner at the top of the hill. I let off a few shots at him but he got in a dip and the last I saw of him he’d tumbled off into the wood leaving the bike and sidecar there.
Trooper Berkeley Meredith
Sherman tank driver, Staffordshire Yeomanry
There were a few infantry lying ahead of us on the road, dead. Further up, beyond which we couldn’t see, there was a bridge over the road with an archway. I think it was the railway that led through that area into Caen but going ahead on our own we would have been completely exposed without support.
The wood we were in was Lébisey Wood and I think it was as far as any unit got on D-Day and for this our commander, Lionel Knight, was awarded the MC. But tanks don’t stay out in woods or the open at night, they laager, and we withdrew then to an area where the whole squadron laagered together. But on that first day we’d reached Lébisey Wood and it took us another month of hard bloody fighting to get back to that same point.
Lieutenant Lionel Knight
Sherman tank commander, Staffordshire Yeomanry
I think it was about another four to six weeks before we got to Caen eventually, but, if we’d had another infantry regiment that day, we could have done it. Still, there we are. That’s war, isn’t it?
THE PUSH FOR BAYEUX
Major John Mogg
9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
We came toward the beaches about nine o’clock in the morning: we were the reserve battalion of the reserve brigade. It was a scene of a lot of activity by the beach brigade trying to make holes through the mines; there were flail tanks trying to flail up the mines. There were one or two carriers that had been brewed up; there was the odd tank that had been brewed up. There were medical stations set up by the previous battalions. There was not a great deal of shelling. We had no casualties at all. It was almost peaceful. You heard an awful lot of noise going on ahead of you. Destroyed pillboxes were another thing you saw along the side of the beach, destroyed either by our Typhoons or our naval fire or artillery fire or by tanks.
Private Richard Atkinson
9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
It was noisy and the smell of cordite stuck in your nostrils. Cordite and death. And there was a lot of smoke hanging around. The Beachmaster was there. I can remember him shouting, ‘Get off my bloody beach!’ And I says, ‘I don’t want to be on your beach!’ That was to relieve the tension.
Lieutenant Herbert Jalland
8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
We were intent on just getting through, getting away from the beach, the emphasis being that we must get to Bayeux. Nobody wanted to stay on the beach because we knew that it wouldn’t be ve
ry long before German artillery ranged on it or German bombers came. We were expecting a real humdinging do and I don’t think I was alone in wanting to get away from that particular spot as quickly as possible.
Private Richard Atkinson
9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
Montgomery’s orders were that you had to be inland. You were told, ‘When you come off the beach, go up this little ramp, turn sharp-left, de-waterproof, drive on to the road and from there you start.’ Up to the road you had orders and from there you were on your own. You’d see an officer or maybe bump into one of your sergeants and you’d say, ‘Have you seen any of our lot?’ ‘Follow the signs.’ And you picked them up. There’d be a stake stuck in the ground with a ‘TT’ pinned on it or there’d be a doorway with a ‘TT’ and an arrow-point on it. Things like that. By this time the Division was charging inland, going hell for leather.
Major Patrick Barrass
2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment
You’ve got to remember that we all came off different landing craft. I was all right with my company and half of somebody else’s company but that half company had to marry off with its other half coming off another LCI, so there was quite a bit of reorganising to be done before we could all get into our proper groups ready to advance. We then started to carry out what we had gone over there for, which was to make for Bayeux. I remember that A Company started off first on bicycles and carriers. They went ahead and the rest of us followed. St Suplice was the place we were aiming at which was about five miles away inland towards Bayeux. We weren’t really sure where the enemy was so we were going in battle formation. We were in file behind one another and we went up this dusty road, moving in file on either side.