大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Richard Gorton, 大象传媒 Guide at the 大象传媒 Open Centre Hull on behalf of Arthur Dales and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Blazer to Battledress by Arthur Dales

Posting orders had come through to go to the Mobilisation Centre at Barry Island. The rank and file in the RASC dreaded the place and spoke of it as a sort of 鈥楧evil鈥檚 Island.鈥� The purpose of the centre was to form new units for overseas service. The island has a causeway carrying the road and railway line and at the end of the causeway was a guardroom so that it was easy to make sure that no one went absent without leave!

In addition to weapon training, the unit had to collect and prepare the heavy equipment it required for overseas 鈥� tents, camouflage netting and roller runways. When packed it was stencilled, not with the unit number but for security reasons serial No. 39228.

As part of the overall plan to make units self sufficient, various members of the unit were sent on courses to Barry Island and I spent a few days there learning to ride a motorcycle. The beach had hard clean sand and this was where the first instruction was given.

In the forthcoming invasion, it was envisaged that landing craft may not be able to put their ramps down wholly on a hard beach and so all vehicles earmarked for the invasion had to be prepared for travel in several feet of sea water. The American forces also used the beach at high tide to test the effect of waterproofing their vehicles.

As professional infantry, the GIs were interested in the weapons we carried, particularly the standard Enfield No.4 rifle with the short bayonet. One soldier said to me, 鈥淪ay, is that a screwdriver on the end of your rifle?鈥�

Remembering Sgt Butt, I quoted him: 鈥淗alf an inch in the right spot is fatal. The round bayonet goes in easier and does not need the force to extract it that a longer flat blade would鈥︹�� Not many privates in the RASC could claim that they had given a lecture on the bayonet to a member of a crack US Division.

At two o鈥檆lock that morning, the troops started to move out to embark at Barry Docks. The last part of the convoy was a column of Sherman tanks. I noticed they had propellers and a huge upward mounting exhaust pipe to be clear of water. A watertight canvas screen when inflated enabled them to float.

On the morning of D-Day, the attack on Omaha Beach suffered appalling casualties 鈥� the landing craft leaving the transports far out to sea. In the case of the floating tanks such as I had seen, 29 out of 32 sank before they reached the shore.

A small number of GIs remained in the camp at St Mellons to clear up. They also simulated activity so that it looked like the camp was still occupied. Cooking stoves were kept going producing lots of smoke. We kept up the pretence by continuing to patrol the perimeter for several more days. On the morning of 6 June (it would be about five o鈥檆lock) I saw in the sky, a vast fleet of the transport planes that had dropped the parachute divisions in Normandy, returning in an endless formation.

Also, on that day, the unit received a strange signal: 鈥楻eport casualties.鈥� We laughed but it was not until after the end of the war that the reason for this signal came to light. One of my duties in a later unit was to interview replacements. A corporal told me that on 6 June 1944, his unit was No. 186 and was in a landing craft that was blown up on the way to the beaches. He was taken to Portsmouth with the survivors. The depleted unit was kept in England. It was given the role of going to the Channel Islands when the German forces surrendered in May 1945. In the heat of battle, a badly written signal had appeared to read 鈥�188鈥� instead of 鈥�186.鈥�

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