Forgotten Voices of D-Day
Page 11
Private John Weathers
12th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
We had our chutes with us and we were all herded together. We could see all these planes lined up down the runways. It was getting towards dusk by then; it was about nine o’clock in the evening. There was a lot of hanging about and waiting and finally the word came through for us to get aboard, so we all trooped off looking like I don’t know what.
Warrant Officer George Oliver
Australian Stirling bomber pilot, 196 Squadron, RAF
We had to go out and start up our aircraft. When we walked up to our old Stirling, there it was, with these three white stripes about a foot wide painted on each wing and on the fuselage. The logistics of that really made an impression on me because we didn’t know anything about it, but every aircraft that was going to take an actual part in the D-Day landings was painted like this. Of course it was for our own protection because aircraft that didn’t have these white stripes on it would be subject to attack.
We checked our aircraft over. I ran the engines up, made sure they were OK, the bomb bays had been loaded with the supplies we were going to take. And then we just had to wait till we got the order to come down and pick up our gear and be taken out in the evening. I had a few butterflies in my tummy at the time, a mixture of apprehension and excitement, but there was no way I could sit still and mooch around. I walked back to my hut, which was quite a long walk – they had a PA system so wherever you were you could be called in easy enough – and I had a shower and a shave, polished my shoes, all for something to do, really.
We were going to drop these airborne boys from eight hundred feet so we weren’t going to run into cold weather, it was windy and wet, very windy and wet, but it wasn’t cold, so I thought, ‘Ah, I’m not going to wear any flying gear tonight.’ You’d got to wear your helmet because it’s got the earphones in it and in any case it’s good protection in a fire, and I always wore gloves and goggles. I mightn’t have had the goggles on but they were hanging round my neck, and that was the same thought: protection from fire. But I didn’t wear any gear apart from that.
In the evening we got the call to go and pick up our parachutes and get out to the aircraft. We were out there probably an hour before take-off and we had to check our aircraft and run our engines up again and make sure everything was right. And there were all these airborne soldiers standing there, just by our aircraft. They all had black on their faces and leaves in their helmets and they had grenades hanging off them and machine guns strapped on their shoulders, all that sort of thing. They really did look fearsome and I remember thinking, ‘I’m glad they’re on our side, these blokes.’
The officer in charge came over to me – I was twenty-two years old and looked pretty young even at that age, I think – and said, ‘Are you the pilot of this aircraft?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, I’m the pilot of this aircraft.’ He said, ‘Have you been over before?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ve been over a few times before.’ He said, ‘Ah, that’s good, that’s good.’ Then he looked me up and down and he said, ‘Good God, man, you look as though you’re going to a bloody dance!’
So that started off the rapport we had with the troops. We were all strangers but we had this instant rapport that we were in it together. And then he gave me a little five-franc note. All the stick, seventeen lads from the 5th Parachute Brigade of the 6th Airborne Division, they’d all signed this and he gave it to me as a little gift. I’ve treasured that all my life.
Pilot Officer Ron Minchin
Australian Stirling bomber pilot, 196 Squadron, RAF
Talking to the guys, they were pretty steamed up. There was a lot of urinating around the aircraft: the aircraft didn’t smell too good. It was interesting to see how they were approaching things. Some were very quiet. Like myself, probably. Some were outgoing and loud and wanted, I suppose, to get rid of the pressure and tension that existed in them. I felt a youngster, in a way, because there were some more mature men amongst them. The way they spoke and approached language was quite different to the way that we did. Some of them were a bit more basic; their language wasn’t exactly what my ear was attuned to. But then again I was only a kid and our own ground staff was just as bad.
Horsa gliders wait to be loaded for D-Day.
Sergeant Brian Spencer
Glider Pilot Regiment
Ken wrote on the front of our glider – they all had names – ‘Quo Vadis?’ The padre, who was coming past, said, ‘Very appropriate, Hannon.’ But with my elementary education I had to wander up the line until I found an old friend of mine and I said, ‘Hey, Bob, what does “Quo Vadis?” mean?’ He said, ‘A free translation would be, “Whither goest thou?”’
Captain John Sim
12th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
We emplaned under the belly of the aircraft through the hole. The hole wasn’t a circular hole in the Stirling, it was a coffin-shaped hole, oblong; and in the Stirling one was able to stand up, which was rather nice, but there were no seats. Seventeen entered the aircraft, in reverse order of our jumping out. I was to jump No 1 so I was the last in. Then the door was closed and we sat on the floor with our backs to the fuselage. It was quite dark inside the aircraft, there were only about six little red lights along the fuselage, and there was nothing else to do except sit. We couldn’t talk to each other because the engines started up, roared away, and we taxied around.
Warrant Officer George Oliver
Australian Stirling bomber pilot, 196 Squadron, RAF
We knew it was D-Day and it was so important. If it failed we knew that either the war might be greatly prolonged or we mightn’t even win it. That’s the way it looked to us, or to me anyhow, and I really felt we were going into the unknown and I can remember thinking to myself, ‘I wonder what it’s going to be like and I wonder if we’ll come back from it.’ At any rate, that’s how I felt before I got on the aircraft. But once I got in and started the engines I didn’t think any more about those sort of things.
Major Goronwy Rees
21st Army Group planning staff
One had this terrible feeling of, ‘Now, what is actually going to happen on D-Day?’ I went to the headquarters of the 101st American Parachute Division at Newbury, they were taking off from Newbury racecourse, and you suddenly saw these men being flown across the Channel really into conditions that nobody knew. And then we sat and waited to hear what the results were going to be. After that, of course, it was in the hands of the fighting soldiers. It wasn’t our job any more.
Four stick commanders of 22nd Independent Parachute Company, British Sixth Airborne Division, synchronising watches prior to take-off from RAF Harwell, Oxfordshire. Among the very first Allied troops to land, this Pathfinder unit parachuted into Normandy in advance of the rest of the division to mark out dropping and landing zones. Left to right: Lieutenants Robert de Latour, Donald Wells, John Vischer and Bob Midwood. De Latour, a Canadian, was killed in action on 20 June.
COUP DE MAIN
Major John Howard
Commander, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
My company was lucky to be selected for what turned out to be a wonderful operation. It was a coup de main operation, glider borne, to capture two bridges in Normandy soon after midnight before the seaborne landings on 6 June. For this operation I was given two extra platoons and thirty Royal Engineers, a force of 180, each glider containing one platoon of around twenty-five infantry and five Royal Engineers.
It would be a night landing and they chose gliders to do the job as distinct from parachutists in order to get complete surprise. Parachutists take a long time to get together and form a platoon and company to attack an objective, whereas gliders will land thirty men on the spot, provided the glider pilots do their job properly. But I was quite satisfied on that account in that I knew that we had the very best glider pilots that the Glider Pilot Regiment could produce.
Lieutenant Richard ‘Sandy’ Smith
We were told it was going to be an attack on two bridges and three gliders would have a go at one and three at the other. We were going to go in the night before and hold them for as long as possible until major reinforcements arrived, and that would form the left flank of the invasion and we would keep away what armour and other German forces there were on that side. As these two were the only bridges between the coast and Caen, which is a distance of eleven miles, it was pretty obvious that if we held those two bridges we could prevent the Germans from attacking the left flank of the major invasion. Hence its importance.
One of the advantages we had was the fact that the operation would be a surprise, that we had the best glider pilots available and that they could land us exactly where they wanted to. And of course our ignorance of the hazards of the whole operation: we had no idea how risky it was because we had no experience of that sort of thing, so you can really say ignorance is bliss. I think some of the more experienced planners didn’t really regard our operation as likely to be scot-free of casualties. Indeed, I think we were called ‘The Forlorn Hope’ at one time. But it seemed to us a perfectly feasible thing to land on an enemy coast before D-Day, hold the two bridges. And the fact that there were eighty Germans on our bridge and a smaller number on the other, just five hundred yards apart, didn’t seem to deter us, although our own strength of three gliders on the main bridge was somewhat less than the Germans holding it.
We carried the normal airborne equipment, which meant you had an anti-tank PIAT as your sole defence against tanks. We carried two-inch mortars and Bren guns and the odd grenade, phosphorus and 36, Sten guns and the ordinary Enfield rifle. So it was pretty obvious to even the unimaginative that if we didn’t get relief fairly quickly from the Paras, who were going to drop in the vicinity, and subsequently from the commandos, who were coming from the coast six miles away, we were going to be in real trouble. The 21st Panzers were only a matter of half an hour away, stationed just the other side of Caen. Also the coastal forces had their own weaponry, plus tanks.
Private Harry Clarke
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
On the morning of 5 June the wind had dropped, it was still raining slightly but not too badly, and it was just after midday, I think, that we were informed that it was on for that night. And so once again we put the fuses back in the grenades and got all our equipment and gear ready for the operation that night. We had a sleep in the afternoon and I can recall being woken up by Corporal Godbold, probably about six in the evening. ‘Come on Nobby,’ he said. ‘Getcha gear together and we’ll have a meal and we’re gonna be off.’ It would be about eight o’clock, half-past eight, when the lorries drove into the camp and we staggered aboard. We were absolutely loaded. God knows how we climbed up the four-foot into the lorry.
We were quickly driven to Tarrant Rushton airfield where the lorries drove straight out to the gliders. The airfield itself was absolutely teeming with people and everyone seemed to know where we were going, and this did concern me. There were cries of ‘Good luck!’ and ‘Godspeed!’ all the way across and I was absolutely convinced that everyone on the aerodrome knew where we going or certainly that the invasion was on.
We were driven straight to the runway. We discarded our equipment and wandered round the other gliders chatting to friends. In my particular glider, the glider pilot was Staff Sergeant Oliver Boland, the co-pilot was Staff Sergeant Hobbs, and I recall saying to Ollie Boland at this point, ‘Do you think we’ll make it all right?’ And he said, ‘You’ve got no worries. I can land on a sixpence.’ He was very, very confident. He was concerned about the amount of equipment and stuff we were carrying because he was worried about overloading but he said the Halifax would pull us off the ground anyway. And we sat around talking and I think it was round about ten-ish when some kind RAF chap came over with a big dixie of tea and on tasting it I was delighted to detect that there was a good measure of rum in it. This helped considerably again. We didn’t expect such luxuries at the last moment. It was great that.
Staff Sergeant Geoff Barkway
Glider Pilot Regiment
I don’t think you had time to be fearful because there’s never enough time to get ready for these things. At the last minute: ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we did this?’ ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we did that?’ ‘Let’s move that here.’ ‘You carry this in your glider. We’ll carry that in ours.’ ‘Is there anything we’ve forgotten?’ I remember various people came round and wished us good luck. Lots of putting names on the gliders: ‘Adolf here we come’ and that sort of business. Everybody was in pretty high spirits.
Private William Gray
25 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Everyone was so excited, wanted to get cracking and to get on with it.
Lieutenant David Wood
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
I think we were all raring to go. I’d had the same platoon for over two years and only about three men in it had changed and we’d already had a great disappointment at the time of the Sicily invasion when we all went on embarkation leave but weren’t actually chosen to go. We were keyed up, we were ready, we really didn’t think we could do any more training and we wanted to get on with it and get into action for the first time. Although we knew D-Day was coming we thought that if we didn’t get into action soon we’d never fire a bullet in anger.
Private Harry Clarke
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
About half past ten we were ordered to board the Horsas. This again was a feat in itself because we had to climb up a ladder and we were so overloaded that it was a job to stagger in. I got in and I sat about four seats down, four places down, on the starboard side. David Wood sat by the door, about four places along, on the other side.
We sat in the glider talking. There was still no sign of nervousness. A slight tenseness because none of us had ever done a night flight in a glider before, it had always been daylight flights. And about ten to eleven, I would think it was, the planes started revving up, trying out their engines: they were Halifax bombers.
At about that time John Howard also came round the gliders, wished us luck, thanked us for our past help and cooperation, and you could detect the emotion in the chap’s voice, you know. It was a very emotional moment for all of us. I felt sorry for him and I looked across at David Wood and I could see that David looked a bit tense because he’d got a hell of a lot on his mind that night. He was only a boy, like the rest of us. We were all in the twenty-one age group; there were one or two slightly older. Anyway, the doors were shut and we were sat there just waiting then.
Private William Gray
25 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Somebody, probably John Howard, said, ‘We’re off,’ and the old Halifax, you could hear the engines, roared away. And up went the glider behind the Halifax.
Private Harry Clarke
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Suddenly we became airborne. We could barely see, it was quite dark, there were a few cigarettes going and there was obviously a tenseness and nervousness because there wasn’t the usual idle chatter. Nobody was singing and there was almost silence in the glider. But within about ten minutes the usual round of conversation started, people began to sing and the tenseness evaporated, and it became just another glider flight.
Corporal Edward Tappenden
HQ wireless operator, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
We were singing all the old London songs, because most of the lads were cockney boys and Londoners. They were singing ‘Abie, Abie, my boy’ and all
sorts of things until we got over France. Then the major ordered quiet and everything went quiet and everyone was on their toes, waiting.
Private Harry Clark
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
We heard the glider pilot shout, ‘Casting off!’ and suddenly the roar of the aeroplane engine receded and we were in a silent world. It was like being trapped in a floating coffin in mid-space. Immediately the glider cast off, the singing, the talk, the conversation stopped. People realised what we were heading for. There was no going back now. We’d reached the point where we could only go forward.
Major John Howard
Commander, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
When we levelled out a bit at a thousand feet we opened the doors of the glider. One of them was straight in front of me. Sitting on my left was Lieutenant Brotheridge, my leading platoon commander, and he undid his safety belt, I held his equipment one side and his platoon sergeant the other side and he leant forward very precariously and opened the door which lifted up into the roof. At the same time this was happening the back door was opened the same way by some of the men at the back.
Major John Howard, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who commanded the coup de main raid to capture the Caen Canal and River Orne bridges in the early hours of D-Day.
When Den Brotheridge slumped back into his seat and put his safety belt on again I looked out at the fields of France and it had an amazing tranquillising effect on me and on those near to me who could see. There you had the magnificent stock, horses and cattle, grazing very, very quietly. It was so quiet; it was like being on an exercise in England. And the tranquillising effect went right throughout the glider because we were all quite silent by that time.