大象传媒

I was a captain in the royal Signals and during the period of 1942/1943 we were stationed in Inverary, Scotland. Our training involved getting in and out of landing craft - we didn't know why.

We were then moved to Forres and then onto Fort George (outside Inverness). We were now involved in joint operations with the Navy, still unaware of our final goal.

In 1943/1944 I was shown a partial map of a coastline without being told where it was. My brief was to draw up the signal plans for an assault. I just considered this another instruction and got on with it.

On completion (teams of sheets of foolscap) we practised the assault with the Navy at Burghead Bay. Even in practice, live ammunition was used and we were told it would land approximately two feet away from us - at least that was the theory!

Early June 1944 we were told we were going to France and our objective was Gold Beach. We were shipped out on HMS Goathland . As we neared the coast and waited for the assault brigade signal, I wondered what the terrain would be like? When the coded message was received we were told to get into the landing craft, the craft was supposed to take us to the beach. However there were concerns about grounding and so it was decided to stop some distance from the shore. We then had to wade ashore up to our necks in water.

As we reached the beach I was abosolutely fuming - in my pocket I had a 1lb of Navy issue pipe tobacco completely ruined by sea water!

My earlier concern over what we would find on landing was immediately quelled as it was exactly like Burghead Bay.

On being ashore a couple of hours a shell landed amongst twelve of us, killing four and injuring the rest - the whole brigade intelligence section wiped out. You hear shells flying past you to the side and overhead, but the saying; "you never hear the one that hits you", is perfectly true as none of us heard this one.

I received treatment at the field hospital and shortly afterwards the Brigadier told me he had seen a soldier in previous battle, lose his hands with the same wounds. So I was sent back to England for treatment. After a period I returned to France on an American Corvette and rejoined the division at Falaise Gap - the Germans were retreating, I thought 'good riddance!'. But of course we had to go after them to advance...

I never had any doubt of the outcome and that we would all return home.

It was an interesting experience, not as frightening as you would think. The thing that sticks mostly in my mind was the noise - absolutely terrible.

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