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Landing under Fire

You don’t realise at first that you are being fired at, you are just concentrating on getting the glider down on a flat surface and getting your troops out as quickly as possible, and you’ve got so many things to do you are not frightened of it you just get on with it.

What happens next

On D-Day my job was to simply to get back to the U.K and I had a little chitty to tell me to get down to the beach head and get back to the U.K. Obviously they wanted another supply and they were going to use the gliders again. We went over on the afternoon of D-Day and we were back in England two days after.

Actions I was involved in

These are the records in my log book.
The first action I saw was D-Day, June 6th 1944. I felt good to be in one piece. I don’t think we would have fitted into the pattern of the battle at all, not in the D-Day one. The Germans were still fairly active with their bombing, which was a bit of a nuisance. I got onto one of these LCT’s (Landing Craft Tank) that was going back to the UK. I had just got onto it and a J.U88 I think it was, came over and dropped a stick of bombs . The bombs didn’t hit the ship, the nearest one was 50-60yds away, but the LTC disintegrated and we were all in the ‘drink’! So that wasn’t very funny and the mistake I made was, the Navy came along with a destroyer doing about 40 knots, and I thought we were going to get out of this very quickly but he’d got more important things on his mind than picking a bloke up out of the sea. I was nearly drowned, but eventually I managed to get back on a landing craft
I landed back in Newhaven, England on the 8th June.

My next bit of action

September 18th 1944 saw my next bit of action. In the Horsa glider, was Staff Sergeant Clark was the first pilot and I was the second.
We landed at at Arnhem with a mixed bag. We carried a jeep and a signals unit and their equipment ,and the trailer, together with about 5 or 6 troops. It was a special signals unit which apparently didn’t work very well on the day.
We were there on the first day and we were one of the last people to come out.
I got down to the beach head on the last night, for the evacuation, and to start with they had some of these Canadian Ducks (boats), and they were ferrying the remnants of the division in these but the Germans had got the river cross mortar fired and it wasn’t very long before there weren’t any ducks left.
I was put in charge of a spot where there was Polish Airborne and British Airborne and they were all lying in the mud in the fields awaiting instructions, which were to put fourteen men to a boat, and if any man rushed the boat, to shoot them. Anyway, a few hours later, in the middle of the night, someone came along and said there were no more ducks, and said it was up to us, we could either swim or stay. I decided to swim because I’m a very good swimmer and the river was about 600 yds to the other side. I didn’t land quite where I’d hoped because the current was very strong I was about ½ mile off course. The Welsh Regiment was on the other side of the river, where I landed and they pulled me out, and I went from there to hospital. When ‘Nobby’ was killed in the trench — we were both in the same one, and the blast went his way, he died very quickly and it also damaged my eyes.

Memorabilia

I have a photograph of the last orders written in capitals, given at Arnhem, and it was posted on the Church door by Colonel Dickey Lonsdale MC, and reads:

The position is, that I have to withdraw you from the open ground by the river.
I want you to rest here for two hours, in which time get a meal from what you have left.
Get yourself clean.
Be prepared to move up to a new position around the houses on the right side of the perimeter and on this position we must stand or fall.
Fight to the last round.
This edge of the perimeter is being held by the Lonsdale Force consisting of H.Q,
A-Div and C.H.Q
So far we’ve had a good battle against good troops, although they are not up to our standard.
We have fought them, in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and at times against all odds. They were not good enough for us then and I’m certain they are not our match now. Get yourselves dug in and shoot to kill.

Signed:- D.Londsdale.

I think we were 9,600 who went into Arnhem and I think 1,200 got out.

Ron Willcox

This story was submitted to the People's War site by June Woodhouse (volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Ron Willcox (author) and has been added to the site with his permission

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