- Contributed by听
- bushmills_library
- People in story:听
- This story was submitted to the People's War site by Olga McKee on behalf of Mr William Bailie and has been added to the site with his permission. This was typed in the presence of Mr Bailie.
- Location of story:听
- Dunmurry Northern Ireland to France
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A2748260
- Contributed on:听
- 15 June 2004
I joined up in 1942 originally in the home guard and civil defence before that. I was the youngest son. I joined up with the Royal Tank Regiment. I trained in Dorset England in the Regimental Home. Then I was commisioned to the 3rd Battalion from Shrivenham College which is the same as the army college at Sandhurst.Shrivenham dealt more with the mechanical side of the army. Then from there we did tank training in the South of England, Wales and Catterick and South Scotland and Northern Ireland in Benbane Head just up the coast. Our targets were at sea and we fired at them but never hit them. We progressed until 1943/44 when we went to France with part of the 11th Armour Division. I was made a young Lieutenant with 3rd Royal Tank Regiment part of the 11th armour division and we landed in France on D-Day plus 3 although part of the regiment landed on D-Day as the 29th armoured brigade. We landed at Armache on Sword Beach. We then proceeded in a mop up operation until we arrived at Caen. Then General Montgomery decided to have an operation called Goodwood to liberate Caen and unfortunately for our division we were given the privilege of leading the attack and suffered heavy casualities. The fields were crater after crater and the Germans were well dug in. Then we proceeded towards Falaise where the German army were literally destroyed and from then on we proceeded towards Northern France, Belgium and then on into Denmark. The Guards armoured division and the French Division went to relieve Paris and then into Germany.
2 memories I have.I met 2 particularly nice people. 1 was a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade called Edwin Brammell who later became a Senior Field Marshall in the British army. I still remain good friends with Edwin and still see him in London.The other was a senior in the 2nd SS Panther Division, Count Fritz Von Lissau who we captured in a little village called Choux. He and I exchanged names and addresses at that time and after the war we became very good friends and still remain so.
11th Armour division then proceeded on and ended up in North Germany at the end of the war.
William Bailie
Bushmills
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