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Nine weeks commanding an Infantry Platoon in Normandy wearing Sergeant’s stripes. The three officers posted to the Platoon had each not, for different reasons lasted, lasted for more than a couple of days. Nine weeks living, and sometimes dying, in a hole in the ground, when we weren’t moving to another sector to put in an attack, to gain possession of a village, a hill, or a road junction. So the casualties increased, the killed, the wounded, the frightened, hardly any of my comrades with whom I had trained for three years remained. No wonder my eyes stung with unshed tears.

Then I was travelling in an amphibious vehicle (DUKW) nearly 200 km to Vernon to cross the Seine and form a bridgehead for the following army to, more or less, safely pursue a fleeing enemy. What a change from the dirt and stink of death which we had left behind! As we passed through villages and towns the newly liberated inhabitants waved, cheered and wished us ‘Bon Voyage’. Waiting in our DUKW beneath the leafy trees which lined the road to the river, we came under enemy fire from the wooded slopes opposite. The only casualty was our vehicle which, the driver said, would be of no further use. It was around midnight before our replacement vehicle arrived, a heavy cumbersome assault boat, but it took us safely across. Hurrying towards our objective along the riverbank we were halted by a challenge, I melted back into the darkness, uncertain, hesitating. A more resolute Andre, our guide from the French Resistance, emptied half a magazine of bullets from his sub machine gun into the hapless enemy, resulting in two more raising their hands in submission. In the prevailing situation prisoners were a problem but Andre volunteered to conduct them to a place of captivity, whether he did so, or when out of earshot he shot them and their bodies joined the scores of British servicemen, whose remains floated down the bloodied and turbulent waters of the Seine on that tragic night, I shall never know.

Another half a mile on and my leading section was held up by machine gun fire. Moving forward to investigate, I was surprised to find my Company Commander was close behind me. He was fresh out of England and had already expressed to me his disappointment and bewilderment that the battle was not following the rules which his recent training had taught him to expect. Now it was for me to reprimand him for being so far forward, putting his life in jeopardy and thereby compromising the fate of the entire company which at any moment could find itself without its leader. Almost immediately I was shot at by a sniper at close range. I should have dived for cover but I took the opportunity to emphasise the danger of the situation to the Major. The sniper didn’t miss with his next shot. A couple of weeks later, back in England and in hospital, I was informed that on the morning of my wounding, notice had appeared in Battalion Orders that I had been commissioned in the field with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. This news was followed by a not so welcome brief that as I was no longer with my unit the Commission was cancelled.

Six months later, fully recovered, based with a Holding Unit at Clacton as a Sgt Instructor in Fieldcraft and Weapon Training, my commission was reinstated, though not backdated. I was posted to Norfolk probably en route for a return to the theatre of war. In the event I ended my service career on the fast disappearing coast at Mundesly as a Lieutenant supervising training in — of course Fieldcraft and Weapons.

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