大象传媒

This is my grandad's account that he wrote for me and my dad:

Joined the army in February 1943. Went to Northern Ireland to do basic training then came back to Derbyshire to learn to drive and to get mechanical skills. From there volunteers were wanted for the sixth air-borne division. There was extra money which was always good. We went to camp just outside Salisbury. Joined 398 Coy R.A.S.C in the training. We went up in gliders and in Dakota Aircraft to deliver supplies. The Aircraft had rollers down the middleand made it easier to push out panniers(boxes of supplies). Early on the fifth of June, 1944, we went on an exercise. We came from Salisbury, down and around London and finished in a field near Laindon. There was a lot of other troops there. Around midnight, we were woken up and we had to drive the lorries to Tilbury. There we were hoisted up onto a ship which started directly after we were loaded on. Five or six hours went by and we heard all this gun-fire and it was D-Day, sixth of June(1944). We were hoisted off the ship and lowered onto a landing barge. When we were loaded on it took us to the beach. When it stopped the front went down and we had to drive off into about four feet of water then onto the beach. Then we found a small space off the beach to take all the waterproofing off. Then we went to Pegasus Bridge where we had to deliver the load of supplies we had in the lorries. So our job was to go to ARROMANCHES supply dumps to get supplies for the lads in our Divsion. We did this for about four months until a good bridgehead was established. So we came home, had some leave and regrouped, lorries repaired and new kit for us. This was ok till just before Christmas we were due for leave and at the last minute it was cancelled and we went to Belgium to what is now known as the Battle of the Bulge where the American army was surrounded by Germans so our lads were there as reinforcements. We were there about 2 months so again we came home. This time we were home about a month. Then we drove to Germany for the crossing of the Rhine which we crossed on Pontoon Bridges put down by Royal Engineers. Once over we went straight through to the Baltic Coast and met up with the Russians at a town called Wismar. There we were told it was the end of the war and it was VE Day. On our way back to England we were moving displaced persons from camp to camp. We got home and in short time we were told we were going to the Far East so we were kitted out with the equipment and put on a troop ship as were going through the Mediterranean. We were told that the Japanese had surrendered so our plans were changed and we landed at Haifa in Palestine as a peace keeping force. There we stayed for just over 2 years and our demob number came up. This was July 1947.

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