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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sabina Tajbhai from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Eric Richard Billington and has been added to the site with his permission. Eric Billington fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

My Invasion - Norfolk to Normandy
This is a composite journey of a 7th Armoured Division Desert Rat trooper and his part in the Invasion of Normandy in 1944.

We moved from Cockley Cley near Swaffham, to nearby High Ash Camp. Waterproofed our tanks on the Tank Park by day, and then picked potatoes for the local farmer in the evening. At night we played cards until the sergeant had won all of our money, including the French Francs, which had been issued to us for future use in an as yet unspecified foreign country.

Then we moved again, to a sports field somewhere near to Romford in Essex? At the end of the day’s duties, all of the London lads used to go to their homes, until one morning we awoke to find that we had been imprisoned during the night. We were penned in by huge coil of barbed wire all around the camp.
At the end of that day, a lot of the Rifle Brigade lads — who were all Cockneys, found a heavy roller, flattened the wire and made their escape.
The remaining soldiery had the impression that our Officers were in a prolonged state of worry about this collapse of discipline, but all returned early the following day!

Soon we moved again, nearer to the docks in London to either East Ham or West Ham? This time it was to a circular sort of stadium with spectator stands around the centre area. It had formerly been a Dog Racing track or Speedway stadium, even maybe a Football ground?
Perhaps as a result of the previous ‘homing’ instincts of the Rifle Brigade lads, we seemed to be granted more freedom from here?
My pal Roy and I went out in the evening to the local pub armed with our darts, but little money in our pockets. We managed to beat the local civilians in our first few games, so our beer was being bought for us, but inevitably we lost a couple of games and couldn’t quite manage to buy the drinks for the opposition. These worthy Dockers realised our predicament and thereafter treated us to everything for the rest of the evening. They couldn’t do enough for our brave British tank men and at closing time we were taken home to meet the family, have supper, and a big welcome from them all. Great people!

Our next move was to a tented camp, quite close to the embarkation points at the dockside. I do not know whether it was Millwall, Tilbury or where? The major memory that I am able to recall is the bomb incident.

I was sitting on one of the perches of this long, open latrine — letting the mind go vacant as is customary during this bodily function, when suddenly a bomb is screaming down straight towards us.
Twenty of us leapt off our lavvy seats in unison like a well-rehearsed parade ground drill and with trousers around out ankles, dived to flatten ourselves on the ground. In fact the bomb passed just over our heads and landed on the big mess tent marquee with a huge explosion, killing some of the cookhouse orderlies. Half an hour later the marquee would have filled with a thousand soldiers having their lunch — so a near disaster was closely avoided.

Going over to our tank a little later, we found a disembodied hand on the track guard — no arm, just a hand and a wrist. A sickening foretaste of horrors to come?

I cannot recall any memories of actually boarding the ship, but the ranks were lowered into the holds by cranes. We were issued with string hammocks to tie to stanchions in storage spaces between the decks.
After sailing, the next place that we stopped was the open sea at the mouth of the river Thames, so that the convoy could be assembled together.
Most of the adjacent troop ships were loaded with Canadian soldiers and one thing sticks firmly in my mind — a Canadian soldier on a ship about a couple of hundred yards away, had a trumpet and kept blowing a catchy melody — ragtime style. Every time that he played it, the result was the same. All the Canadians on every ship within earshot cheered like mad.
I have not heard the melody again from that day to this, but it has never left my mind and even after sixty years I can still hum it at any time. Despite making subsequent efforts, I have not been able to find what it is called?

Once out in the English Channel, we had no duties to perform and the only thing that I can remember about the voyage was four of us Troopers playing interminable hours of card games, mainly Cribbage.

Our arrival off the coast of Normandy was around ten o’clock at night, but with double-summer time operating, it was still light. The ships cranes lifted each of our tanks up in the air from the bowels of the ship and lowered them one at a time over the side and down into a very small Tank Landing Craft. Ours was the third and last tank to be loaded. We crews then had to go over the side of the mother ship and climb down below us.
It was a particularly hazardous manoeuvre and required great courage, with an immaculate sense of timing due to the rough seas. One moment one was only twelve inches from the deck of the smaller boat, then ten seconds later, it was a twelve feet gap. One man of our troop mistimed his drop and severely sprained his ankle, thus qualifying for a premature wound stripe, perhaps?

After negotiating this assault course, we mounted and took up our positions in the tanks. Meanwhile, the American skipper of the LCT disengaged from the side of the big Liberty ship and the engines started to propel us towards the invasion beaches about a mile away.
Mine being the troop leaders’ tank and sited in the third and last —off position, my tank crew commander named Lieutenant Simmons, said to me, “You take our tank off Billington; I am going off in the leading tank”. Perhaps he had an inkling of what was to come?
The crew of the LCT were American and their Yankee skipper yelled out “This is the last run tonight, boys” and (dropping the ramp at the front of the craft) continued “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
In his haste however, he had failed to line his craft square to the shore line. The first tank went crashing down the ramp into four feet of sea, closely followed up by the second one, with my tank right up behind that one. The first tank had to steer to get a straight run-in to the beach, resulting in a loss of speed and the second tank repeated a similar-turning motion, again with loss of forward speed.

When my tank driver Eddie Edwards from Kidderminster attempted the same turning movement, we were going so slowly that we lost all momentum and came to a standstill. When we attempted to restart, the tank tracks just spun into the sea bed and we were completely stuck in the English Channel.
The Landing Craft raised it’s ramp (and started to ‘get the hell out of there’); our two leading tanks roared off up the beach into Normandy action then a Beach Master made a cut-the-throat sign to me indicating no hope, and pushed off himself. Suddenly we all alone!
Then, above the noise of exploding shells a great humming noise started. This, in no time at all became a bedlam of sound as hundreds of four-engined Lancaster bombers filled the darkening sky. They were returning from an inland bombing raid on the German front line positions and flying at a low level of level into the sea in a tremendous explosion of noise and flames.

The all-action kaleidoscope of the horrors of modern war was suddenly interrupted by the voice of Eddie Edwards in my headphones —
“What’s going on up there Bill, because the water is leaking down into my driving compartment?” It seems that we did not do a very good job of waterproofing the tank and we are in dead trouble because the tide in coming in rapidly, now to a depth of about six feet. What is more- night has fallen. Eddie of course is absolutely alone down there under the water, can see nothing at all and only hears when we talk on the intercom wireless set. I ask regularly how things are going down there.
Luckily Eddie remains stoically unflappable as the level of water gradually arises around him and makes a remark that this is supposed to be the Tank Corps, not the Submarine Service. I continue talking to Eddies quite often but finally there is no reply until he shouts testily “I’m using both hands to slow down the leaks and I can’t operate the f----ing microphone as well”.
I am just about to give the order to explode the charges which will blow away the waterproofing, when a light starts flashing towards us from the beach.
Suddenly, beach engineers are swimming out to us and attach a long steel cable to the front of the tank under water. Then to the relief of all (nobody more than Eddie!). Not in wireless communication with anyone. No instructions where to go, nor what to do and expecting to be shot up any minute?
Ah, the responsibilities of command I inherited when Lieutenant Simmons passed the buck and said “You take our tank off, Billington!”

Suddenly however the second torch light of the night is flashed on and off in front of the tank. We have been recognised and are told to pull in to a field. Much relieved, we join up with our other two tanks, only for Officer Simmons to give me a right rollicking for being two hours late, hi kit was still on the tank, you see.
So ended quite an eventful from Norfolk to Normandy.

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