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As we waded ashore the navy shells roared overhead the shrapnel from these shells and the German snipers shots we could not do anything but get to the beach our rifles in our hands with the safety catch on so that no shots could be fired, reason why, if we fired our guns we may hit our comrades, in fact most of us did not have to open fire for two days. The first days was moving along roads deserted, with the German shells falling amongst us. Shrapnel you could hear snapping the hedgerows, we avoided villages, and farmhouses, we sett1ed down at night digging a small trench and posted sentries every two hours.
The second day we split up into platoons and moved forward across fields, there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the area, about midday we had to moved onto roads around a village here we come across Frenchmen with bottles of wine, who offer us a drink from the bottle we also learn from this Frenchmen where the Germans had gone, that night we went on night patrol finding out who was near us; we came across marine commandos with assault bridge engineers, who was looking on a bridge, I recognized a voice from the black country (Dudley), we accidentally set off a flare from trip wire, and dive into a shell hole. We stated what we were" but could not stop" we also found out the German was in the forest next to them, we also found ten men wondering around crashed gliders, it looked like scrap metal dumps. Across the fields about 20 feet apart "Tree Trunks", 8 foot high in the day light we recognized English gliders had crashed onto those plains near Blanvil1e and Caen. The Germans must have known that these gliders was going to land here. We1earned later that this was the "Paratroopers'" raid, a sheer waste of manpower, very few got out of these gliders alive.
As we moved forward the German Artillery Shells fell amongst us, we drop flat where we were, it was advisable not to jump onto the verges or hedges because of mines, many vehicles that pulled onto verges and gateways to fields was blown up by mines, there was a lot of minor things we learned like don鈥檛 touch anything like moving a dead body or anything on it, don鈥檛 get near vehicles or listen to radios in vehicles, our first casualty was a Corpora1 Gill from Lozells, some vehicle had a radio on, the German Gunners zero onto it and we got caught in the middle of a barrage of shells. The German shells we found out worked in an area of 25 metres when they laid down a barrage. Of course this was this wasn鈥檛 every day or every hour, only if they heard vehicles advancing. Most of the time we advance on foot through fields where horses or cows, avoiding the double
hedgerows, the milk maids milked the cows in the field and we got a mug of milk, it was never anymore.
The first big battle was at 鈥淰ille Bocage" where 30 corps with their tanks took on the German 鈥淧anzer鈥� tanks, the Germans knocked out about 30 vehicles, tanks and carriers, next our headquarters section became involved, most of them got killed or wounded, the 3 Sergeants who fired the P.I.A.T guns, that fired anti-tanks shells also died, we were then involved and lost quite a few men, tanks going across our trenches, but in the end the German Officer" with no serviceable tanks surrender. It took all night to get wounded survivors English and Germans into field ambulance stations. The next few days were very quiet and we moved back to our position before this battle.
As we moved forward over the countryside the snipers were busy from church towers and high trees, their selected targets were Officers especially travelling in jeeps and directing their Artillery where to shell.
Quite a few Germans surrender coming alone, they removed their hats, and had no weapons, we told them where to go, not showing ourselves the rear company passed them on, to sections that looked after prisoners.
No front line units took prisoners, the units at the rear like Red Cross Stretcher Bearers etc. followed at a distance, a soldier getting wounded or needed the last rites, had to wait for a lull in the fighting.
The next encounter with a German unit was quite surprising, we were in a field about three fields away from a chateau, one of the fields had potato plants, we used to go and collect these new potatoes and cook them to eat with rations of bully beef. It went on for about three days when we noticed the Germans were at the top of the field picking the potatoes, we took no notice of them, it was the same each day for about a week. The others moved in blowing up rubber tanks and we were told to do exercises around these tanks, the third day of this our Artillery started to shell around the Chateau, and when we advanced we found the same Germans on hands and knees with 鈥渘o heads鈥�. We took the chateau but could not find any prisoners. The lady of the chateau was laid out dead in the main hall, naked and booby trapped.
The next big town was 鈥淢ezidon鈥� approaching it we came under heavy fire from shelling, 鈥淢oaning Minnie鈥� Rocket Launchers and machine gun fire, there were bridges across railways and water, blown up; you had
to cross the best way you could.
As we entered every street was a stronghold of German soldiers who were still firing Moaning Minnies and machine guns, they never surrendered they fell at their post. There were many casualties on both sides as we got down to church area there were no more Germans; the shelling stopped, some of our section were in the ditch where the shells fell, me and my mate 鈥淭iny鈥� was helping one of our mates, when we got him out we told him to keep looking upwards for snipers, so that he would not look down and see he had no legs,when we got to the bridge he looked down and died straight away. When we got back to the church there was a lot of locals coming out of the church and from caves in the cliff. There was only a few of us left and made for a school hall and slept, the locals looking after us, by the next morning there was less than 40 of us left. I don鈥檛 know how many started action, about 30 of us were taken over by a lieutenant colonel from 鈥淲ar Office鈥� and joined a section of free French this was the end of 鈥淭yneside Scottish Black Watch Regiment鈥� the date was August 17th.

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