大象传媒

I was conscripted into the army in December 1939 & posted to the Welsh Regiment based in Cardiff. We were billited in schools, dance halls, church halls and anywhere that had space. We had to sleep on the floors, owing to the rapid influx of conscripts. promotion was quite quick and i became a Sergent within seven months. I was an instructor and had an intake of approximately 30 men every six weeks. after their initial training, they were posted to other units. I trained them in small arms, rifle Bren gun 2" mortar, sten gun and grenades. whilst in Cardiff, the Germans bombed the city for three nights running. On the second night, we were called out to help get the people out of bombed houses. This was our first taste of the horror of war. After two years a new training camp was built at Dering Lines in Brecon to accomodate the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the South Wales Borderers and ourselves. After sleeping on floors, it was heaven to have a proper bed & barrack room.

After being a sergent for four yrs, i was asked to take a commission, which i did. I did my officers training at Alton Towers and was commissioned in December 1943. I was posted to a new unit being formed as an Independent Machine Gun Company attached to the Guard's Armoured Division. I was now in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and had to learn all about the Vicker's machine gun which was exactly the same as the First World War gun except that it had new sights and streamlined amunition that could fire approximately 2000 yards.

Eventually, i was posted to Malton in Yorkshire. It was a very cold winter and it snowed a lot of the time. We did a lot of field training exercises while we waited for the invasion to start. On June 15th, we drove to Woodford in London. We got a marvellous reception on the way all giving cups of tea & coffee. The 16th June was the night that the flying bombs started on London so we had a grandstand view. On the 18th June, we drove to the Albert Docks to be loaded onto an American liberty ship called the SAN PEP. We anchored off Southend because heavy seas on the Normandy beaches held up the landing. We went ashore a Le Hmel on the night of 25th / 26th June. I was in charge of loading the company into the landing craft. By this time, it was pitch black and we were being bombed by German planes. All my carries got ashore except my platoon because with all the smoke cannisters going off, we couldn't see anything so we anchored for the night and waited for daylight. We went ashore as soon as it was light enough. Where the beaches had been bombed the night before, the shell holes were full of soft sand and four of my carriers, including myself, were bogged down. I transferred to one of my other carriers and joined my company in Bayeur.

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