大象传媒

In December 1941 I celebrated my 17th birthday by putting my age up a year and joining the army. The recruiting office in Horn Lane , Acton, did not require any proof of age-if you looked fit you were in.
In January 1942 I joined the Middlesex Regimentin Chester for initial training.
We ended up in Yorkshire - the company I was in was stationed in an old Church Hall in a village called Glusburn (not far frm the home of the Calendar Girls). It was a woollen-mill village with few men and many unattached females. The nearest town was Keighley which was just about in walking range, but a "borrowed" truck was the best method of transport. It was at about this time I lost both my brothers. Peter was a Seargeant Pilot flying Lancasters; he had fulfilled the normal number of bombing raids over Germany but he and his crew were still sent on the msision and never returned. "Missing believed killed". My eldest brother, Tony was a scientist and worked on the bouncing bomb, but for some reason never explained to his widow he was killed in an explosion. Due to the bureaucracy of the British Army I only received my pass and travel warrant at the last moment and was unable to attend his funeral.
In the fierce winter of 1943 we exercised on the Durham moors. Wet, miserable, hungry, bogged down in the mud, we struggled through. A Sherman Tank involved in the manoeuvres sank in the mud killing a member fo the crew who had been sleeping under it, sheltering from the incessant rain. Not much value this training for the invasion of Europe! In early 1944 we at last moved south. The whole division was stationed in Sussex - we were lucky, we ended up in a vacated girls school in Brighton. We had great fun driving our carriers along the promenade and performing skidding circles. We started training for water proofing the vehicles in case we had to make a wet landing. Brighton was full of troops - to get a drink, a meal, even a dance you had to fight your way. Eventually in May we had the tip off about forthcoming action. We waterproofed our carriers with great care and constant inpsection. The skies were completely free of German aircract but we could not see when we were going to land or how we were even going to embark. There was a high pitch of excitement in the air; it even affected the locals. They did not ask questions but would say something like "See you're still here" or "I am surprised to see you again". At last we moved. We had heard that the first landings had been made in Normandy. "Normandy! Where's that?" everyone asked as they and us had expected the Pas de Calais to be the target. The assembly area was like a hundred Piccadilly Circuses all pushed together. There were vehicles everywhere, nose to tail, only moving when told by the Military Police. Bad weather in the Channel had delayed landings. Eventually we arrived at Gosport and were loaded into a Tank Landing Craft. By now the Channel was smooth and we sailed in a small armada. We were supposed to keep radio silence whilst the American craft beside us were broadcasting "You are my Sunshine". As we neared the Normandy Coast we noticed the occasional dead body in the sea, but above all was the sound of the warships blasting their big guns in one direciton only, towards France and the German Army. Eventually we arrived at the shore. No wet landing, so our hours of waterporoofing were not being put to the test. Our Transport Officer had loaded the T.L.C the wrong way round; I thought I had been lucky being last on/last off, but no, the idiot had made me the first off. He proceeded to direct me up from the beach. There were taped lines for movement in case of mines; we could not go into action immediately as we had to remove the water-proofing but we were in Normandy at last, to join the big push from the Normandy beaches gained on D Day towards Caen - we were a couple of days late but we were there - the big excitement and experience was about to begin.
(Story submitted by Michael Miller from a transcript by N.F. Shearman 1.11.03)

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