大象传媒

I was a Sapper in the Royal Engineers, 250th Field Company, 42 Division. We were all young, fit men who practiced daily putting Bailey Bridges over rivers for D-Day. One incident in 1944 that made us all wonder why at the time was an order to pack up all our tools & equipment, load the Bailey Bridges onto trucks and head up to Scotland.

We travelled through all the major towns from Kent in the South East through to the Midlands to Yorkshire and on to the North East and arrived late at night in the same day in Edinburgh, Scotland. We were photographed by German aircraft on our way up to Scotland.

We had something to eat, and then during the night fresh drivers drove us as we slept or talked together in the trucks back down the lonely coastal routes and avoiding the towns and build up areas taking all the bridging equipment back to Kent, where we started! We were not observed by any German aircraft on our return journey. We repeated the same journey a few days later, attracting a lot of attention and returned back the same way!

We had no idea why? Only after the war did my son Noel through his research into WWII find out that we were all part of "Fortitude North", a deception plan that fooled the Nazi's into believing we were going to invade Norway.

18 German Divisions could have moved to reinforce their troops in Normandy, but thanks to these simple, but ingenious plans, all those troops sat out the war.
Hitler still believed we would invade up to 1945.

In 1940 I was in Bomb Disposal in London, moved to guarding Luftwaffe aircrews in Prisoner of War camps, laid mines and build "Pill Boxes" in the South East coast to counter the German plans in Operation Sea Lion, and laid thousands of mines.

"In 1940 we soldiers only had "ten rounds" (ten bullets) for our rifles (Lee Enfields) and ammunition was low, we had nothing if the Germans came."

I am proud of my father, he volunteered at the outbreak of war against Germany in York, Yorkshire. He risked his life with other soldiers and was shot at by a Luftwaffe Messershmitt 109's fighter plane that cut his Lee Enfield rifle in two,and has many memories of those hard, but plucky days of courage and determination.

This account is one of the rare moments of a little known deception operation that helped win the fight on D-Day..

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