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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sarah Harding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mr. Boocock and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the time of D-Day Rommel was in charge of the defence of the north and west coasts of France. When he was asked what he would need for the Germans to hold, he replied "Give me a squadron of Spitfires."
We went across after D Day but we still had to go up the beaches. We went over in an American landing ship, approached the beach and someone went down the ramp with a long stick to see how deep the water was. It was 3ft 6 inches deep. We had to go down the ramp in bottom gear with the engine screaming to keep the exhaust clear of water.
At this time many V1s were launched from the shore and just missed our mast heads but were allowed to go. We could also see the early trial V2s going up.
We got ashore without difficulty and made our way to a landing strip which had been laid down under German shellfire.
We were situated just West of Caen, the Germans put up a strong resistance to our front line troops and we were stuck here for some time.
Our strategists noticed that all the main roads East of this area ran East and West. Montgomery built a new road running North – South on the West side of Caen so that our heavy forces could move North or South overnight but the Germans could not.
Allied forces broke through the German lines and the Americans had a strong self-supporting mobile force under General Paton moving behind the German lines to disrupt their supply lines.
The Germans soon retreated and Allied forces moved forwards.
After some time our unit moved forward 200 miles to an airfield near Brussels and from the moment we entered Belgium, we were welcomed with open arms.
Our front line forces were still moving forward and our unit moved to Eindhoven. The land we occupied was very flat and only just above the water line. The temperature was below freezing and we were still accommodated in tents. In fact we could walk out of our tent and skate on the frozen ponds.
Our 40 Typhoon bombers were supporting our drive for the Arnhem bridge and the Germans knew this. Very early New Year’s morning (just light) 1944 a swarm of German fighters attacked our airfield and flew backwards and forwards shooting at every grounded aircraft in sight. Two of our aircraft got away, but we lost the rest.
However another 40 Typhoon aircraft arrived two days later.
Our troops drove towards Arnhem and several aircraft towing gliders each carrying British troops to the Eastern side of the bridge.
They were told to hold the bridge for two days and they would be relieved. Our planes went over to attack the German armour but returned saying they could not see a thing. We had thick fog. You could hardly see your hand in front of you.
Our planes had difficulty landing when returning so the authority sent a mobile Radar station which had to be placed at the far end of the runway but one pilot did not apply his brakes soon enough and smashed both his aircraft and the Radar transmitter.
It seems that thick fog preventing our superior forces attacking the German heavy armour was the cause of the failure to capture the Arnhem Bridge. It was said that the capture of the bridge would have shortened the war by 6 months.
Shortly after this episode I was sent home and spent the rest of the war in England.
As a last thought we had a problem in countering the V2 attack which had been intensified but they found where they were being made and put in a very heavy raid on the area and manufacture was stopped.
I was lucky, I found all my time in the forces enjoyable because I always knew what they were doing and why they were doing it.

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