大象传媒

One of the many sessions organised by Thanet Libraries and UK-Online took place at the 鈥楪AP鈥� community centre in Broadstairs. Mrs. Wampach came in with the work of her late husband C. R. Wampach 鈥� Royal Engineers. He made the army his career and by the time the army decided he was of retirement age he had reached the rank of Major. In fact 鈥� had he not lied about his age when he joined 鈥� he could have stayed in the forces for a further 3 years. The account of his career is called 鈥楾he Memoirs of a Sapper鈥� and this is one of those memories.

Memoirs of a Sapper 鈥� D-Day

Late in the evening of June 5th we were read the Orders for the Day from Eisenhower and Montgomery. We were about to take part in the biggest military operation the world had ever seen. One officer said to me, 鈥淲e are making history.鈥� As the landing craft tossed at its anchorage many thoughts came into my head. I thought of my family, what would we encounter on the other side, would I be able to control my fear, could I do the job I was trained for? The adrenaline was pumping as the engine of the craft roared into life and we moved out of the Southampton water into the Channel. D-Day had come!

We were to hit the beaches at about 5:30 on the 6th of June. We had three landing beaches, Gold, Sword and Juno. The channel was a mass of ships. Hundreds of landing craft, destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Overhead hundreds of bombers were making for the French coast. At about 3 am the main barrage against the coastal defences opened up. The noise was deafening! Destroyers pounding away with their 6 inch guns whilst 16 inch salvo鈥檚 from the battleships poured death and destruction on the German gun emplacements. There were also dozens of rocket firing ships which fired 50 rockets at a time. As soon as we landed our objective was Port en Besin which would be the other end of the pipeline. The first to land were the assault engineers of 32 Armoured Engineer Regiment RE whose job was to clear the minefields and mark safe lanes for the infantry. Everyone had to keep moving, remaining on the beach was a death trap. We landed on Gold beach with minimum casualties. In no time at all we were through the German forward defensive positions and prisoners were being marched back towards the beach. It was a very different story unfolding on the beaches where the Americans landed.

Amidst the death and destruction there were some amusing incidents. On Juno beach the Canadian Sappers were storming a German pill box when some 100 yards away they spotted a group of civilians standing together at the side of the road. When asked what the hell they were doing there they replied that they were waiting for a bus!

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