大象传媒

During the late afternoon of June 5 1944 our Infantry Battalion, the 1st Buckinghamshires, were restlessly waiting along the promenade at Southsea.
We had been endlessly briefed and made aware of the tremendous occasion in which we were to be such a small cog in an enormous wheel.
From our position close to the pier we could see hundreds of craft of all kinds, milling about the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour and in the immediate vicinity of the pier where we were to embark. As the preparations for the invasion gathered momentum we nervously anticipated that our turn would surely come and we would set out on a perilous and astonishing adventure, together with many thousands of other soldiers and sailors.
18 Platoon D Company, of which I was Platoon Sergeant, consisted of the platoon officer (a 1st Lieutenant), myself and three sections, each containing a corporal, a lance corporal and eight infantry men, one of who carried a Bren machine gun. The officer carried a revolver, I had a Sten sub-machine gun, as did the corporals, and the remainder had rifles, grenades and spare ammunition for themselves and for the Bren gun. Also attached to our platoon were two First Aid soldiers and a signalman with a portable radio.
In the early hours of June 6 we were to dodge and weave through the shallows and sand dunes at the French seaside town of Rivabella. The weeks of waiting had been tedious so it was almost with a feeling of relief that we finally boarded our boat - an infantry landing craft.
Sailing in the darkness, we spent a restless, nervous night crossing the Channel, accompanied with thousands of other ships, and I admit to being considerably alarmed at the prospects facing us. But sea-sickness - or fear - and the possibility of being attacked by German chips on the crossing made me long to land and get it over with. So when the moment came, amidst the noise and confusion of naval barrages and answering fire, I was almost hysterically glad to rush up the beach, yelling with excitement and terror, to reach the comparative cover of the sea wall.
The succeeding events were desperate - but almost an anti-climax. We'd made it ! And although there were many casualties and hardships in the remaining months of the war, no other event engraved itself on my memory to such an extent - an incredible, saddening and terrible experience I shall never forget.
Written in 1974

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