Voices from D-Day

by Jon E. Lewis

  Charwomen have their Buckets

  Bill Posters have a Pail

  So why the Hell can’t Goathland

  Get some Ruddy Mail.

  Captain Edward McGregor, US 1st Infantry Division

  The mail started coming in and I received a package from my little Wren [member of Womens’ Royal Naval Service]. It was a tin, a fair-sized one, maybe about a foot in length. I opened it up and there was a loaf of bread in there. I thought, ‘My God, what’s she sending me a loaf of bread for?’ But inside the loaf of bread was a bottle of scotch. The British are terrific. Ingenious.

  John Hall, Winnipeg Rifles

  Every letter written by the troops had to be censored by an officer. This meant that I had to read about fifty letters a day when we were not in action. I soon acquired the knack of skimming through them without involving myself in the personal content. It was certainly a revelation to me to read some of them. I had one gunner who wrote exactly the same letter to his wife and to six other young ladies. I could not imagine what sort of life he had led at home. Another man, who was a real moaner and full of grumbles, wrote to a friend called Jack giving him all sorts of prohibited information. I tore the letter up and gave it back to him, and he then told me that Jack was a member of Parliament and his personal friend. This cut no ice with me and he had a further short and sharp lecture. However, the troops as a bunch were marvellous and we all got on famously together.

  Letter, Canadian soldier 10 July

  Dear Mother

  I feel like a heel for not writing regularly to you and I know how anxious I would feel if I didn’t hear from you. Please never stop writing dear.

  I cannot tell you much about what is going on over here, as we haven’t been very far inland and cannot tell about the people or the country either. I can say this though: it is a gigantic business and we are fighting a tough enemy.

  Mother, before I close for a while, I am a bit mixed up about things but am straight on this: Dad and you are my ideal couple. If I can be half the man Dad is and have the outlook you have on life, I won’t ever have to worry. I have been scared and I guess there will be plenty of times in the future when I will be scared, but as long as I don’t let you, Dad, Dot, Rich and David down, I shall be happy, no matter the outcome of this do, in so far as it affects my personal future behaviour. Will say cheerio for now, sweetheart.

  All best love,

  Art

  The fighting in Normandy was but the tip of a vast Allied supply effort. All who set foot on the beaches of Normandy that year were amazed by the flow of goods coming ashore, ferried by the ubiquitous DUKW, while behind the scenes men laboured away to keep the war machine running.

  Richard Dimbleby, BBC war correspondent

  11 June 1944

  I saw the shining, blue sea. Not an empty sea, but a sea crowded, infested with craft of every kind: little ships, fast and impatient, scurrying like water–beetles to and fro, and leaving a glistening wake behind them; bigger ships in stately, slow procession with the sweepers in front and the escort vessels on the flank – it was a brave, oh, an inspiring sight. We are supplying the beaches all right – no doubt of that. We flew on south-west, and I could see France and Britain, and I realized how very near to you all at home in England is this great battle in Normandy. It’s a stone’s throw across the gleaming water.

  I saw it all as a mighty panorama, clear and etched in its detail. There were the supply ships, the destroyers, the torpedo boats, the assault craft, leaving England. Halfway over was another flotilla, and near it a huge, rounded, ugly, capital ship, broadside on to France. There in the distance was the Cherbourg peninsula, Cherbourg itself revealed in the sun. And there, right ahead now, as we reset course, were the beaches. Dozens, scores, hundreds of craft lying close inshore, pontoons and jetties being lined up to make a new harbour where, six days ago, there was an empty stretch of shore.

  Alexandre Reynaud, Mayor of Ste Mère Eglise

  On a beautiful day in mid-June I was finally invited by a Canadian officer, Captain Tanner, of Civil Affairs, an active and cheerful person and an excellent soldier, to accompany him in his jeep to visit the big new landing ports. This was a huge favour, since access to the beaches was strictly off-limits to civilians. But already I was beginning to get the impression that ‘off-limits’ doesn’t mean exactly the same thing to Americans as the word ‘verboten’ to Germans.

  So we took off via Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, along the back roads bordered with hedges, and which groups of boy scouts were working to widen. Soon, at a turn, we came upon the dunes bordering the ocean.

  Hundreds of balloons which looked exactly like monstrous fish were suspended in the sky above us and inland as far as the eye could see. Some were only a few yards above the dunes, others were a little higher, and still others were swaying gently, several hundred metres up. Some of them were lying on the ground, partly deflated. The cables that kept them tied to earth looked like giant seaweed.

  Our jeep, like a poor little spider lost in the midst of these monsters, raced over the metal trackways on the beach.

  Like woodlouse whose dimensions were in keeping with those of the landscape, the ten-metre long amphibious ‘ducks’, which had wheels and propellers, climbed up the dunes, deposited their loads, then disappeared once again behind them at fifty kilometres an hour.

  Here and there were huge piles of crates that trucks were carrying off toward the roads. All sorts of debris were piled up between the dunes; smashed ‘ducks’, trucks, tanks, boats, metal, as though they had been washed up in some gigantic shipwreck.

  Not a single tree remained standing after the great air raids of June; there was nothing but sand and cement blocks torn from the German blockhouses, from which long iron rods were sticking up.

  During a long time, it seemed to us, very tiny insects, that we were gliding in the depths of a vast sea spangled with wrecks, filled with a huge flora and a prehistoric fauna.

  Suddenly, the jeep took a different track and turned off between two dunes. The wheels were no longer squeaking: we were on the beach and the sand was hard.

  From Foucarville to Vey’s Bay, hundreds of ships had run aground or were still floating. There were little barges, rowboats, tankers and massive cargoes. All had flat bottoms and stood perfectly upright on the sand. The hull of the cargoes had been opened like closet doors, and from them had emerged jeeps, trucks, tanks and cannons. Cars zig-zagged along the beach between the huge carcasses. At high tide, the latter closed their trap-doors and quickly sped off to England.

  ‘Ducks’ were constantly arriving from the dunes, coming down to the ocean and entering the water; their propellers beat the waves, and they took up positions alongside the rails of the large floating ships that had remained in the water. Immobile, they allowed themselves to be filled with all sorts of light cargo: men, food, clothing, munitions.

  Thus, without wasting time, each cargo would be ready when came the time of day when the tide would allow it to open up and empty its hold.

  Heavier equipment and crates were unloaded onto barges that had been sunk end-to-end to form a metal bridge, and trucks and trailers loaded up alongside this new type of wharf.

  Above each ship, one of the monstrous fish on the end of a cable kept watch.

  Leonard Miles, 168 General Transport Company

  DUKWs were not popular in the company, mostly because driving a DUKW on the sea was a monotonous job. The engine was noisy and ran very hot, and the trip from ship to shore to a transhipment area, off loading, and then back through DUKW control to sea went on time after time. But the DUKW was an excellent vehicle for the job, the making of the landings. You could inflate the tyres to the pressure you wanted from the driver’s panel. It was possible to deflate the tyre pressures when entering the sandy beaches or inflate them on a normal road. In the event of getting stuck in very loose sand, the DUKW had a winch which could be anchored to some firm object. It was American, the DUKW, and all their vehicles and equ
ipment were out of this world compared to ours. Without the American equipment we wouldn’t have won.

  Alan Melville, RAF war correspondent

  Down on the beaches things were becoming hourly more organized. One-way traffic systems were put into force, and very nearly drove us mental. It was quite a normal procedure, if you wanted to go fifty yards from Point A to Point B, to be sent round a four-mile circuit and – just as you were reaching your objective – to be told by an unbending MP that there was no left turn to the spot you wanted to reach. It was all like a game of Snakes and Ladders, with very long and tenuous snakes and very short and unreliable ladders. Beating the service policemen by dodging illegally down a one-way road against the traffic became a popular pastime. A DUKW backed into Hermione on one such trip and very nearly squashed the life out of her. When a DUKW decides to do that sort of thing, there is nothing you can do about it except toot madly: the wretched things are so high off the ground that they simply ride roughshod over such puny objects as jeeps. Eventually, the corporal at the wheel or helm (I never quite knew with these amphibious affairs) realized that all was not well in the neighbourhood of his stern or rear bumper. Both he and I got out; we were hot and white with dust and short of temper, and I hurled abuse at the man, ending by asking him what the hell he meant by reversing without making sure that there was nothing behind him. He shrieked back at me, ‘I’ve been four times round this bloody circuit and I’m so bloody browned off I don’t care what I bloody well back into’, and then added a quite redundant ‘sir’ and hoisted himself back into his DUKW. There was no answer to that one except to retire with as much dignity as possible and extricate Hermione from the entanglement. The Pioneer Corps were already at work widening the first lateral road and filling in the bunkers on it. There was a track along one side of the road on which some form of tram had run from Ouistreham to Luc-sur-Mer, and great gangs of men were engaged on hauling this up by its roots. The road was really only wide enough to take one line of traffic, and as you frequently had to negotiate your way past the heaviest types of tanks which had just come off the beaches, the number of Pioneers who risked the opposite of decapitation by sticking their behinds out into the roadway must have been very great. In spite of the shelling, we had an enormous quantity of material ashore.

  Citation for Croix de Guerre, awarded to Lance-Corporal Reginald Jenkins, RASC

  Placed in charge of a section of vehicles with the task of supplying smoke equipment for the purpose of covering the Eastern Sector of the beachhead, this NCO showed outstanding qualities of leadership and initiative. Although unable to reach his position on D-Day, he arrived with his vehicles as soon as a way could be cleared, and from D+2 until the whole detachment was relieved on D+51 he was continually in charge of this section. He himself was a driver of a vehicle, he carried out major and other repairs to the vehicles in his section and by his unusual mechanical ability prevented any vehicle from being unserviceable for more than 2 hours. Despite damage by shell blast, fire and rough country, the vehicles under his control were kept in good condition by his supervision and prompt action – sometimes unorthodox but always effective. He and the drivers under his command were daily under enemy fire and the encouragement which he gave, by act and word, to his men undoubtedly contributed in large measure to the high and sustained morale and efficiency of his section. Despite the fact that a smoke screen had sometimes to be maintained all day for days on end, and also on moonlight nights, the supply of generators never failed at any time and this satisfactory performance was due in very great measure to the initiative and leadership displayed by Lance-Corporal Jenkins.

  They sang rude songs about their leaders (‘Hitler only had one ball / Goring had two, but very small / Himmler had something similar / But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all’) and called them ‘Krauts’ and ‘Jerries’, but the insouciant attitude of the Allied soldier towards his German counterpart hid a wide range of feelings.

  Sergeant William B. Smith, Intelligence Corps

  That morning I had my first actual work. A batch of something like a hundred prisoners was brought in, among them an officer who was shouting out to the men that if they were interrogated they must not disclose any military information. He was quickly removed from the scene in accordance with standard drill, that officers must be removed immediately from the men in case they should try to organize any resistance. The mentality of the Germans was most interesting, though. Our most important job was to identify the German units and the number of prisoners from them. I got the Germans to do my job for me. When a substantial number arrived, I would line them up and call for the senior NCO. Somebody, usually a sergeant, would step forward and I would tell him to sort the men into groups, one group for each company. Invariably they would conscientiously carry out my orders, anxious to demonstrate to us how efficient they were. They did not seem to realize that they were, in fact, helping the enemy.

  …

  I decided that I wanted a slit trench dug for myself in case of air attack or shelling, and gave two young prisoners spades and set them to work. They worked marvellously, quite oblivious that I was the enemy. They were interested in talking to me, asking if I was an ‘Aktiver’ (professional soldier). When the trench was deep enough, they set about camouflaging it from the air, by covering the dug-up soil with grass. The Germans had laid a lot of mines in these fields, and to show which fields had mines in had twisted the wire of the fence in a certain way. The grass in the next field, quite close to my trench, was much better than that in our field, and they had a discussion as to whether they should go into that field to gather some. They decided that no mines would have been laid within a few feet of the fence, and went over to collect enough to finish my shelter for me.

  Ernie Pyle, war correspondent

  Another high-ranking [German] officer was brought in and the first thing he asked was the whereabouts of his personal orderly. When told that his orderly was deader than a mackerel, he flew off the handle and accused us of depriving him of his personal comfort.

  ‘Who’s going to dig my foxhole for me?’ he demanded.

  Captain Edward W. McGregor, US 1st Infantry Division

  Having lived through the nightmare years of the thirties in high school and college I regarded the Nazis with absolute hatred for the things they had perpetrated in Germany. However, as a professional soldier myself, I had a high respect for their infantry, who fought very tenaciously. They were crackerjack troops.

  Seaman C.J. Wells, Merchant Navy

  We’d had a lot of propaganda about the Germans, so we’d got to the point where we hated them. But the Germans had a bit of guts, whatever you say about them.

  Leonard Miles, 168 General Transport Company

  They weren’t bad [people], most of the Germans were only there because of the say-so of a dictator. In fairness, they were a very difficult force to reckon with, they were very good soldiers. I had great respect for them really. Once they had had enough they hoisted a white flag, and there were no dirty tricks, no throwing of hand grenades after they surrendered. I had had experience of Rommel in the days in the desert beforehand and he had impressed me there.

  Anonymous British soldier

  We caught two SS men – well, boys really. They were only about 15 or 16. Arrogant like you’d never believe! So we thought we’d take them down a peg or two and made them lie on the ground, and measured them out – like we were digging graves for them. Then we made them dig these ‘graves’ and get in. I think we even lined up like we were going to shoot them – I’m not proud of this by the way, it was a terrible thing to do – and do you know what? We couldn’t break them. It ended up scaring us more than it scared them. They wouldn’t break.

  Donald S. Vaughan, 79th Armoured Division

  They were there and we had to go through them. We were trained to shoot at them, and that was it.

  Captain Albert H. Smith, US 1st Infantry Division

  The German soldiers were very profes
sional, good soldiers – the ones we met. We hadn’t met the SS yet, we hadn’t met the people who committed the atrocities yet. We were just fighting one professional division against another, German, professional division. I must say we were giving them, from the standpoint of artillery and airstrikes, ten times what we were taking. And they were sitting there – they were holding their positions. As you know the British were unable to take Caen for a month and a half, and taking terrible casualties every time they mounted one of their operations. This is until about the end of the first week in August. Then, when the Germans knew they had been defeated, when they knew they had to get back to the Siegfried Line, when they knew they had to get back to Germany – then you ran into a different kind of German. You ran into one who was willing to surrender if he was back of you, and get out of your way if he was in front of you. From the landing in June, though, until the end of July we were fighting the toughest kind of German they could put in the line. Very professional, and made it very tough for us.

  Lt. Elliott Johnson, US 4th Infantry Division

  The fifth night we were there, we were in dug-in fox holes, in a very checkered position. There were Germans ahead of us and Germans in the back of us. Americans over there ahead of these Germans. The infantry and the artillery were side by side. There was no infantry out in front. When the infantry moved, we moved. There was no straight front line. It was a mess.

  We were surrounded by hedgerow fences. One corner would be cut down so cattle could go and drink. In one such corner, there was a sniper. He was shooting at us. Every time I’d stick my head out of the fox hole, I’d get shot at. I called two very dear friends on the telephone. We fanned out, each of us with a grenade. At a given point, we pitched our grenades and accomplished what we had to do.

  I avoid using words like ‘kill a man’ because I like to divorce myself from that. We recognized that we were in a war, but we recognized that they came from families like we came from families and that they had loved ones and they were good guys and they were bad guys. We were called on by our government, that our country was in jeopardy. Therefore we had to fight for it. Personally, I had no malice at any time toward the Germans.