Forgotten Voices of D-Day Read online

  We had to seal the tanks. Every tank had to be sealed to keep the water out because we were supposed to be dropped into six feet of water when we got to France. Each crew did its own tank. We had to go round with a black compound all round the tank and this compound dried into a very hard sealing. And we had to put extended exhausts and extended air louvres on so that no water got into the air louvres or the exhaust. They were about four or five feet above the tank, these extras, so as you could get through the water. At the other side they were going to be blown off so you could get back to normal: there was a small explosive charge coupled to the turret and the tank commander just pressed a button and blew these things off. It was a good thing to do, doing it for yourself. You knew you were responsible for yourself.

  Captain William Mills

  Administrative Officer, 9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment

  Our vehicles were painted: we had signs allotted to each vehicle, like LH33, TD24, UD and all that. This all meant Upper Deck, Between Decks, Lower Deck. It was all worked out in advance. And also the ship number was on. We didn’t know what it meant. All my vehicles were painted MT21.

  Private Arthur Dales

  Royal Army Service Corps

  We were attached to a field security section in a village in South Wales on the Cardiff to Newport road. A bit further along the road was a big American camp and in there was the 2nd United States Infantry Division. They had an Indian head on their shoulder patch, they were earmarked for the invasion and they had been confined to camp in readiness for D-Day. They wanted extra security, so our unit was earmarked under the field security section to provide a twenty-four-hour guard on this camp and we set up a roadblock on this road outside the camp and stopped every vehicle and searched it.

  One night I was on duty and I was just walking round by the wire and an American soldier came over and he shouted out, ‘Say, Limey! Can you do anything with these?’ And he threw over the wire his swimming trunks, packets of cigarettes and some toiletries. There was talcum powder – I’d never seen men’s talcum powder before. Well, I wished him good luck because I knew he was earmarked for the beaches. And it must have been about two o’clock in the morning that the gates in the camp opened and convoys of lorries started going down to Barry docks.

  Sergeant Neville Howell

  73rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery

  I remember it was the Saturday evening when we started off. It was extremely cold and there was a little light drizzle. It got dark fairly quickly. It was a very slow journey because the road was obviously cluttered up with other regiments, other people, who were moving to the docks. And I remember one occasion when we stopped by some bungalows by the side of the road and I was rather surprised that nobody but nobody came out to look at us. They were obviously still occupied but I suppose people in that area were so used to people making dummy runs to the docks.

  Amphibious DUKWs of a Royal Army Service Corps beach group company lined up ready for loading, early June 1944.

  Sherman tanks and amphibious DUKWs of 13th/18th Royal Hussars, Gosport.

  Sergeant James Bellows

  1st Battalion, Royal Hampshire Regiment

  Away we go in a three-ton lorry down to Southampton and we stopped by Queen’s Park, a little park right by the docks. There was a workman passing us and he started passing various remarks. One of them, jokingly, was, ‘Another fucking training? When are you going to get on with the bloody job?’ Various remarks was passed backwards and forwards but there wasn’t one man who said, ‘We’re just going to get on with the job.’

  Private Frederick Perkins

  5th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, attached to 3rd Canadian Division

  The buzz got round: ‘It’s on.’ We were marched down right through the city centre in three ranks fully equipped. Camouflage netting, all our equipment, the ammunition, we had to carry. I was a Bren gunner myself. Our disposal point for loading was the 101 Dock, which was called the New Dock, Southampton. That dock must have gone three-mile back and it was nothing but landing craft tied to the jetty, seven or eight deep all the way along. A vast and unimaginable sight to see all these landing craft and we had to walk from one landing craft to the other to the other to the other to load.

  Marine Edward ‘Tommy’ Treacher

  45 (Royal Marine) Commando

  We had a game of football with 3 Commando whilst we were waiting to get on the landing craft. We dropped our gear and said, ‘Come on boys, we’ll have a game of football.’ Nobody seemed afraid. D-Day, they was looking forward to it. You’d never believe it. The morale in No 1 SS [Special Service] Brigade was so high it was absolutely brilliant. Nobody thought about getting killed.

  Major George Chambers

  8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

  I remember standing on the quay waiting to board. We were going over on American landing craft infantry, LCIs, and who should come along but Winston Churchill, Ernie Bevin, Field Marshal Smuts and I can’t remember who else; Churchill with his great big cigar. He passed by with tears running down his cheeks. ‘God bless you, boys, God bless you, boys.’ And he walked on, smoking a cigar. Which didn’t altogether improve our morale. We thought, ‘My God, what are we up to? What are we in for?’

  Landing craft massed along the quayside at Southampton.

  Lieutenant Herbert Jalland

  8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

  I remember being open-mouthed at some of the equipment that was being assembled. I remember seeing part of Pluto, which looked like an enormous bobbin, floating about in Southampton Water. We didn’t know what that was. We saw pieces of Mulberry, some with cranes, some without. Again, we’d no idea what they were. We saw the Scorpions and the flails.

  Sub Lieutenant Herbert Male

  LCT first lieutenant

  Tanks had to be backed into the ship: down the beach, up the ramp, backed in two abreast. Then we had to chain them down and scotch them up: big scotches, so they wouldn’t move if the sea got rough, so they wouldn’t slide around on the deck. We scotched them with great bulwarks of wood under the tank tracks and we bottle-screwed each one down. We took in twelve on D-Day.

  Lance Corporal John Blake

  288th Company, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC)

  We moved down to Tilbury and was put on an American Liberty ship. This meant lifting the trucks on. We just sat in the trucks and they lifted us up and put us down in the hold. We drove on to this wire netting stuff that had a hook at each end and they just hooked it on to one of the cranes on the ship and, whoosh, we was on, in no time at all.

  Private Lionel Roebuck

  2nd Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

  Looking down on to the quayside, a couple of red caps came along marching some prisoners. They were obviously ‘Absent Without Leave’ chaps who had been picked up and held in the clink right up until the last day but they weren’t going to be allowed to miss out on the event of the morrow. They’d all had their hair cropped and looked a bit miserable.

  Completed Phoenix caissons floating off Selsey.

  A Pluto Conundrum, loaded with pipeline, ready to be towed across the Channel.

  Sergeant James Bellows

  1st Battalion, Royal Hampshire Regiment

  The adjutant came up and said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ ‘Sir?’ I said. ‘What’s that?’ ‘I’ve got a prisoner for you.’ ‘Do what?’ I said. And he brought him out. He was a Channel Islander. He’d joined up after me; his number was one after me; we’d done our basic training together; we were signallers together; I took him into action in Sicily as a matter of fact. But directly he got back to England he’d done a runner. Got caught; got away, done a runner again.

  He’d been up before the CO just before he’d done this last run, and the CO said, ‘Now, look. You know what we’re going to do. One of the first places to be liberated will be the Channel Islands and all your family are there. Surely you want to take a part in liberating the Channel Islan
ds?’ He told the CO what he could do with the Channel Islands and he tipped the table up and done a runner and got away with it; but he’d got captured the next day and the adjutant had brought him down to me. So there I had my prisoner complete with handcuffs.

  Then, later on, another man appeared, dressed in civilian clothes. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I ain’t half glad I found you, sergeant. I’ve been looking everywhere. They told me you was here.’ He was an Irishman. He’d been on leave to southern Ireland, compassionate leave. I believe his mother had died or something. He said, ‘I was afraid that if I didn’t get back in time and missed this, my mates would’ve said I was trying to get out of it.’ He was as pleased as punch to be back. I had to fix him up with a uniform, arms and equipment, ready for the next morning.

  Private Frederick Perkins

  5th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, attached to 3rd Canadian Division

  We had this vast amount of equipment. As a beach group we didn’t land in the assault with small battle order, we had field marching order, which was a big pack, small pack, everything. A blanket tied in a groundsheet and then tied round the top of the big pack, going right round the pack, and all our clothes, all our spare clothing, socks, pants and a greatcoat, all that was wrapped in the gas cap and pushed down inside the big pack. That became buoyant, then. It acted like a life jacket for us, really. We all had Mae Wests as well. Loading was extremely difficult with all this equipment because one got jostled.

  Corporal Frank Cosgrove

  45 (Royal Marine) Commando

  In my rucksack at the bottom I had four two-inch mortar bombs, explosive, two smoke bombs and I carried six Mills bombs. I had, I think it was, near enough two hundred rounds for the tommy gun and they would also fit the American automatic that I had. I had two smoke bombs; they were dangerous, they’d got phosphorus in them, and I was worried about getting a bullet near them. Then every man in the unit from the colonel down carried two hundred rounds of rifle ammunition in a cloth bandolier. So it was a pretty good load. I would think about seventy to eighty pounds in the rucksack. Then everybody carried a few personal bits and pieces, which helped to put the weight up again. There was no spare tunics or trousers, obviously. Everybody’s boots were checked. You had to have thirteen studs in each boot with a steel toe piece and a steel heel.

  Lieutenant Herbert Jalland

  8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

  Some of us, including myself, had to carry a bicycle, the idea being that we’d rush off down the road as soon as we landed. I also had a spare battery and some extra Bren gun magazines to generally help out so that we’d have sufficient ammunition when we got on the other side. We were given a good supply of condoms with which to waterproof things like grenades; I think all officers had two grenades. Watches, compasses, they all went into condoms. Separate ones. We had a very heavy load to carry and, in addition to that, the final part, they gave us huge waders which went over our boots and up under our armpits, over the equipment, over everything, the idea being to keep us dry going ashore. I remember that in common with certainly a number of other officers and probably quite a few of the men I was in fact wearing my pyjamas under my battledress, the reason being that it prevented chafing.

  Ordinary Seaman Thomas Bartlett

  Radar operator, HMS Bulolo (converted liner and Royal Navy Flag Ship)

  I always remember it. I stood on the top deck of our ship looking at all these soldiers boarding and, as I watched, I saw quite a little man, very young, and he was struggling up the gangplank with this great pack on his back. It was nearly making him drop to his knees going up the gangplank. I suppose somebody might have thought the same about me, but I thought, ‘The poor little devil, he’s not fit for this.’ But he was; he went. And you see these blokes and it goes through your head, ‘I wonder how many of those will make it back,’ and you know damned well that some of them won’t.

  Sub Lieutenant Terry White

  Landing Ship Tank (LST) crew

  We also took on board a lot of medical staff. Lots of doctors, army medical staff and naval medical staff. It all seemed a bit pessimistic when you looked at this lot coming aboard, but it was a necessary thing, I suppose.

  Driver Robert Lunn

  101st General Transport Company, RASC

  The sergeant gets up on the side of my DUKW and says, ‘What you got on, fellas?’ I said, ‘Shells’. He said, ‘What kind of shells?’ I said, ‘I don’t know what kind of shells. All we’re doing is delivering them.’ They lifted the canvases up and they looked at them and said, ‘Well, we don’t want you in here.’ He calls an officer over and says, ‘We’ve got some funnies over here,’ and the officer got up on the side of the DUKW and said, ‘Oh, yes. We don’t want you here, you’ll have to go into a special bay.’ So they took us out of the transhipment area, up a lane, into a field. A gang of Pioneer Corps came along and we took our canvases up and got them unloaded and I said to one of them, ‘Why is it so special to bring us from the transhipping area to here?’ He said, ‘Well, don’t you know what’s in these shells?’ I said, ‘It must be something important?’ And he said ‘Very important. It’s a special type of shell and we won’t use it unless we’re forced to.’ Then Owen said, ‘I think I’ve guessed what they are and I sincerely hope they’re not going to use it. I think it’s gas. They’re prepared in case Jerry uses gas.’

  DELAY AND DECISION

  Lieutenant Commander Lawrence Hogben

  New Zealand officer, Royal Navy meteorological team

  I was one of Eisenhower’s six weather forecasters. I worked underground in the Admiralty Office, near Admiralty Arch, on the weather forecasts. That remained our centre for the whole D-Day operation.

  Men of the Green Howards embark for Normandy.

  We were told that the invasion was coming early on in 1944 but we were not given an exact date. I’m not sure if the exact date had even been decided. We were also told that two of us would represent the Admiralty in the sixman team which would make the actual forecast, the others in the team being two Americans and two nominated by the Met Office. Our sources of information were the hundreds of weather observations made by the Allies and, in addition, all the observations made by the Germans, which Bletchley Park decoded for us very rapidly and enabled us to put on our maps. There was also the occasional flight into the Atlantic and the occasional weather ship out on the Atlantic – not very many.

  May was a pleasant, easy month and we made eighteen successful theoretical invasion forecasts because the weather was so good and, as a result, the generals had considerable confidence in what we were doing. Then, at the end of May, it was clear to everybody that the good times influenced by an Azores anti-cyclone had ended and that things were going to get rough. By 1 June, of course, the military and ourselves were all getting very itchy because we knew then that the date was 5 June and we were being asked on the first for five-day forecasts, which we couldn’t make. All we knew was the weather was breaking up and it was liable to be a bit rough at the beginning of June.

  June 5 was settled as the date because of all the different requirements that the military and the navy had. They wanted three to four days with rather calm weather and winds not more than force three to four. We told them it was 31–1 against getting that sort of weather; they knew that they’d have to be satisfied with something less. What they did insist on, however, was that the tide should be right, so that the tide would be at half-tide when twilight arrived and the mine-clearers could get to work on the beaches and at full tide the troops would come in in their landing craft. In addition, there had to be a nearly full moon for the parachutists. Then again there had to be not too much cloud so that the bombers could do their work. All that added up to 5 June but the sixth was an alternative if the worst came to the worst. If the invasion didn’t happen on the fifth or the sixth then the invasion would go on the nineteenth when the tides and moon and so on would be similar. In that case, of course, there would be more chance
of the Germans finding out what we were up to.

  From the first until the third we were forecasting that there was going to be a break-up of the weather but we didn’t know how bad it would be or how long it would last. The Americans took the view that the Azores anti-cyclone was magically going to make things possible. They continued to take this view until the evening of the third. This was the crunch forecast because the night of the third was crunch night. We had to forecast for the fifth, which was Ike’s chosen day for invasion.

  Group Captain James Stagg

  Chief meteorological adviser

  I had to go before General Eisenhower and his commanders, who met for nothing else, twice a day during those fateful days, the first, second, third of June, down in Southwick House behind Portsmouth.

  As the time went on, the seriousness, the ominousness, of the whole situation got worse until by Saturday night, 3 June, it became obvious that there would certainly be a storm in the Channel area on the Sunday night and Monday. Next morning, early on Sunday, 4 June, General Eisenhower confirmed the decision that he had made the previous evening and suspended the whole operation.

  Here was the whole business completely suspended, the naval craft all returning to what bases they could get into in England and no suggestion on our charts that the weather situation would or could improve for many days ahead. That day, Sunday, was a day of dreadful tension. The whole operation was hung up.

  Midshipman John Cahil

  HMS Mauritius (Royal Navy cruiser)

  I, with a number of my shipmates, went to Holy Communion before breakfast. An unusually big congregation: men kneeling under under-slung hammocks. And at a particularly serious moment of the service, I remember, the broadcast was made throughout the ship by the boatswain’s mate: ‘The operation has been postponed.’ Whereupon the majority of the congregation got up and went to breakfast.