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Chapter 13

Normandy

We sailed from Purfleet, on the Thames, in an American Tank Landing Ship, L.S.T. 527, in June, 1944. The rest of the regiment had already sailed, but the Liberty ship taking them to Normandy could not accommodate all of us so fifty of us were left behind to await another vessel. We anchored near the wooden forts that had been built across the Thames estuary as a defence against enemy mine-laying aircraft, and remained there for three days, not because of enemy activity in the Channel but to make sure no one decided to do a bunk before the sailing date.
As we passed through the Straits of Dover a naval destroyer on our port side proceeded to lay a thick black smoke screen between us and the French coast, which seemed pointless to us soldiers, because visibility was so clear and perfect that it was obvious German observers on the French coast could see us quite plainly; but no doubt the navy had its reasons.
The trip down Channel was glorious and peaceful. We were not fired on by German shore batteries, nor were we attacked from the air. No naval vessels came out to harry us. The sun blazed down from a cloudless blue sky, the pea-green sea was so calm and friendly it forgot to make us seasick, and at night the myriads of brilliant stars gleamed and shimmered like a regal aigrette on a dark blue velvet cloth, while the moon climbed slowly higher in the heavens as if to get a better look at the world.
It was all so wonderfully pleasant and peaceful that it was difficult to realise that this was not a pleasure cruise but a voyage to war: until the body of an American marine floated past, his blonde hair moving slowly from side to side with the gentle motion of the sea like corn in a summer breeze. Some wife or mother would have received a telegram giving the sad news of a loved one's death.
As the dusk of evening gradually enveloped us in its chilly embrace a loud nasal voice from the loudspeaker system disturbed the tranquillity. "Now hear this. Now hear this," it grated. There followed some items of naval jargon for the crew, then an order that concerned us all. "No smoking up topsides. No smoking up topsides." A small group of us descended a companionway in search of a place to sleep, only to find the limited accommodation allotted to us already full. Seeing the recumbent figures crowded together on the deck, and others wedged two or three to a bunk, we went back "up topsides" and found a sheltered place on deck. The crews of the A.A. guns for’ard of the bridge changed over, shadowy figures in the soft grey twilight, their thick rubber-soled boots making no sound on the steel deck.
We arrived at our point of disembarkation, Gold Beach, Arromanches, late next evening. The ship surged right up to the beach and its square bows were lowered to form a ramp. The hardware of war inside looked like an enormous meal in a gigantic mouth. We ran down the ramp and on to the beach without getting so much as the soles of our boots wet.
(Our pals in the Liberty ship were mot so lucky. They had sailed three days before us, had a very rough voyage that made most of them seasick, and when they arrived at the beach they had to ride out a sixty-miles-an-hour gale in Seine Bay before wading ashore through waist-high surf.)
As we ran across the beach a petty officer beachmaster approached us, took a quick glance at our divisional shoulder badges and pointed to a narrow lane that went inland from the beach. "Your marshalling area's about a mile up that lane," he told us. "You'll be met by someone who'll direct you from there."
A mile? If that was his idea of a mile I wouldn't care to have to do a twenty-mile forced march with him. We must have walked at least five miles inland before a corporal of the R.A.S.C. met us and directed us to a corner of a cornfield where he said we should kip down for the night.
A Spitfire landed on a nearby airstrip.
We each had two blankets with us and as we prepared to settle down for the night by arranging them so that we got as many layers as possible both under and on top of us as we had done on manoeuvres.
A muffled rumbling sound disturbed us and the earth began to tremble. The rumble rose gradually to a roar and the ground shook more violently. The roar became much louder and the ground vibrated even more violently until it seemed like mild electric shocks coursing upwards from our feet. Alarmed by now, we leapt upright, fearing a bombing raid or even an earthquake.
We had been in Normandy a little more than two hours, and we were almost run over by some of our own tanks. This was their marshalling area!
Next morning we were taken by personnel carrier along rough country roads past war-ravaged buildings, raising clouds of the white dust we had already heard about, and dumped in a field where we were told to await the arrival of the rest of the regiment.
We had endured many cold and unpleasant ablutions in many equally cold and unpleasant places when on manoeuvres in England, but what we had in that field was reminiscent of World War One. The pilot of a spotter plane had detected enemy troop movements near the corner of a wood during the early days of the invasion and radioed the information back to one of the capital ships supporting the landings. The battleship blasted the area with its 15-inch guns and created a moonscape of craters in and near the wood. These were now filled with stagnant green water in which we washed and shaved. To our pals, when they arrived, damp and miserable from their landing, this was adding insult to injury.
We went into action within twenty-four hours of landing, supporting the Canadians at Carpiquet Aerodrome, the airport for Caen where, we heard later, one determined German soldier threw back the hand grenades thrown at him by the Canadians and only surrendered when one blew his hand off.
Our Divisional infantry went into action twenty-four hours later and opened their battle account near some farm buildings close by an orchard at the end of a lane south of Cheux. The 5th. D.C.L.I. were in the line for the first time. They had just taken over their position, their P.I.A.T. mortars were still unloaded and their six-pounder anti-tank guns still unprepared for action, when six German Panther tanks rumbled unexpectedly round the corner of the lane only a hundred yards from Company H.Q. The Cornwalls immediately engaged them with rifles and hand grenades. A sergeant ran back and grabbed
a P.I.A.T. Going into action single-handed he hit a Panther at one hundred yards' range. Although slightly wounded when fired on at point-blank range by the tank's machine gun he scored another hit at only sixty yards, closed in to only fifteen yards and knocked out the tank with his third bomb.
A captain stalked a second Panther through the orchard, crept up behind it to within ten yards and knocked it out with his first bomb. Two men fired a six-pounder from four hundred yards and blew up three more Panthers. The remaining Panther limped away, badly damaged.
It was a great start for the Cornwalls, but such success cannot always be achieved without cost. One of their casualties was their Commanding Officer, who was killed as he stood beside his men urging them to greater efforts.
The first full battalion attack was launched by the 1st. Worcesters on the village of Mouen, which they captured in one of the slickest actions of the war after our artillery had inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Fanatical snipers lay in the corn and allowed our men to pass by them before rising to their knees to shoot them from behind.
The 7th. Somersets penetrated into Verson after dominating the area for several days by strong offensive patrolling, then the first units of our Division crossed the River Odon to extend and consolidate the bridgehead and to join in our first major battle - for Hill 112 - and the vital ridge of high ground between the rivers Odon and Orne. During the preliminaries to the river crossing two men of the R.E.M.E. recovery crew unknowingly showed the Germans how to trace a fault in the ignition system of a Panther tank found abandoned but undamaged. The German crew were hiding under the straw in the farmyard and watched the R.E.M.E. men work on the tank and get its engines started. That was the first Panther tank to fall into our hands complete.
On the first day of the attack the Division gained the high ridge for a distance of four thousand yards between Etterville and Hil1112 itself, then advanced over the crest and was engaged in very bitter fighting on the reverse slope and in the area of Maltot. From the moment that the 4th Dorsets stormed into Etterville in a model dawn attack the Division was ceaselessly engaged throughout those blazing hot days in some of the bitterest fighting of the whole of the Normandy campaign.
The 7th. Hampshires fought their way into Maltot and penetrated to the far side of the town before a vicious counter-attack forced them to withdraw.
Our Divisional artillery gave the infantry remarkable support, the three 25-pounder regiments - 94th, 112th, and 179th - firing no fewer than 43,000 rounds in one day.
The infantry gained a footing on the bare ridge and from that moment it was a desperate battle. The Germans threw in everything they had, but the Division stood firm and no German helmet came over the top of Hill 112 again. Within forty-eight hours the ferocity of the enemy mortar fire and the presence of many German tanks and self-propelled guns made it less costly in casualties to consolidate just short of the ridge, which was dominated by the Division from then onwards. The Germans lost at least fifty tanks in two days.
The whole of 43rd. Division was closely engaged in constant fighting in this area for three weeks, finally resuming the offensive to recapture Maltot, where the Wiltshires took nearly four hundred prisoners. The opposition consisted of crack S.S. troops and two panzer divisions on whom very heavy casualties were inflicted. Our Divisional artillery, which broke up many counter-attacks, had fired an average of three thousand rounds per gun in its first month's fighting.
During that month my Battery, 172, had suffered its share of casualties. Men not required for immediate duty had been killed in the wagon lines, either by enemy gunfire or strafing by FW.190 fighter-bombers. Captain Shaw, “C" Troop's commander, had been killed at the O.P. The half-track used by Battery H.Q.'s O.P. crew had been heavily stonked by enemy mortars when it raised clouds of white dust while manoeuvring to avoid a fallen tree trunk said to have been placed there by French collaborators, and every man in it either killed or badly wounded. One of those killed was my close friend, Charlie Addison, who was one of my room-mates when I was in B.H.Q. When I heard the news of his being missing I felt both very sad and at the same time strangely thankful. Sad at losing such a good friend and one of the nicest little chaps I had ever known, and thankful when I thought that had I not been posted to "D" Troop. I too might well have been in the half track. Charlie, and George Joy, another of my B.H.Q. room-mates, tossed a coin to decide which of them should go on the O.P. on that fateful mission. Charlie lost. George survived the war.
My good friend, Nobby Knott, with whom I had done so much O.P. training in England after being posted to "D" Troop, was the first of "D" Troop's casualties. He was wounded in the arm during one of our early actions and flown back to England. (When he was fit again he was posted back to us at his own request and from then on he and I saw the war out together at the O.P. with only two short breaks at the gun position.)
"D" Troop's second casualty was another O.P. signaller, who could not stand up to the strains and stresses of the job and had to be relieved because of his nerves. He was posted away from us soon afterwards and we never knew what happened to him after that.
The third of "D" Troop's signallers was severely wounded in the back and we heard he had died soon afterwards. I was detailed to replace him. I was not amused.
(Five years later; that is, three years after my return to Civvy Street my wife and I were returning from a Sunday ride to the Lickey Hills with our two small children in the tandem and sidecar when the front chain slipped off the chain-wheel. I was trying to replace it when a quiet voice nearby asked, "Having a spot or trouble, Doug?"
For a moment I could only stare at the speaker in sheer disbelief. Then, "Good God: We heard you were dead. "
"No. Not quite," he replied, with a quiet smile.
It was Ted Pierpoint, the ‘dead’ man whom I had replaced on the O.P. (Furthermore, during the course of our conversation it transpired we lived only fifteen minutes' walk from one another).

continued in 13b . . .

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