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I was again called to the CO office and told this time to pick thirty men, three vehicles were waiting with Red Caps in attendance. After selecting the even numbers this time, we boarded lorries outside on the road adjoining our York camp. My Commanding Officer came to the vehicles and personally shook my hand in front of the men and said good luck, we will all meet up soon. The vehicles took us to Averley Park in Essex, where a RSM of the camp issued his instructions to us: ‘Make sure all your equipment is in top, top order.’ He told us where the canteens and cookhouse were, and said ‘no-one leaves the camp without my permission’. Three days we were there, with assorted tanks, vehicles etc. On the third day at 4am I was summoned to his office and told to get my men ready to move at 6am to have breakfast etc. We were taken to Tilbury where we were met by a Chief Petty Officer in the navy, heavily bearded. We went aboard a very large tank carrying craft full of Canadians and their tanks, who made my lads very welcome.

Over the tannoy came ‘Hear this, hear this: All commanders come to the wardroom. I went, gave my unit number and out of the safe came my instructions, where we were going to land, and all my targets I had to deal with and what route we were to take. The place was called Douvre-la-Délivrande, Juno Nan Beach, time 6am. (The Canadian/ British sector around Bernières-sur-mer.) The men were called to be on deck. After issuing forms to fill in, and after a few comments from them—‘are we going on a spending spree?’ etc—all were made aware where and when we were going to land: 6am on the 5 June. I had not given all the instructions before over the tannoy came ‘Hear this, hear this: Landing cancelled for 24 hours.’

On the evening of the 5th we all could see the planes go over and the gliders being towed. We all said a little prayer for them. We could not sleep, everyone was so excited, and yes, afraid. We were to land with 88lbs of kit: Overcoat, blanket, groundsheet, and we carried our own grub, enough rations for 48 hours. Each man had fifty rounds for the bren gun, and his own ammunition. The night went very quickly. At 5am we were standing there, each side of the ship, ready for the flap to go down. With the roar of the Canadian tanks, we could not hear ourselves. There were pools of water on the deck beside each of us. Yes? I will leave it there. Down went the flap: we were on our way.

In front of us was an eight foot wall which the Royal Engineers had fixed up with mesh. Whilst my men were scaling the wall ahead of them, I was running across the sand to the Beach Marshal reporting how many came ashore and my unit number. He was sitting on an orange box—I can see him now, a major sitting on an orange box. ‘I wish you luck,’ he said. That’s the sort of ésprit de corps that was there, everybody helped you, no matter if you belonged to that unit or not. Having arrived back at the wall, two of my lads helped me up. One German had been killed, we put him in the ditch with full military honours. But the outlook was horrendous: Dead cattle, houses destroyed, gliders upturned, absolute carnage. They had put posts out at ten foot intervals stopping all the gliders in their tracks, an appalling site.

I checked the roll call and we were on our way to Douvre-la-Délivrande. The 88mm guns at Colville were giving us hell. I told my 2i/c to fire at all open windows, and trees with plenty of foliage. My second-in-command was Sergeant Jim Buck, marvellous bloke Jim. He carried the bren gun. At Douvre we met the airborne who were being sniped at from the steeple top.

The first job: we went to a school, knowing it was filled with booby traps and ‘de-loused’ it, ready for headquarters to move in. Certain marks, (‘the mark of Zorro’), indicated to them that the place was clean. We never left a stone unturned. I checked the main street in Douvre-la-Délivrande. It’s a very small town with a small street only eight foot wide, and at the end there was a great big concrete enemy bunker and it had vision 360 degrees. These Royal Marine commandos told us they were going to deal with it.

We told Brigade that the Royal Marines had taken our position and Brigade said go back to support your CO at Ouistreham. We had to find our way all the way back the way we came, fourteen or fifteen miles. It took a long time ’cause we were helping all the people who're trying to get ashore. After many unpleasant moments we arrived at Ouistreham in the evening. I reported to headquarters and I couldn’t find the CO there, I’m sure he hadn’t landed. We were given trenches to sleep in. We chucked all the kit off us and got some sleep. So ended the first day ashore.

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