Voices from D-Day

by Jon E. Lewis

  Bombardier Harry Hartill, RA

  A sight which held my attention was an American glider which had come down, having perhaps lost its bearings, into the British sector. It had caught overhead wires, causing it to nose-dive into the ground at terrific force. Inside, one man sat at the wheel of his jeep ready to drive out. The jeep had shot forward with such force it had doubled up, trapping the driver between the driving wheel and the back of the vehicle. Inside the glider were still all the crew, dead without firing a shot. What brought a lump to my throat was the huge white letters on each side of the glider saying ‘HOME VIA BERLIN’ and ‘DON’T WORRY MOM, WE’LL BE BACK’.

  …

  In another location was what remained of a small cottage with a few fruit trees at the rear. Scattered around were the remnants of a fighter plane, the pilot’s torso was caught in the branches of one apple tree and on the ground was a flying boot among the debris with part of a leg inside. Everywhere we went there was carnage and havoc, hardly anything to resemble a former building, everywhere flattened with RAF bombings.

  Post Office Telegram

  From PTT-CC OHMS

  TO MRS J H BEADLE, 146 HAMILTON RD, SOUTH MNT VERNON, GLW E2

  REPORT RECEIVED FROM WESTERN EUROPE THAT LIET AGI SMART ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS WAS WOUNDED ON 21ST JUNE 1944. THE ARMY COUNCIL EXPRESSES SYMPATHY. LETTER FOLLOWS SHORTLY.

  UNDER SECY OF STATE FOR WAR.

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

  [Yesterday], quietly, in the middle of a field, we buried Ted Webb; the grave had been dug to the size and shape of a man but the blanketed remains were just a shapeless mass. He was burnt in his tank. Everyone was very subdued and we all thought of poor Winifred. They were such a very devoted couple. Odd, these burials; the padre tells us, and at the appointed hour a few wander from all directions and stand around in a group; the padre looks very wan and I fully sympathize with him in his horrid task of scraping remains out of tanks. We took a three-tonner into St Pierre to get Ted and managed to blow it up on a mine, but was OK. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the grass waves lightly in the breeze. The padre says his sentences between the bangs of our own guns, then he sprinkles a little earth, and it is all over. We fall away very quietly and without speaking, and by the time Ian and I have reached the hedge it seems silly not to have spoken and I say, ‘It’s a lovely day’, and Ian says ‘Yes’ and he adds, ‘Poor Winnie’ and we are silent again.

  …

  I hope to God what I am going to write is not true. We are sitting at L’H — d’A and Basil has returned with the news that Ian is dead. I can’t really think. I feel that there must be some hope. As yet, I don’t know the circumstances. Everyone here is terribly hit by the news for was there ever a more popular officer? I personally feel through my tears a great hate for the whole bloody business and a sense of impotency to reap from the Germans the penalty for the death of one of the most loved of all officers.

  Private Robert Macduff, Wiltshire Regiment

  A tank went too far up the hill and was observed from the [German-held] hillock opposite, and we were raked with mortar fire. There was no chance to dig in, so a Sergeant-Major, another soldier and I got down behind a very large tree. The explosions were terrific, terrifying. A soldier had crawled under a stationary tank and a mortar dropped by the tank, blowing his foot off. Several more dropped by the side of the tree, killing the Sergeant-Major and the soldier beside me. My arm was stuck out – I felt a pain, which became numb. There was blood everywhere. A Canadian officer appeared and applied my field dressing and a tourniquet. He led me down to the base of the hill, but I couldn’t find any of my men so I insisted on going back to blow up the radio set, as per instructions, believing we were being overrun. Subsequently I was put on a tracked vehicle and carried with other wounded – there seemed to be a lot of us. The numbness was beginning to go, and I passed out.

  Corporal Peter Roach, 1st Royal Tank Regiment

  I lay marvelling at my infinite luxury as I smoked a last pipe. Putting pipe, tobacco and matches into my boot for safe keeping, I drifted off, as contented a man as ever there was. I awoke to loud bangs and a thump in the back. I pulled my blankets closer and buried my head. Was it a piece of mud thrown up by a bomb? There were aircraft overhead. As I dozed again amid the bedlam of ack-ack fire and bomb bursts safe in the warmth of my blankets, a warm trickle ran down my back, paused, and then raced down the hollow of my spine. I passed a hand along and found a wet patch on my shoulder, then a hole the size of the end of my finger; no pain.

  I told Chalky that I was going to a dressing station, and made my way from guarded light to guarded light until I found a three-ton truck being used to treat casualties. A man was brought in with severe cordite burns to his hands, and I stood humbly aside, imagining his agony. The orderly patched me up with a dressing and I made my way back to the tanks. We made some tea on a petrol stove and passed the rest of the night dozing and smoking.

  I arrived at the control point before the day had shown its face, and was met by two operators sheltering in a trench covered with a very perforated ground sheet, glumly facing a ruined wireless set.

  The day came but there was still no communication and I sat waiting to announce the reaching of a crucial point whereupon the tanks could begin their task. The sun came up and what I took to be the brigade major sat in his van reading Esquire and drinking tea.

  Slowly messages began to come back – the usual hold-ups, counter-attacks. But now things were moving and my map had a scrawl of coloured chinagraph lines on it. Intelligence officers coming in from other units, seeing me, were asking and receiving a briefing on the position. I was too tired and stiff by now to care, and I was pretty sure that I had as much information as anyone else.

  The tanks made their way forward and there was jubilant report of successes. I was happy; they certainly deserved the successes. Then the German Tigers joined in and there were swift reports of tanks brewing and calls for the doctor. Frustration set in. With the guns we had, it was almost impossible to winkle out the heavily armoured and magnificently gunned German tanks.

  Rocket-firing Typhoons were our only recourse and this was not the best thing for the morale of the tank crews. Smoke shells were fired to identify the German positions and they, with great presence of mind, fired them back at our positions, giving the impartial Typhoon a field day. The Canadians were aggrieved at one of their tanks being knocked out and I had a tedious tangle to untie, especially as no one wanted to listen.

  By three-thirty I had had enough. The attack had bogged down, minds were numb and I was feeling actively sick. I took my small pack, said goodbye to my crew and Chalky, and made my way back to a forward dressing station. From there it was a line of stations, M and B tablets and tetanus jabs.

  In the early evening a van load of us arrived at a field hospital, gentle in the green Normandy fields. They made us welcome and we lay in the evening sun smoking and drinking tea. Their kindness and gentleness almost reduced me to tears. A lethargy stole over me. For the moment I could do nothing, was expected to do nothing, and even my inner mind was prepared to let me rest. There was nothing here for me to learn, nothing to test my courage.

  Lying in a real bed in a great tented ward, the lights very dim, the air warm and muggy, I slept leadenly but not deeply. Quiet figures were working among the innumerable beds, turning back the covers, looking, probing gently, making notes, unceasingly kind and gentle. I hardly woke as they looked at my shoulder. By ambulance to the beachhead, a DUKW amphibious truck out to a hospital ship and the magic was gone, only the staleness and pent-up feelings remained.

  This was part of Britain and I preferred the army. By ambulance train, stark white and simple but kind, to hospital and real beds and stuffy air and routine, but a bath. Two days and then dressed and back in the train. Where to? To Falkirk! All wounded would be treated as near home as possible, but I suppose that as walking wounded we could reasonably go further
afield. I slept on the floor of the train. Early in the morning we left the train and were met by a women’s organization giving out smiles and packets of cigarettes. Anger welled inside me and yet I was ashamed not to be able to thank them for their cold comfortless efforts to bring some humanity to us. To a long immaculate ward, an immaculate bed and a dragon of a sister.

  Captain Edward W. McGregor, US 1st Infantry Division

  There was to be a major attack on the American front at St Lo. It was to be called Operation Cobra. The attack began on 25 July, preceded by a strategic bombing by the American 8th Air Force – Flying Fortresses, B17s – and, well, some of these bombs fell short – on top of our 9th Infantry Division and, I believe, our 3rd Infantry Division. I know the 9th was hit and I think it was the 3rd. Anyway, we were in reserve and were then ordered to advance through the decimated front lines of these divisions and attack. Which we did and it was really something. There were these huge craters from the bombs, all over the place. We had a whole battalion of tanks attached to my battalion, the 1st Battalion of the 18th Infantry, and we couldn’t use them, the ground was so torn up. And the Germans still had pockets of resistance that fought us all day long.

  Well, in the mid-afternoon I told the Battalion Commander – we had just had a new Battalion Commander – that I’d better go up. He didn’t want me to move up with the troops, but with the old Battalion Commander we always used to move up with the advance echelon. So I went up and kicked tail – or kicked ass, to use that expression – with A Company and C Company. And then some sergeant comes running up: ‘Captain McGregor, the Battalion Commander has been killed and also Captain Cameron’ – who was our Heavy Weapons Company Commander.

  Well, I rushed back to the rear with him, and the Battalion Commander was very badly wounded – but not dead – but there was my buddy, Captain Archie Cameron, deader than a mackerel. I cried like a baby. Then comes along some war correspondent, demanding to know what the situation was. A large man with a stick. Well, there were bullets flying all over the place and I was heartbroken, so I told him to get the hell out of there or I’d shoot him. At the time I didn’t give a damn who it was, it could have been the Holy Ghost. Somebody said, ‘Jeez Captain, that’s Ernest Hemingway.’ And I’m not certain, but I think it was Hemingway.

  Bombardier Richard ‘Dickie’ Thomas, RA

  One morning, looking over the edge of Mulberry Harbour – the sea was down about five or six feet – and there were twenty or thirty dead bodies floating in the water. Most unfortunately, two or three days of terribly hot sunshine came. I didn’t know how a dead body floated, but I soon discovered that they floated face down, and it was a terrible sight to see: all the backs and backs of their legs became burnt by the terribly hot sun. They were burnt black like niggers. Eventually the navy came and sorted it out. It was a horrible sight.

  Miss C.S.M. Petrie, 601(M) HAA Battery, RA

  Diary, 9 June [Gosport]

  More hospital work – lots of blood. I am sorry for the men, all shot away and encased in plaster and so willing to tease and laugh at an AT who is trying to help, but not doing much else! Spoke to one man who looked rather blank and was gleefully informed that he was a Jerry by the next inmate. Leapt sky high – and so did he – and the ward, weak as it was, laughed and nearly cried with laughing. I nearly cried at their good fellowship and happiness and me so helpless to do anything further at all.

  Captain Joseph T. Dawson, US 1st Infantry Division

  That afternoon my wound on my leg, my knee, had swelled up to the point where I had to be evacuated that afternoon, 7 June, when I was sent back to Malvern [England]. As soon as I was able to get the bullet fragment removed, and the fluid released – the wound even to this day bothers me – I made my way to Weymouth, where I caught a boat to Omaha and caught up with my unit. I was out of combat there for about ten days.

  ***

  Telegram, Ottawa Ont July 28 1015A 1944

  TO: MRS A R WILKINSON

  17769 MINISTER OR DEFENCE REGRETS TO INFORM YOU C97125 PRIVATE ARTHUR CAMPBELL WILKINSON HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY REPORTED KILLED IN ACTION EIGHTEEN JULY 1944 STOP WHEN FURTHER INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE IT WILL BE FORWARDED AS SOON AS RECEIVED

  DIRECTOR OF RECORDS

  Letter, 6 Airborne Div, BWEF, 30 June 1944

  Dear Mrs Blower, It is difficult for me to put into words my heartfelt sympathy for you in the loss of your gallant son [Lieutenant John Blower, RA] in action.

  To a commander like myself these losses are hard to bear: and yet for you it must be so much worse.

  You know, however, that you have our deepest sympathy and that your son gave his life for a great enterprise and a great cause.

  Yours sincerely

  Richard N. Gale

  Major-General

  Letter, Buckingham Palace

  The Queen and I offer you our heartfelt sympathy in your great sorrow. We pray that your country’s gratitude for a life so nobly given in its service may bring you some measure of consolation.

  George R.

  Sergeant H.M. Kellar, Devonshire Regiment

  While trying to look through the long grass on top of the bank to try and find something to shoot at, I suddenly realized I couldn’t bend my right knee, also that the handgrip on the stock of my rifle was splintered – so I suppose the bullet would have hit me in the chest had it not been deflected into my knee. Also, the velocity was greatly reduced, so that the bullet merely clipped a small piece of bone off my kneecap and then lodged in the joint. After that earlier clash with a Spandau [machine gun], when I found my Sten gun useless, I had changed to a rifle, a fact which probably saved my life.

  I slid back down the bank and made my way back where I met the platoon officer coming forward with his radio operator. I apologized and said I would have to go back, and he said, ‘Oh, bad luck!’ Bad luck! It was the best bit of luck I’ve ever had to get away from that hell.

  Ernie Pyle, war correspondent

  After breakfast that first morning we had to round up about fifty dead Germans and Americans in the series of orchards where we were camping, and carry them to a central spot in a pasture and bury them.

  I helped carry one corpse across a couple of fields. I did it partly because the group needed an extra man, and partly because I was forcing myself to get used to it, for you can’t hide from death when you’re in a war.

  This German was just a kid, surely not over fifteen. His face had already turned black, but you could sense his youth through the death-distorted features.

  The boys spread a blanket on the ground beside him. Then we lifted him over onto it. One soldier and I each took hold of a foot, and two others took his arms. One of the two soldiers in front was hesitant about touching the corpse. Whereupon the other soldier said to him:

  ‘Go on, take hold of him, dammit. You might as well get used to it now, for you’ll be carrying plenty of dead ones from now on. Hell, you may even be carrying me one of these days.’

  So we carried him across two fields, each of us holding a corner of the blanket. Our burden got pretty heavy, and we rested a couple of times. The boys made wisecracks along the way to cover up their distaste for the job.

  When we got to the field we weren’t sure just where the lieutenant wanted the cemetery started. So we put our man down on the ground and went back for instructions. And as we walked away the funny guy of the group turned and shook a finger at the dead German and said: ‘Now don’t you run away while we’re gone.’

  Many thousands of soldiers left Normandy not as casualties but as prisoners of war. In the confused fighting and constantly shifting front line it was all too easy to walk into the hands of the enemy. In general, POWs were treated reasonably by both sides, even if taken in the heat of the moment of battle when feelings were highest. This is not to say that POW crimes did not take place; they did.

  Corporal Ted Morris, 6th Airborne Division

  Jimmy Warkup, a sergeant-major, came down with some German prisoner
s and left me with these Germans and a Sten gun. I said to him that the Sten was no good to me, I was a non-combatant. He said it didn’t matter because it had a bullet jammed in it and it didn’t fire in any case. I had some lovely souvenirs off these Germans: I had a lovely belt with ‘Gott Mitts Uns’ on, and some stamps with Hitler’s head on. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m all right here!’ Anyway, Warkup came back with a lance-sergeant, called Eddie Walker, on a stretcher, who had been ‘shot in the stomach – I think by one of his own officers by mistake. He had internal bleeding.

  Warkup said, ‘We’ll take this bloke back. Have four German POWs to carry the stretcher.’ I had a lance-corporal – Wilkinson was his name – with me from the Paras, with a Sten gun pointing at the Germans. They picked up the stretcher and away we went, with me walking in front. I got so far and I found some Paras holding the perimeter and they had a Bren. I said, ‘Is that the road back?’ – there was a sort of sunken road in front. They said, ‘Yes, you go on through there, you’ll be all right.’ Well, just then we got mortared, but they were only ranging on the village and after a few shells it went. A couple of medical orderlies from another battalion appeared with a badly wounded chap on a stretcher, his arm was all bloody and that. I said that I couldn’t take another stretcher, but the chap got off the stretcher and said he could walk, and sure enough he bloody walked. With that we set off down the sunken road, and we’d only got a few hundred yards from the Bren gun lads and all of a sudden there was a little Jerry in front of me with a Schmeisser. It was typical, what you see in the movies: ‘Hande hoch.’ There were Germans everywhere, coming out of the sunken road. They didn’t shoot because they were looking for prisoners, to see who we were. So that’s how I was captured.