大象传媒

I was a Paratrooper in the 6th airborn division and we landed in Normandy just after midnight on the 6th June 1944. On the way we flew in over Lehaver and the anti aircraft fire was heavy as we went in. A couple of our planes were shot down. We were dropped erratically by the RAF but i landed in the wrong dropping zone, 4 miles from where I should have been. 50 or 60 others were with me and we had to cross through a french village to get to our battalion. An officer and an interpreter knocked on the first door and learned how many germans were in the village. The first party, my party got through okay but the second party suffered many casualties. By the time we got to the bridge at Troarn it was daylight. Army engineers had equipment to destroy the bridge to stop german tanks crossing the river, to attack troops that would land on the beaches. We then retired to a position where we could defend ourselves. A very funny thing happened. An elderly frenchman who was on his way to work on a bike stopped and asked who we were. I replied with Parachists Britaenique. The old chap was so excited that he attempted to get on his bike but fell off the other side. He did this three more times and then cycled off furiously to tell his people that it was D-Day. The battle lasted 10 weeks during which we suffered many casualties. My division was made up of between 6000 and 7000 men. Of these over 1000 were killed and many more were injured. We will visit their graves in June on the aniversary. Most of them are buried in a military cemetery in Ramville. I was fortunate because I only suffered a blow to the leg by a glancing piece of shrapnel from an anti aircraft fire. I limped around for a while but then I went to a casualty station which was a barn. Outside there were 20-30 dead bodies and inside many were wounded. They gave me a filed dressing and I said I would return but I never did. I was under the command of Field marshall Montgomery and General Eisenhower controlled every one. The next operation was the crossing of the river Rhine in germany. We fought our way across Northern Germany until we met the Russian troops at Wismar on the Baltic coast. War in europe was over. We prepared to invade Japan but before we could leave the atomic bombs were dropped on Wroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered and WW2 was over.

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