Voices from D-Day

by Jon E. Lewis

  War reporter, SS Leitheft

  Thousands of aircraft, rolling barrages of the batteries, massed tank attacks hammered them in with bombs and shells. The earth heaved thunderously. An inferno was unleashed. But faith was the strongest support of courage. Smeared with blood, covered with dust, gasping and fighting, doggedly dug into the earth, these youths brought the Anglo-Americans to a halt.

  Private Zimmer, 12th SS Panzer Division

  Diary, 10 July [at Hill 112]

  From 6.30 to 8.00 a.m., again heavy machine-gun fire. Then Tommy attacks with great masses of infantry and many tanks. We fight as long as possible but we realize we are in a losing position. By the time the survivors try to pull back, we realize that we are surrounded.

  General Fritz Bayerlain, Panzer Lehr

  Back and forth the bomb carpets were laid, artillery positions were wiped out, tanks overturned and buried, infantry positions flattened and all roads and tracks destroyed. By midday the area resembled a moonscape, with the bomb craters touching rim to rim … All signal communications had been cut and no command was possible. The shock effect on the troops was indescribable. Several of my men went mad and rushed around in the open until they were cut down by splinters. Simultaneously, with the storm from the air, innumerable guns of the American artilley poured drumfire into field positions.

  Alan Hart, RCS

  Diary, 8 July

  The following night, however, the boot was very definitely on the other foot and after the evening’s entertainment was over everyone’s morale was high, to say the least. I was again on duty in the signal office at about 21.15 hours when the RAF heavy bombers started to go over in the direction of Caen. Over Caen they met heavy flak but it did not seem to have any effect … we stood and watched the planes streaming towards Caen, towards the mass of shellbursts which were markedly decreasing. For over an hour the sky was full of huge, four-engined bombers. Never have I been so much stirred. It was a sight which cannot easily be forgotten.

  That stream never seemed to end, each plane pushing inevitably towards its target … to the French it was ‘bon travail’ or ‘Caen finit’. It did us the world of good, and everyone agreed there could have been no better tonic for the victims of the ‘flying bombs’ back in England. Caen is approximately ten miles from Hermanville, and half an hour after the attack finished there was a cloud of dust over the village – it was no smoke screen.

  Wehrmacht Army Newssheet

  12 July 1944

  Tanks forward! So this is it. Now the real magic starts. Three machine guns are hammering in front of us. A German anti-tank gun, and another one, whips its bullets over towards the attackers. American tanks answer. Hand grenades. Machine guns. A spectacle of Hell, drowned again and again by artillery fire.

  Gefreiter Werner Kortenhaus, 21st Panzer Division

  I can paint you a strange picture which stays with me still. On 28 June we mounted an attack west of Caen and succeeded in getting through the British line. The battle lasted a very long time, from 10 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, but around midday there was a lull in the battle. Suddenly the battleground was filled with dance music. Some infantrymen had gone and played with an English radio set, and dance music had come on, filling the air. It was a little unusual.

  …

  One day, right at the beginning of the invasion, we were standing around our tanks quietly smoking cigarettes, with no sound of battle at all, when out of the blue a light English tank came shooting out from our right, out of some woods, came towards us, went between some tanks and crashed into a tree. Nobody had fired because we were taken completely by surprise. Two English soldiers got out of the tank, they were wounded and gave themselves up. I imagine they had panicked because they had somehow lost their way and suddenly found themselves in the middle of so many tanks and then made a bad reaction. So of course we were interested to have a look inside an English tank, and inside I found a large thermos flask. My crew were very pleased because it was full of delicious hot coffee.

  A few days later this thermos flask slipped out of my hands and broke – and I was really sworn at by the crew. The wireless operator always had to look after the provisions, and the thermos flask was a real prize. When I broke it I was much told off.

  Sergeant H.M. Kellar, Devonshire Regiment

  We must have suffered a lot of casualties, because instead of being in charge of a section (ten men) I found myself acting as a platoon commander (thirty men). Promotion was very rapid in action, but you seldom lasted long enough to get paid for it.

  Private Robert Macduff, Wiltshire Regiment

  A ‘Moaning Minnie’ was heard coming over, so we ran across the gap in the hedge and crouched down to avoid it. Unfortunately one dropped quite close to us, killing one and blowing the rest of us off our feet. We got up and moved as fast as we could, but the rake of the mortars followed us, and we were constantly being blown over. At the end of the lane we reached the assembly point. We were badly shaken and began to cry constantly. In the 1914–18 war it would have been called shell shock. We were all sent back to B echelon to be checked. After a few hours though, after a bath, a change of clothes and a good feeding, we were sent back.

  Lance-Bombardier Stanley Morgan, RA

  They’d opened up a road through a field of wheat. This wheat was a lovely crop of wheat – being a farmer I noticed it. And we went right through it.

  Alan Melville, RAF war correspondent

  Normandy, before we overran it, was a green and pleasant land. There is nothing luxuriant about it: it is nice, ordinary country with dour, down-to-earth countryfolk living on it. I drove hundreds of miles daily along the same appalling roads and in and out of the same seemingly endless convoys, and I suppose Hermione contributed to a surprisingly large extent – considering her size – to the fact that the Allies changed the colour of this corner of France. Though only a few very brave men with special duties saw them, I am sure that the trees and the fields on the evening before D-Day were really green; twenty-four hours later they had lost their freshness and were coated with the dust which D-Day had raised. The coating got thicker with every hour and every vehicle that passed, until the trees and the gardens and the houses – at any rate those near a road – became faded and war-weary. Dust was the one really outstanding feature of our life: we swore at it and swallowed it wholesale. It was stupid to drive without goggles, and a blue battle-dress was turned in a few miles to a pale shade of grey – a fact which on at least two occasions proved slightly embarrassing, and necessitated long explanations before I could convince people that I was friend and not foe. When even a jeep accelerated, it sent up a great swirling cloud of thick dust behind it and the man in the vehicle following it choked and cursed. Three-tonners raised really prodigious clouds, and the peak was reached when our aircraft arrived in Normandy. They had only to touch down or take off, or merely start revving up, for the whole neighbourhood to be engulfed in dense grey-brown dust. It got into everything: one’s mouth and ears and eyes and food and clothes, and especially one’s hair. I had lost my hat in the cavortings on the beach on the afternoon of D plus 2, and the amount of foreign matter that got into my hair in the course of half an hour’s drive was unbelievable. It was impossible to tug a comb through the matted entanglement, and whenever I washed my hair I had to take care to do so when there was nobody about, for I was much too ashamed to let anyone see the state of the water after one’s ablutions. The dust even defeated our aircraft, and many of them had to be sent back to England in relays to be fitted with a filter device to keep the engines free. And pilots who had served under Broadhurst in the Middle East and were now with him in Normandy said that they would rather have the sand any day.

  Sadi Schneid (Elimar Schneider), Waffen SS

  We had been spared by the felt lice but their brothers, the lovely white ones, defeated us. As if the Allied invasion was not enough! I escaped from them only when I became an American prisoner six months later. I could never und
erstand why the Germans with all their excellent chemists could not find something effective against this plague. The only thing available was Lysol, which had no effect, and cleaning our clothes in steam baths. The result was that we had permanent lice, and our leather equipment became stiff from steam. Our pullovers were so crawling with lice that we could not bear to put them on. Those Norman civilians who found underwear missing from their cupboards must forgive me for helping myself, but the constant torture of lice was sometimes worse than the fighter-bomber attacks.

  Alfred Leonard, Merchant Navy

  Even though it was a strained time, there was a light air about it as well. Being young the crew looked out for my safety, and gave me a bright orange hat to wear – so that if the ship was hit and we were in the water it would be visible. The troops coming down from the troopships used to see this hat and call me ‘Marigold’.

  Sergeant William B. Smith, Intelligence Corps

  Only on one occasion did we ourselves come under fire. One night a single gun started firing over the house. We lay on the floor in our room, as we normally did to sleep, and I counted exactly fifty shells – typical German preciseness! In the silence after the fiftieth round one of us said he wanted a Jimmy-riddle. We told him to do it out of the window. While he was thus engaged, somebody gave a perfect impression of the sound of an approaching shell. He leapt back with such alacrity that he fell among all our cooking utensils and other equipment, making more noise than the whole bombardment.

  Lieutenant A.J. Holladay, RA

  Diary 19 June D+13

  Woke to really dirty day and the heaviest sea I have seen. The ship is moving very considerably on the bottom – shifting and swinging – which is very unpleasant. Our decks are completely engulfed and the waves are terrific. At least this should get rid of the filthy oil that has been on our decks for two weeks. All the small craft rush to our shelter, but lengthen their hawsers and lie discreetly off when they see how we are shifting. Our stern is bashing against bows of 308 and plates on both ships are buckled. We drift quite a way apart from next ship towards Bob, and the bridge is shattered … At low tide we tie hawsers to neighbouring ships to try and hold us steady in the night. Wind still blowing gale force in evening. What a bloody life! As tide rises again in evening, storm grows in ferocity … water comes lashing up round bridge. Nasty moments … only three ropes holding us forward now and terrific strain coming on them in snatches with the waves. Turn in at midnight.

  20 June (D+14)

  … Storm continues, if anything, worse than before. Only one rope holding now … water halfway up main superstructure. Tide comes up very high indeed and enters my cabin. Wireless operators climb on top of wireless cabin and are half drowned and buffeted there. We get on top of bridge. Power of sea simply terrific – slowly smashing the boat to pieces. Send SOS to 324 and barge picks up men from focsle. Wireless ops can’t be rescued and they spend a bloody night soaked to skin and in considerable danger of being swept away.

  21 June (D+15)

  Tide goes down eventually at about 3,30 a.m. Find wireless ops soaked through and all sleeping in one bed at back of cabin. Rest of cabin completely wrecked, including wireless sets … position becoming serious. When will this ruddy gale die down!?

  22 June (D+15)

  Storm subsided. Sea still choppy but sun and blue sky.

  Commendation for the award of the Military Medal: Lewis Edward Richards, British 231 Infantry Brigade Signal Section

  At approx. 22.30 hrs 12 JUN in the TRUNGY area South of BAYEUX, after heavy fighting during the day, enemy tks [tanks] in strength started to infiltrate through the posns [positions] occupied by 2 DEVON. This constituted a serious threat to the whole of the Div front, and consequently comn [communication] between Bde [Brigade] HQ and 2 Devon became vital. The line was severed, and the wireless link was subject to heavy local interference, making comn difficult, and, at times, impossible.

  In an endeavour to restore comns, Cpl RICHARDS went well fwd in a wireless-fitted jeep, and acted as a relay station. Despite the fact that the posn he had taken up was made extremely dangerous by enemy fire, he remained at his post alone until relieved at 04.00 hrs 13 Jun, when the threat had diminished.

  During this period the courage, skill and devotion to duty displayed by this NCO was instrumental in restoring comn between Bn [Battalion] and Bde HQs, which resulted in the effective direction of the sp arms.

  Marine Stanley Blacker, RM

  There was no toilet or anything like that on the LCM. It was over the side or nothing. There was no shelter either, so you had to sleep on it in the open. It was bad weather, so we were wet through for days and nights on end. Later on, when the beach was cleared, we slept there and used a large tarpaulin we found. We spread it out, laid on it and pulled the other half up over us.

  Private Robert Macduff, Wiltshire Regiment

  I well remember the awful fatigue that overtook us after a few days of constant movement, fear and hunger and lack of sleep. I remember once stopping by the roadside, sat down and immediately fell asleep in seconds, only to be roused after five minutes. My mouth tasted foul because of the lack of fresh food.

  Captain Douglas G. Aitken, Medical Officer, 24th Lancers

  We are all tired and it is getting dark. Suddenly a shot rings out and a fellow comes running: ‘I think Corporal – is dead.’ I go over to the tank; the men stand at the front looking sheepish; down the side of the tank, near the back, the body of this wretched fellow is squatting and next to him is the cooker still burning. His hands are in his pockets and he is very dead. On examination it’s obvious that the accidental discharge of one round of machine-gun fire from the neighbouring tank killed him straight out. I tell Pip – acting squadron leader – and he suddenly flares up: ‘He’s dead! He’s dead and all bloody day long from bloody dawn he fights and sits up there against the Boche. All bloody day and the poor bugger comes in and gets shot while brewing up his first cup of tea of the day!’ ‘OK, sorry Doc,’ he adds.

  The hardship of the Battle of Normandy was also inflicted on French civilians caught between the warring armies.

  Odette Lelanoy, Vire

  One morning we woke up to find the fields around the house full of Germans, tanks, lorries and munitions etc. My father said, ‘Right, I think it’s time to pack our things, because we’re going to be bombed’ – the Germans made such a target. And so it was. The English planes came during the day and it was all machine guns and bullets. As soon as things calmed down, we set out down a small path across the fields … After a while we were joined by others, refugees, caught in the pincer of the American movement and the English front which was moving down. The Germans were in amongst us too, being pushed back. At the outset there weren’t many of us, but gradually the numbers grew, because of all the people, all the peasants retreating from the front. Horses, carts, peasants, cars, bicycles, Germans, lorries, tanks, were all mixed together. We kept getting caught in bursts of fire and bombing by the planes. We lived in fields in the rain all through June and July. We lived in trenches, in farm buildings, in hayricks. We washed in a stream or a well, we dug up vegetables from gardens and ate dead cows killed in the bombings and by the machine-gun fire. All the pigeons which had been killed we ate. Our clothes became rags. We had nothing.

  After many days on the march the large group we had been began to break up, and went their different ways. Our family was now completely on its own. Eventually we arrived at Magny, which was deserted. We were exhausted and couldn’t go any further. So we looked for somewhere to shelter. I spotted a large house which had been ransacked, doors open, everything taken. I went in and saw that it had two bedrooms which were empty. As I pushed open the door to the third bedroom I awoke a German officer who was sleeping on a bed. He jumped to his feet, pointed his revolver at me and said, ‘What do you want?’ I explained that all I wanted was a place for my family to sleep, that we had had enough, that we had now been on the march for two months solid, and wan
ted to stop here. He said, ‘Okay, you can take this house. I’m giving it to you.’ Well, as I was then 20 years of age, I would answer back a bit and didn’t stand for him addressing me in familiar terms – he’d used ‘Du’ [the familiar form of ‘you’] with me. So I said, ‘Why are you being so familiar? You don’t speak to young girls like that.’ Well, he was obviously taken aback, laughed and said, ‘I beg your pardon, miss’, made an exaggeratedly low bow and then left. My parents, my brother and I moved in and waited for the Americans to arrive.

  ***

  Sub-Lieutenant Alun Williams, RNVR

  Normandy

  Then suddenly – within only a few days of D-Day – the English coastline became virtually deserted, the contrast in such a short time being quite unbelievable and unreal. Even more so was getting back to Dartmouth with orders to close down the Base, only to find that security restrictions on the beaches had been lifted. I found myself having to make my way through families with children holding buckets and spades where days before there had been barbed wire.

  ***

  Perhaps the most telling measure of the bloodiness of Normandy was the fact that the Everett Tables used by the British to forecast battle casualties had to be extended in mid-campaign to include a new category of fighting: ‘Double Intense’. It became pitifully obvious to those in the infantry units at the sharp end of battle that their chances of not being wounded or killed were slim. In June and July there were 100,000 American casualties alone. Field hospitals and evacuation hospitals overflowed. Corpses littered fields and ruins. Every evening, company commanders in front-line units wrote letters to bereaved wives and mothers. And every day in homes across the Allied countries and Germany the long- dreaded telegram arrived at the door.

  Major F.D. Goode, Gloucestershire Regiment

  I now went out to help the wounded man. There was some firing from the snipers but I was lucky. He had been hit by a shell fragment under the right armpit and the lung was exposed. I put a field dressing on it but it was inadequate and I managed to fill the syringe and gave him a shot of morphia. I found out later that he had died. The MO told me that if I had simply plastered the wound with a cow pat it might have saved him as it would have restored the vacuum in his lungs.