大象传媒

Normandy 1944

We sailed from Victoria Docks in London on Monday, 19th June, aboard the MT108 Stanridge - an American built vessel. We pulled out into the Thames estuary and remained there for 5 days, a bad storm in the Channel having disrupted the schedule - we were in sight of the Essex and Kent coasts. During this time we heard and saw a number of V1s (buzz bombs), several of which exploded on the Essex coast.

The convoy got under way on the Friday night, passing through the Straits of Dover on the Saturday morning, by now a convoy of ships as far as the eye could see in all directions, escorted by destroyers and corvettes of the Royal Navy. A number of ships sported barrage balloons to deter enemy aircraft.

We arrived off the Normandy coast on the Saturday night and on the Sunday morning, 25th June, our vehicles, lorries and half-tracks were offloaded by the ships' derricks into small landing craft alongside, mannned by Royal Marines. We then scaled down the scrambling nets onto our vehicles and made for the shore at Arromanches, about half-a-mile distant. The ramps of the landing craft went down, and we drove off to the shore into 3 inches of water! - despite the fact that all our vehicles, engineer stores and explosives had been waterproofed, which meant that we could have driven off into 4 or 5 feet of water had it been necessary.

The following day, 26th June, I was 21 years old. I have never forgotten that birthday!

The fighting around Caen was very confused - I find it difficult to pick out any particular event but I do remember that we built several Bailey bridges - another thing which comes to mind were the enemy multiple mortars or "Moaning Minnies" as we called them, by the noise they made in flight - they would come over about 12 or so at a time and you had the feeling that one was heading direct for the middle of your back if you were caught in the open!

Our section travelled in 2 half-track vehicles which gave a certain amount of protection against small arms fire but the top was just a canvas sheet which was very vulnerable, especially as we carried a certain amount of explosives for demolition work.

Following the battle of the "Falaise Pocket" we moved on and eventually crossed the River Seine at Vernon - the race for Northern France and Belgium was on!

The final stretch started at Douai Airfield with the objective being Brussels and the leading battalion of the Guards Armoured Division (2nd Armd. Batt. Welsh Guards), equipped with Cromwell tanks which could attain 50 m.p.h. on the road, were the first troops into the Belgian capital. The RE element followed soon afterwards having covered 97 miles in the 14 hours, arriving at nightfall on 3rd September - a significant date.

The civil population went wild, climbing onto our tanks, half-tracks and other vehicles and telling us that the war was now over - it might have been for them, but not for us! I remember seeing the dome of the Palais de Justice on fire and the copper on the dome all melting and running down. The fire had been started by the enemy before leaving.

The breakout from the Escaut Canal was led by the Guards Armoured Division, the leading battalion being 2nd Armoured Batt. Irish Guards, to which our RE Recce Section was attached. Our task as forward Recce Section was to deal with any mines or road blocks, etc., that might impede the advance - if we required more assistance we could call on the remainder of the squadron further back in the column.

Our position in the column was as follows - in the lead 2 or 3 light tanks, followed by 3 Sherman tanks, then the RE Recce Section in 2 half-tracks and our RE Officer in a light scout car, followed by the remainder of the Armoured Battalion, about 60 or 80 Sherman tanks.

The enemy were in woodland each side of the road and were equipped with artillery.

We had air support supplied by the RAF consisting of rocket-firing Typhoon fighters, which attacked the woods each side of the road - we also had a creeping barrage of our own artillery who dropped their shells 400 yards ahead of the advancing column.

We had progressed about half-a-mile or so and could then see that the rest of the tanks were not following, there being just one behind us and the 6 or so ahead - all that could be seen to the rear was a lot of smoke and fire. What happened was that 9 Sherman tanks had been knocked out, and were on fire.

We were then ordered to turn around and rejoin the rest of the column - easy enough for the tanks to do but not so easy for the half-tracks. However, they did so and we sappers more or less crawled along the ditch by the side of the road - we made it and very soon started to advance again.

Some miles ahead now was a bridge over over a small river just south of the Dutch town of Valkensward - we did not know if the bridge was intact so the column halted and our Recce Section, with a couple of tanks in support, went forward to assess the situation, also a bulldozer was brought up from the rear. As we arrived at the bridge a salvo of our own artillery dropped on to the bridge area - there was a mighty dive for the ground! Luckily, there were no casualties and no damage to the bridge, which turned out to be a temporary structure put there by civil authorities while a new bridge was being constructed. A Forward Artillery Observation Officer promptly radioed back to the guns to lift their range a bit!

Our Officer and Corporal decided that the bridge would take the tanks after a couple of timbers had been repositioned and the column was on its way again, so into Valkensward just before nightfall. I remember we spent the rest of the night in a shop front, the windows of which were missing! Next morning the advance continued - tanks did not normally operate at night, although of course there were exceptions to this.

This kind of existence continued right up until the end of the war in May 1945, by which time we were at a small place called Stadt on the banks of the River Elbe in Northern Germany.

All this is just an example of what the war was like for our section - No. 4 Section, 2 Troop, 14 Field Squadron RE - and of course for the Guards Armoured Division as a whole. It has taken all these years to be able to write about these things in as detached a sort of way as possible, but it has brought back many other memories of pals and comrades who did not make it.

The war being over I still had 4 years to serve and went, after Germany, to Trieste, Egypt, Palestine and finally the UK - June 1949 and I was a civilian again and ready to start a belated career on the railways.

Thank you for reading this.

W. H. (Bill) Hicks

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.