大象传媒

At the end of May we received orders to waterproof our vehicles and then knew that the invasion was not far off, Originally we were to be the initial Assualt Troops, but at the last moment we were advised that we were to be follow up troops to 50th Division. This despite the fact that earlier we had set out a mock invasion coast of France up in Scotland and had done our assault training. From there we moved down to Suffolk. Eventually we recieved orders to move to a camp in the East End of London. From there the Division boarded ships in the docks. We were informed that the dockers were on strike and so we had to load our own vehicles etc. After a quiet and very rough passage we arrived off the coast of France, where the position was far from quiet. About mid-day we transferred to Landing Craft by climbing down scrambling nets for the run in to shore. By this time resistance by the Germans had slackened off a bit but was still very unpleasant and we were also receiving sorties from the air. On the beach the carnage and sight of the dead and other casualties certainly gave us the impetus to move off the beach as quick as we could. We were encouraged forward by the Beach Marshalls, who were doing a marvelous job, and caught up with the initial assault division after moving inland for about half a mile or so.
On the way we met opposition and suffered our frist casualty being the Officer leading No.1 Platoon, which was my own; he had been shot through the head. Towards the end of the day we were able to dig in for which we were glad. Following this we carried out our tasks of clearing mines so that the infantry could proceed, opening roads for vehicles, building bridges, and setting up water points. We then fought our way to Bayeux and Caen, and onwards to the Low Countries and through to the end.

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