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2364208 SIGNALMAN ERIC MIDDLETON WITH REST OF 50 TELEGRAPH OPERATING SECTION

Towards the end of May 1944 we moved to Orwell Park at the side of the River Orwell. We were not allowed out as we were standing by ready to invade the Continent. We spent the days doing PT and practicing for the invasion.
In the Park was a large heap of junk consisting mainly of no returnable 4 gallon petrol cans with no caps, broken crates and lengths of old rope. Some of the cans had bullet holes in them and had obviously been used for target practice. Eddie Cameron, one of my pals, and I decided to make a raft from these. We found about a dozen of the tins without holes and lashed them together with a few wooden spars. We also took two other pieces of wood to use as paddles. Eddie wanted to use the tins with the filler hole upwards but I persuaded him that it was safer to use them with the filler holes down in case waves broke over them.
One evening we launched the raft in the Orwell when the tide was near its height and decided to paddle up stream. The tide soon began to ebb and we could make no further progress so turned back. The current became so strong that we were carried into midstream where shipping hooted at us-After a considerable struggle we managed to make the bank about two miles below the camp. By this time it had turned dark and search parties had been sent out to look for us. With their help we managed to haul the raft well up on to dry land. Our hands were very blistered from the rough wood we had used as paddles.
We had previously been 1 Corps Signals, wearing a blue diamond shaped badge with a white spearhead superimposed on it, but we were told that we were now Beach Signals.
On Friday 2nd June we embarked at Felixstowe. Half of our section went on one LST (Landing Ship Tank) and the half I was in went on another. LSTs were 327 ft long and displaced 4000 tons. Doors in the bow could be swung aside and a ramp could be lowered. They could carry dozens of trucks or tanks. They were flat bottomed and difficult to handle in rough seas. They had two decks with a vehicle lift between the two.
Part of the dockside at Felixstowe had been blasted away so that the LSTs could moor with their bows against the dockside and lower their ramps on to it. There were far more men on ours than it was meant for and most had to sleep on deck. I got a berth with a very thick white naval blanket. We were warned that the blankets had to be left behind when we disembarked. The_ bunks were in three tiers and very cramped. One trouble was that there seemed to be only three WCs on the ship and there were queues for these day and night.
We remained in dock for 48 hours living on hard tack, mainly tinned fish and army biscuits, and then set sail. We were told that this was "it" but no-one knew just where the invasion was to be.
We sailed on and on and were joined by dozens of other vessels. After 36 hours we began to wonder just where we were heading for. We were eventually told that we were to land at H+4 (four hours after the assault began). We would probably be under fire and were to take whatever cover we could. We were to try to set up communication with one of the destroyers which would anchor off the beach and would be able to transmit messages back to England.

After that we were to make for a spot of which the map reference was given, which was at the base of some small hills which would act as a reflector for multichannel aerials which were to be set up. None of us in 50 TOS (Telegraph Operating Section) had ever operated teleprinters working by wireless; they had always been connected by cable. Nor had we ever seen multichannel aerials. We understood that they consisted of three masts in line with three aerials between the centre mast and each of the end ones. We each had to write down all these instructions on a small form provided and were told that if we were captured we were to swallow the paper. I wonder what we would have done had we become separated since only the officer seemed to have a map.
H hour was 3 am on Tuesday 6 June 1944. We arrived off the coast a little bit early. This must have been what was later known as Sword Beach. Sword Beach ran only two miles from Lion sur Mer to Ouisterham and the mouth of the Orne Canal. It was dull with poor visibility, an offshore wind and a heavy swell.
The other LST seemed to go at full speed until it grounded firmly fairly well up the beach. The tide was ebbing and it would need a full tide to get off again.
Our LST hove to about 100 yards from the beach with its doors open and the ramp in a horizontal position. A sailor stood on the ramp using a pole to gauge the depth of water whilst the LST nudged slowly forward until it grounded.
We had a somewhat limited but close up view of what was going on the beach on either side of our vessel. We could not see to the rear of our LCT but there must have been dozens of craft of all shapes and sizes out there. Attempts were being made to get men and stores ashore from them by using small landing craft or rafts propelled and steered by an outboard motor on a very long shaft which could be used as a tiller With the ebbing tide, the heavy swell and the offshore wind the rafts seemed unable to make any progress.
There appeared to be no fighting on the beach itself but the noise of small arms fire with almost continuous heavier gun fire accompanied by flashes from behind the dunes was incessant.
Crab tanks equipped with heavy chains attached to a rotating drum had flailed to detonate any mines and we saw amphibious tanks swim ashore and make their way over the path cleared by the crab tanks. Troops were also disembarking from landing craft and DUKWS ('Ducks' as they were called) were bringing troops-and stores ashore and disappearing behind the dunes. I saw no beach obstacles armed with shells. They had possibly been cleared by Royal Marine frogmen who had gone over the side of landing craft to work on submerged beach obstacles.

DUKWs were US 2Z ton trucks fitted with flotation tanks and propellers. They could do 52 knots in a moderate sea and up to 50 mph on land. The flotation tanks made them very cumbersome and I remember seeing one a few days later that had got jammed at a narrow road junction in a small village. The French family living in the corner cottage were given about five minutes to remove such of their belongings as they could before part of the cottage was demolished to get the DUKW clear.
After an hour or so the ebbing tide had left our LST high and dry although the outgoing tide had scoured quite a large pool at the foot of the ramp. We staggered ashore, almost dryshod, each carrying two jerricans of fresh water to be left at a dump near the base of the dunes. A very different landing to those we had practiced!
We could see no destroyer to try to contact so made our way off the beach and set out for the map reference we had been given. After a mile or so a sergeant stepped out of cover at the side of the road and stopped us to ask where we were going on our trucks with which we had established contact When we told him he said that it was impossible to get there as half a mile ahead the road was under fire from the Germans and the map reference point was well beyond the German lines.
Before leaving England each of our trucks had had a long vertical pipe fitted to the air intake and to the exhaust and had had 20 lbs or more of a putty like mixture, which was reputed to contain powdered asbestos, applied to insulate all the electrics from water. By the time the vehicles joined us the pipes and the insulating material had been removed. Some weeks later I came across a field where some hundreds of vehicles must have had their waterproofing removed. The pipes were stacked against a wall but the whole field seemed to be covered with the insulating material. The field would certainly need a lot of work doing to it before it could be brought under cultivation once more.

On the sergeant's advice we turned back and prepared to bed down for the night in a field. We each had a 24 hr pack of food with us. So far as I can recall these held biscuits, chocolate, soup and beans. I had the job of explaining to the farmer whose field it was that the trench we were digging in one corner was not for protection against attack but was for latrines.
By the end of D day 29000 men had come ashore at sword beach. Troops were 5 km short of Caen.
During the night I discovered just beside the spot where I was sleeping, a buried metal object with a ring in the top of it. This seemed to meet the description of a type of German mine we had been shown on a course of mine clearance, although the mines usually had a trip wire attached to the ring. I called over the sergeant and we decided that nothing could be done until daylight. In the morning the farmer was around early and I asked him whether the Germans had ever laid mines in his field. I showed him what I had found; He roared with laughter and explained that it was a metal spike sunk in the ground and to which he tethered his cattle.

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