大象传媒

My dad was born in 1914 and was called up for WW2. He originally joined the infantry. He volunteered for the gliders when they were announced [it gave him an extra 6d per day her claimed]. When they looked for volunteers to learn to jump, he again volunteered and went for the training. He told me how they got the recruits to jump from a tower with a rope attached to teach them how to fall and land properly, and also how they had to keep their feet and legs together and bend at the knees. It came to the commissioning parade where the recruits were to be commissioned into the paras and the officer asked each recruit in turn " Are you prepared to jump?". My dad said he asked the officer if he would get the extra 6d a day that paras were promised. The officer replied was he already in the gliders. As he was, the officer told him he was already getting the extra 6d a day for being in the gliders and would not get an extra shilling a day so my dad declined, and was not a para in the end, although he remained in the 6th Airborne Div.

He said it was extremely dangerous jumping out of Dackotas, and he saw some his mates die when the chuts did not release from the line and the men wrer thrown about in the slipstream from the planes engines against the tail of the plane.

He also told me about the dummy wooden tanks which he saw, which were made up to fool the enemy into thinking the assault into France was coming from somewhere else.

Later on he went to France at D day plus 6 and was involved in the Battle of the Bulge and later on went round the top of Germany and was involved in Liberating one of the concentration camps - but I forget which one it was - possibly Auswitch. The images never left him and he refused to speak about it even in his old age. He died of cancer and in his last days whilst on pain relief and he had constant nightmares of the images of the camp.

Finally, I remember as a child he gave me his red beret to wear around the garden, which meant very little to me - but clearly meant a lot to him.

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