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We then came under mortar fire and after about an hour or so we pulled back.We came across a line of vehicles that had been hit and there was a body lying on the road and he still had his fighting knife on him,so I took that as mine was lost on the ridge,and I also took bandoliers of ammunition from him and re-armed myself fully.
We got to the village of Beauville (?) and went in to an old barn,knocked out all the glass windows and waited for a counter attack,but it didn't come.We waited until dawn when we went outside to assess the situation.There were some slit trenches which we occupied,and then some German fighter bombers came over and one bomb landed 15 yards from me and buried some of the blokes in the trench next to us. We got some shovels and dug them out.After this we had a roll call and found that quite a lot of the battalion had been killed and there had been about 70% casualties.We went in to the process of sorting ouselves out for the next day or so and were being sniped at. I volunteered with others to find the snipers, and said to my mate "Come on Lou,lets get these snipers". Eventually about 8 of us went into the village. I acted as a decoy walking down the centre of the road while the others covered me from each side but nothing happened and we continued on.
After that we had another CO join us from the Cheshires as our CO had been killed on the main attack. I was detailed with others to get supplies from a ship off shore.This went on for several days.We would go out in landing craft and return to load up trucks with food and ammo.All in all I was there for about 7 weeks from the time I landed until I got back to England, and in that time I never took my boots or uniform off.We did have some showers brought in and we showered and put our dirty kit back on, and I was reeking.
Altogether we put in three main attacks.On the third one we were told that as we had had it rough on the first two we were to have it easy on this one.We were just going to mop up after the tanks had gone in in the northern part of Caen.This was to be straight on to Paris.The whole of 3 Div were involved and our company was going through last when we came upon a burning Sherman tank with bodies laying around. There were two German medical officers who had been taken prisoner and were treating our blokes but not under any supervision.Then more prisoners came towards us still fully armed. A bloke from a Bren Carrier jumped down and tried to take the German equipment but was thrown to the ground.I went to fire on the prisoner and something told me to get down. I suppose I was a bit slow because the next thing I knew was that I had been hit in the shoulder.I was very luck not to have been killed, very lucky indeed.The bullet had gone straight through my shoulder, and blokes either side of me signalled for medics by sticking my rifle in the ground.Then a bloke came along holding his stomach,I knew him from Coventry,and I got up to try and help him.At that time two German prisoners came along and I signalled for them to help this bloke but they ignored me.So I got out my fighting knife, as I couldn't use my right arm,and indicated what I would do if they didn't help.They decided to help by taking this bloke back about 50 metres to where the German medical officers were.The wounded were put in to ambulances and taken to a first aid station.I dont know what happened to the bloke as I didn't see him again.
I got back to Southampton and on to a hospital train.

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