大象传媒

I was in the airborne tank squadron. It was only a small unit of about 106 men. We left Brize Norton on the fifth of June and landed at 0020 on the sixth. The whole division had been confined to the airfield for two weeks to maintain secrecy and to be given a detailed briefing. We didn't know when or where. They didn't tell us anything until the fourth of June and they only told us then because they thought we were going that night. But even people like Terry Otway (Colonel) and John Howard (Major) knew for about six weeks but they were not allowed to tell the other officers and men in their unit. They engaged in special training to achieve their particular objectives. Otway had to take out the gun battery at Merville. Howard was to take Pegasus Bridge over the Caen canal and another bridge over the river Orne. Those bridges are about 400 yards apart. I would land very near Pegasus bridge. We had been told that we would be able to see the tower of Ranville church and then we could pinpoint our position on the map. But we couldn't see the church and had to make up our minds which direction to travel. Luckily we went the right way first and got sight of the church tower and were able to take compass bearings and pinpoint our position. When you are in a parachute if you get put down within a mile you were lucky. He should have had 600 men at his rendevous but there were 180. My unit travelled in two different planes with two lots of five. The other five were most unfortunate and landed miles away at a place called Graves that was some 15 kilometres away and they were all killed because they had to cross two rivers to get to the rendevous. They really had no hope of getting to the rendevous point. So we were very lucky to land reasonably well even though we couldn't see the church.

Our first task was to put out some radio beacons and coloured lights for the following aircraft so that they home in on them. With a bit of luck they'd arrive. There was only one group ahead of us - the six gliders of John Howard. They were down on the ground at about ten past midnight. We landed at twenty past.

Our task was to locate an area suitable for tanks to harbour. The idea was that when the tanks came in by glider, we would meet them, take our place with the crew and guide them off to the harbour so they could assess how many we'd got. Of course we did have one, very sadly, when the shackles broke the tank took off and when threw the nose of the glider and they all went into the sea from about 6000 feet. Poor old Doc Dawson. He was a signaller - not a doctor, but we called him that. We'd lost Bonny Belcher, Peter Earwacker, George Lamont, Michael Done and Tug Wilson. They all had good names. I didn't know where they were until 1994. They are buried in one grave in Ranville military cemetary. We found it on the Commonweath war graves site eventually.

In the afternoon of the sixth of June, Hamilcar gliders brought in the tanks and the rest of the sqadron. Between the time we landed and the time they arrived we helped keep the perimeter of the dropping zone secure. It got a bit noisy. The germans had woken up and dropped a few mortars and machine guns and that sort of thing. We just had to make sure that they didn't get onto the DZ (dropping zone). That was where they were meant to land. The gliders that came in the afternoon did well. They came in where we'd expected them to. That was our gliders anyway. We met them, went to the rendevous and were then being divisional troops (what that means is that we didn't belong to any brigade and whoever needed some backup would have to ask the divisional headquarters who you may or not send us depending on the battle situation). Having been told that we were regarded as an expendible force, but it was hoped that we would remain operation for 48 hours, we did rather better than that and we're still operational up to September when we returned to Larkhill where we re-equipped and made up our numbers to replace the casualties. We resumed training and we were then on standby for Arnhen, a big battle in Holland with the first airborne division. Of course the Americans were there, but we didn't end up going. Of course, Arnhen was a complete disaster. In fact, out of about 10,000 men of the first division, they lost 8000 and the remnants came back. We just carried on with our training on the Salisbury Plain until December when we were hustled off by land and sea to the Ardennes. Of course the poor old American land forces got into trouble there. The Germans had driven a wedge into them, the battle of the bulge. We went there to kick them out. That was carried out successfully. We had a nasty battle over the Christmas period. And fairly early in the new year, we returned to the United Kingdom. Again we re-equipped, made up our numbers and resumed training until the 24th of March 1945 when we went by air for the final crossing of the Rhine at Hamminkeln, Germany (reasonably near Koln). I had a bad landing there. Our glider got hit as we came in. We lost the wing on one side and the two pilots were killed and we landed upside down. We were inside the tank in the glider upside down. The problem was how to get out because of course you get in through the top. We sort of hung there standing on our heads. We released our harness and with a bit of struggling and grabbing one thing or another so that we were at least upright. The driver had undone his harness and he'd got his exit open and with a bit of kicking and shoving from us we got out through the driver's door. With him pulling and the other members of the crew pushing we got everyone out. Of course the only weapons we had were a pistol and fighting knives. The casualty rate was so heavy that it didn't take us long to take a weapon off someone who had been killed. On that day we lost 1065 men. That was between 10:15 am and midnight. There were then two days of hard battle and we completely overwhelmed the Germans. We were then re-equipped with Cromwell tanks and started on a 350 miles advance up to Wismar on the Baltic coast to meet the Russians on May 5th. And on the 8th of may of course the Germans surrendered. On the way up to Wismar we had a little bit of trouble crossing the river Elbe and I was taken prisoner and taken to Hannover. And after about 10 days, decided to escape. I didn't like it very well. I eventually met American tank people from general Mark Clark's outfit and got back to rejoin my unit. So i made it to Wismar in time to meet the Russians. A few days later we went to Ostend and made our way back to Larkhill.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.