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This is an extract the story of Ernest Edward Iles ,known as Ernie, who served in the Royal Engineers during World War 11. His army no. 14248226 and rank Corporal on release on August 1946.

He was born on 16th August 1912 in the village of Dunvant 4 miles from Swansea and was no 5 of a family of 10 children.
His father had walked to Swansea from Bristol looking for work as a builder; Ernie also became a builder.

In the early part of World War 11, Ernie worked at the Fairwood aerodrome, on the outskirts of Swansea, building runways and various buildings for Officers etc.
The last part of the war, he spent in Italy as a despatch rider on a motorbike but that is another story.

This extract is about the D Day landings.

March 1944 — Bicester

Things looked as if they were beginning to move.We had had 4 lots of injections and went to Shotover for a course of intensive training and a refresher on mines and explosives, then back to Bicester for plane spotting training. I noticed that all our lorries and trucks were having large white stars painted on the side of them. I was on the site one day and we had a small petrol driven roller, like you see being used on pavements, we had terrible rouble starting it, so we sent for a mechanic. A lance-corporal came to see to it, he fiddled around with the plugs etc and started it, so he started driving it around then put it into reverse but he didn’t notice a steel stanchion behind him and he hit it! I have never seen anything like it, it just rose up and snapped in the middle and dropped down in two parts. Sergeant Hayes said "You got the engine going but I don’t think it will ever be any good to us again." The Lance corporal asked Sergeant Hayes what will happen?
"Oh" he said "They will stop it out of your pay for the next 30 years!" Sgt Hayes did have a sense of humour.

May 1944

We were told to check our kit bags ready for a full inspection & redo our numbers on the bags. Then we were to report with full kit outside 'Company Office'. All the lorries, jeeps and the Major’s car were there. We were leaving Bicester.
That was all we knew. We got on the lorry and it drove away, we had little idea where as all road signs had been removed or painted over.

We stopped for lunch, some sandwiches, and we knew we were travelling South.
About 4 O’Clock we stopped at Leigh on Sea.
We were told not to empty our kit bags as we would be moving in the morning although we were allowed out in the evening
We travelled for a few hours the next day and stopped in a street with empty houses with no furniture. We slept on the floor and were told not to damage anything, we did not know where we were and the lorries filled the roads as there were so many of them.

After morning parade we were up and off again, this was a short ride and we came to a large camp, barbed wire all around, and soldiers parading all around the camp with fixed bayonets. We soon found out we were in Wanstead Flats and it was not far from London.

We had a meal then we assembled for a talk by the Major. He said he couldn’t tell us anything but all leave was cancelled. The camp was guarded by the Queen’s own Regiment and it was nearly the end of May.
OnMay 30th we were lined up for pay and paid in French notes printed especially for the British Forces, and also we were given a French phrase book - so now we knew where we were going!

A few more days of lectures and we were woken by reveille at 3 a.m.. We were paraded and loaded on to lorries on the 4th June. We went through London to the West India docks and boarded a large ship which was well loaded. Our kit bags were on another lorry which was not on this ship.
It was not long before we were moving out into the English channel. There were no bunks or hammocks for us and we were told to make ourselves as comfortable as we could. All day long it had been wave after wave of fighter cover over the ships and there were destroyers and one large Cruiser not faw away. When night came everything was quiet, the sea was rather choppy but it was warm. We were on stop all night but early in the morning on the 6th of June as day dawned there were Bombers passing over and Lancasters towing gliders and then it was announced on the wireless that the invasion of France had commenced. We were still a good way off the coast and most of us were cheering as the planes went over and the Cruiser a way out was firing non-stop. There were spotter planes Lysanders guiding the firing from the Cruiser, it was marvellous where all the ships had come from, and when I saw how many gliders there were, I wondered haw they had got them all off the ground.

It was evening and we still had not got in so we put our heads down, the Sergeant told us we would not be long and just as dawn broke we were told to get ready to go over the side of the ship, we were given black bags in case we were sea sick, we were about half a mile from the beach and landing craft came alongside the ship and we climbed down nets on the side of the ship into the landing craft. There were so many of us in the craft we were nearly standing on each other.

I thought we would be taken on to the beach but when we were about 75 yards from the beach, the Americans said ‘Right lads this is as far as we go, Good luck to you!’
The water was above our waist and as we were wading to the beach I looked around and it looked like thousands and thousands of men all holding their rifles above their heads. It is a sight I will never forget!

Once on the beach we climbed up the sand dunes, which weren’t very high, and alongside were a few trees and out of them came a very tall thin German soldier , looking very scared and behind him was a British soldier with a rifle.

As we topped the dunes we came to a railway line and you could tell the Royal Engineers had been there because a piece had been blown out of it.

We followed a country road to a village called Suelle, there were fields on each side of the road with barbed wire fences and every few yards were signs 'Achten Mines'. The roads were jammed with tanks coming off the boats.

After a few miles we stopped to wait for our Major who had been on another ship. He came in his jeep, and we heard him tell the Sergeant that one of our lorry's has gone into the tide, the driver had his foot on the brake on the front of the ship, which was sloping, and he must have eased his feet off the brake and the truck was in 8ft of water.

Further on we saw an Amphibian (vehicle which could be used on water and land)
burnt out on the side of the road, the driver was sitting alongside and as we passed he said, "I have nursed this for months and now it is gone" A single plane had come over and set it on fire.

Our clothes were drying out now as it was warming up, our kit bags were still not with us yet. We had plenty of cover from our planes but every now & then, the German bombers would get through to bomb the ships and stop our stores and equipment being landed. Now we were a few miles in land, we could hear the firing and our planes were bombing them as well and there was a lot of anti-aircraft fire being thrown at them.
When we got to what looked like a small piece of common the Major decided to stay there for the night. The jeep was full of food and stores so we hoped for something to eat later. We had a few bars of chocolate and emergency ration in our pocket if we ran out of food. Also a packet of cigarettes, sealed up in waterproof wrapping. I did not smoke but those that did really enjoyed them.

A few of us were lying on a bank when the Sergeant came over and said "Right Taffy, take half a dozen with you and go on patrol"
We went back along the road we had come along until we came to a crater In the road, on the other side were tanks and they could not go round because the fields could have mines in them. So we went in to the fields and probed for mines, we had a couple of scares when we touched a stone but we got the tanks through.

We got back to where the major was and it was beginning to get dark, I was on the second guard at Midnight for 4 hours so I put my head on my Mae West and shut my eyes, as we had not had much rest for the last few days.

At midnight I was given a gentle nudge, I woke the others, nobody was sound asleep with all the noise of planes, flashes and searchlights. We were wearing gym shoes instead of boots so that we could move around quietly, each guard had to patrol and contact the next one about once an hour. I had picked a spot by a large post and it was about 5 yards from the Major’s jeep in the centre of the company. About an hour before my guard was due to finish, I was standing facing the jeep and I saw a figure moving around, as I watched he moved to the back and leaned in I moved quickly and quietly put the bayonet against his back and said "Halt who goes there?" he seemed to move back slightly and said Major Anderson, so I stepped back and said "Corporal Iles Sir". As he went round to the other side of the jeep I noticed he had his hand on his back.

I did not think any more about it but the points of our bayonets were very sharp, so I turned out the other guards and went back to my spot and lay down. Next morning we were getting lined up for breakfast when I saw the Sergeant Major talking to Sergeant Hayes and then they went over to the Major by the jeep. I ate my breakfast watching the Germans bombing our ships and before our planes could get to them they had hit at least two ships. Then Sergeant Hayes came over to me and said "Right Taffy, the Major is not too good" I enquired why — he replied that when you challenged him the bayonet caught him and I remembered that he seemed to move back towards me, anyway what was he doing creeping around at that time of night. Apparently he was trying to get comfortable. I said what if it had been a German, he could have cut his throat! The Sergeant said well you were only doing your job and there’s one thing he won’t forget you!

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