I ran across the bridge, got off the bridge and down on to the riverbank, and I could hear people running away, the defenders running off. So I went down underneath the bridge and there was a well-worn path down the grass bank and I thought, ‘Well, this has been used quite a lot.’ Then I looked up into the girders of the bridge and I could see a scaffold board that ran all the way through the bridge. There was some moon but there was a lot of cloud so you had an off-and-on moon that night. And right under the middle of the bridge was a dark object.
With this dark object in the middle of the bridge, it was evident to me that work was in progress. We had been informed by the French underground movement that the bridges were quite likely to be ready for exploding and that dark object I thought was probably was a barge and they were working with the explosives off the barge. And then in the moonlight I thought, ‘No, it isn’t that.’ There seemed to be some brickwork somewhere.
The River Orne bridge, assaulted in the early hours of D-Day by men of John Howard’s coup de main force.
Claude, that’s my twin brother, had come down as well and I positioned him near the bridge. I said, ‘I’m going to check along these scaffold boards and see what’s on the other side. To me, that’s where the explosives will be, in the middle of the bridge. Keep your finger on the trigger and if you’ve got to use your rifle don’t be frightened to. But remember I’m just ahead of you so obviously don’t put a shot up my tail end.’
So I had to crawl with my rifle and a backpack along this scaffold board and I got to the middle and there was a huge brick construction and it contained inside huge cog wheels. Obviously, in past time, it had opened the bridge. I had a torch with me, we all carried them as engineers, and I shone the torch around and I found there was no explosive. I felt a bit vulnerable actually, I thought somebody seeing torchlight underneath the bridge could put a shot into me, but anyway I had to do it and there was no explosive.
So having done that I thought, ‘We’ve got to get out of here now,’ so we decided then to climb back on to the road south of the bridge. And as we got on to the road, away in the distance an air-raid siren sounded, just like we had here back in the UK. And that was another laughable incident really: we were here already and they didn’t know.
Major John Howard
Commander, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
As soon as I knew there were no explosives under the other bridge as well then we started sending out what has turned out to be a famous success signal, ‘Ham and Jam’. ‘Ham’ for the canal bridge and ‘Jam’ for the river bridge captured intact. There were other code words, which meant they weren’t captured or they were captured but blown up, but ‘Ham’ and ‘Jam’ were the important words as far as we were concerned. And that’s the situation some fifteen or so minutes after landing.
HOLDING ON
Lieutenant David Wood
24 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
The whole thing was over very quickly. I heard the magic words ‘Ham and Jam’ on my 38 set radio carried by my batman; and, as we were consolidating, my company commander came up on the radio and said I was to report to him on the road for further orders. So, taking my batman with me and the platoon sergeant, Sergeant Leather, I started to make my way back when I was hit in the leg by what turned out to be a burst of three rounds of Schmeisser machine pistol and fell to the ground quite unable to do anything. I was extremely frightened. I thought that at any minute the chap who’d fired at me was going to come along and finish me off, so I shouted, loudly. I didn’t know at the time that both my batman and my platoon sergeant had been shot at the same time. But quite quickly a couple of men in the platoon came up and they did what they could for my leg, put a rifle splint on it and gave me some morphine, and by then I was effectively out of the action.
Lieutenant Richard ‘Sandy’ Smith
14 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
I took over Brotheridge’s platoon and put them in a defensive position round the far end of the bridge, the one nearest the village of Le Port, and gathered what was left of my platoon and put them in together with Brotheridge’s platoon. Then I went back to the other side of the bridge, only to be told that David Wood’s platoon were leaderless because he’d been shot through the legs. I reported back to John Howard and said Wood was wounded and Brotheridge was dead or dying and I’d been knocked about a bit and he told me to go back and organise the defence at the far end of the bridge, which I did. After a while the Germans had recovered from the initial shock and surprise and they were coming down from the village of Le Port, a matter of two or three hundred yards, and started to infiltrate through the backs of houses and gardens towards the bridge, and they started making it obvious that they were going to do something.
So there I was, as the only officer on his feet, with these three platoons. I felt rather exposed so I went back to Howard, who was stationed between the two bridges, and I said to him, ‘Look, I wouldn’t mind another platoon. If there’s no trouble on the other bridge, could you please send me one of those two platoons?’ Denis Fox arrived, much to my relief, marching up through the bridge and I told him to go up to the village of Le Port, where there’s a small crossroads, and to hold that so at least we’d have some idea of what the Germans were trying to do. I remember him saying to me, ‘I haven’t got an anti-tank PIAT,’ because he’d left it in his glider in a hurry, and I said, ‘Well, take mine,’ which we had extricated from our crashed glider. And I remember him saying, ‘Well, thanks for nothing.’ He took this PIAT and handed it over to Sergeant Thornton and took up a position near the crossroads at Le Port.
Major John Howard
Commander, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
We knew the Germans were billeted in villages and always had somebody standing ready to counter-attack the bridges. They were known to have small tanks and lorries and be ready to get to the bridges, I was told, within an hour of our landing.
The first movement was a motorcycle and what turned out to be a German staff car, rushing down the road from Ranville towards the river bridge. It crossed the bridge and then was shot up as planned and in that car was the German commander of the bridges, a Major Schmidt. The car came to a halt just between the bridges and the German commander, in perfect English, was shouting that he wanted to be shot. He said that he’d lost his honour, no doubt meaning that his bridges had been captured. The doctor happened to be nearby, Doc John Vaughan, and he gave him a couple of shots of morphine and put him to sleep.
But it was while this was going on we heard the ominous sound we most dreaded and that was the sound of tanks, and, sure enough, round about half-past one, two tanks were heard slowly coming down the road. The only anti-tank weapons we had were PIATs and we didn’t have much faith in them. Even under ideal conditions they had a maximum range of fifty yards. They threw a three-and-a-half pound bomb and, if it didn’t hit directly whatever it was firing at, it had a nasty habit of not exploding and there wouldn’t have been much time to reload, of course, with a tank under fifty yards away. We didn’t like using them at night anyway. But the tanks came rumbling along.
Lieutenant Richard ‘Sandy’ Smith
14 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
I heard, to my horror, the rattle of tank tracks coming down the road from the Le Port direction. And I remember feeling very, very hopeless because there we were without an anti-tank weapon, except for the one we’d given to Dennis, with my platoon only about seven or eight strong and Brotheridge’s twenty-odd people. I thought, ‘Well, this is going to be it,’ and I vividly remember the troops looking at me to see whether I was reacting in any way to the arrival of this tank. And I remember my order: ‘Look to your front.’ What else I could have said I don’t know. I gave that order because they wan
ted some form of reassurance, though I must confess that I didn’t really feel very reassured myself. Anyway, a minute or two later the rumbling of this tank was heard to be getting louder and louder and then there was a sharp explosion as Sergeant Thornton, as I subsequently discovered, had fired at it at point-blank range.
Private Denis Edwards
25 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Wagger Thornton let these tanks get really up close to him and then he let fly. We never thought those PIAT bombs would ever do much damage to a proper tank but this flaming tank literally blew up, exploded. The whole thing went up. It was well loaded with ammunition, I don’t know what sort of ammunition, but within moments of Wagger firing there were great spurts of green and orange and yellow as all the ammunition inside was exploding, making a hell of a din. And the other tank behind did a quick revving of engines and disappeared, backed off up the road, and we never heard from them again.
Lieutenant Richard ‘Sandy’ Smith
14 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
It blew up, fortunately, right on the crossroads, blocking the entrance to the bridge either way, killing most of the crew, and one poor soul was flung out and his legs had almost disappeared and he subsequently died. I had to pass him every time I went up to see how Dennis Fox was getting on and I remember Dennis saying to me ‘Look, why don’t you shoot that fellow, because he’s disturbing my men.’ And I just couldn’t shoot him.
The Germans then started infiltrating down the backs of the gardens away from the crossroads to try and come into us from either side, from the canal, down through the towpaths on either side. So we withdrew ourselves to a much closer defensive position around the head of the bridge and I tried to give the impression that we were much stronger than we were by moving Bren gun sections from one position to another and firing off tracer into the dark. It seemed to have some effect. It kept the Germans away from us and we didn’t really have any what you might call hand-to-hand scrapping. It was really more them trying to find out what the hell was going on.
THE SIXTH GLIDER
Sergeant Raymond Rayner
22 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
My glider was supposed to land on the River Orne bridge. No 6 landed on the bridge where I was supposed to land, on the River Orne Bridge, and then No 5 glider came. But where’s No 4? Where were we?
We were cast off in the wrong place, so we landed on a bridge that we actually took but wasn’t our objective. It was eight miles away from our objective. Actually, when we came in, they were firing at us worse than what the other bridge had, where we should have landed. There were tracer bullets nearly hitting us as we came in, tracer bullets as we landed. Now, we actually took that bridge, but we had to split our platoon to take the east side and the west side of the bridge, to defend it. And as we crossed that bridge the wireless operator was running aside of me with his wireless on and he was hit straight through the head, he fell down dead, straight away. I was running beside of him and I looked at him and I tried his pulse. He was dead all right. We had to leave him there, we tried to get the wireless off him but we couldn’t. He was the first man killed on D-Day. They say Danny Brotheridge was the first man killed but that man, Everett, he was the first man killed. Danny Brotheridge died of wounds two hours afterwards.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. As soon as we landed we knew we was at the wrong bridge, we knew every blade of grass that was on those other bridges, so we had to send out Lieutenant Tony Hooper, who was my platoon commander, to find out where we were. Captain Priday was second-in-command of the operation, he was in my glider, and Priday told Hooper to go and do a reconnaissance to find out exactly where we were.
Now, Hooper went out, he got captured in a wood where he was trying to find out where we were and the Germans brought him back to their headquarters just over from this bridge; they were firing on us from there. And two Germans were bringing him back over the bridge, one of them with a Schmeisser in his back, one escorting him, and Tony kept talking to them aloud. Course, he knew we were there; he talked to them very loudly so we’d know where he was – it was pitch black as you can imagine. So, myself and Captain Priday, both of us shouted, ‘Jump, Tony!’ He jumped in a ditch away from the Germans, left the Germans exposed on the road, ten yards away from us, we couldn’t let them get any further, and as he jumped we fired and they fell down dead. But as they fell down dead one pulled his trigger, which he’d had in Tony Hooper’s back, and sprayed us. He hit me through the arm.
Course, our job wasn’t to hold that bridge at all. Captain Priday said, ‘We’ve got to get back to the others as fast as we possibly can.’ There were about thirteen of us out of the platoon. The others were on the other side of the bridge and we didn’t wait for them to come back over, they couldn’t get back over, and three of them got captured. Later, they were in this house being interrogated by the Germans and one of them got a bit stroppy with the Germans and the others heard a gunshot. They’d killed him. The people from the village buried him and he’s the only soldier in that cemetery today.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE SIXTH AIRBORNE
Captain David Tibbs
Regimental Medical Officer, 13th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
The plane took off and one’s pulse rate went up a little bit when you realised this was it. It was a Dakota, a twin-engined plane, with an open door on its side where we were going to jump so it was fairly noisy and there wasn’t much opportunity for conversation. But most people were trying to rib each other a bit. Some chaps were a bit silent and looked a little bit green but really a general attitude of cheerfulness was kept up without any problems. I was tense and excited as I think anyone would be on this sort of occasion. It was my job as the officer in charge of the twenty men within the plane to keep up morale and not show any doubts but I think we all felt much the same.
Corporal Bob Sullivan
3rd Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers
There was banter, there always is. Chaps took it different ways. Some dozed, there was a bit of a sing-song, but I think most people were wrapped up in their thoughts about what was going to come.
Captain David Tibbs
Regimental Medical Officer, 13th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
There was a blackout all over England so it was difficult to gauge where we were but we could judge when we were over the sea. I was sitting near the door of the plane so I could see down but really it was just blackness with the occasional burning embers of carbon from the engines coming back, which rather surprised me. At first I thought they were ack-ack shells coming up but they were little glowing embers off the aircraft engines.
Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway
Commanding Officer, 9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
I actually stood in the door of my aircraft when we flew over the Solent and it was a most fantastic sight. It was bright enough to see quite a lot of detail. I could see all the ships in the Solent. They seemed to be in a ring round the Isle of Wight and they seemed to be already streaming towards the French coast.
Staff Sergeant John Potts
Glider Pilot Regiment
As far as the eye could see there were ships and battleships and I remember saying to Bill, ‘I’m glad I’m not going to be on the receiving end of that tomorrow.’ It really was an awesome sight. Only the people who flew across the Channel that night ever had this view.
Sergeant Arthur Batten
Stirling bomber rear-gunner, 190 Squadron, RAF
Once we’d got about a mile across the Channel, I looked back. I’ve never forgotten it. I sat in my turret, I was looking for enemy aircraft, and the only thing I could see, 180 degrees either side of my turret, looking back to England, was twinkling wing-lights on the following aircraft. Right across, as far as I could scan, twinkling lights. A sight never, ever to be seen ag
ain.
Private Sidney Capon
9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
None of us is going to die. We’re all brave men. We’re not going to die. ‘Twenty minutes to go, lads! Equipment check!’ Each man would check the equipment of the man in front of him, his chute, etc., and each chute would be on to the strongpoint. It didn’t seem long, those twenty minutes. Then, ‘We’re approaching the coast!’ And as we approached the coast of France the German ack-ack came up at us. You could see the amber glows.
Staff Sergeant John Potts
Glider Pilot Regiment
I could see quite clearly the estuary of the River Orne, the river we were making for, and the flak was much, much greater than we’d ever anticipated. In fact as we approached the estuary of this river we were really rocking and rolling because the vibrations from the flak were sending the glider upwards and down. It was rough. In fact we were hit twice. Once, way back, almost on the tail section. We heard it. But another shot came right between Bill and myself and right through the top of the cockpit. And as it did there was a strike of tracer on my side, I was in the starboard seat, and you could see the wooden fabric of the glider was burning between the mainplane and the fuselage.
Corporal Bob Sullivan
3rd Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers
We were bouncing all over the sky. When we crossed the coast the plane dropped some anti-personnel bombs and this led the plane to surge upwards and a number of lads fell to their knees. What with the plane veering and bouncing around, really it was pandemonium. There was flashes all over the place, there was tracer coming up and I think ‘Get out the plane!’ was the main thought. That’s it: ‘Get out!’
Captain John Sim
12th Battalion, Parachute Regiment
Forgotten Voices of D-Day Page 13
