大象传媒

Dick Atkinson landed on Gold beach at 10:30am on D-Day. As the ramp dropped on the landing craft his unit was confronted by a beach master telling them to keep left as they drove ashore. Dick, of Zetland Drive, Whitley Bay, went left but his mate Harry Cooper went right and disappeared with his lorry into a shell hole. He was found standing on top of the of the cabin ready to dive back into the water-filled hole. He didn鈥檛 know people in the war but now he has a best friend called Tommy Wells. In the war he had 4 bullets hit him 2 of them were machine gun bullets. Dick has been all over the world, he has fought in lots of different countries including Germany, Dunkirk, Iraq, France, Africa, Italy and Normandy. Dick鈥檚 wife was also in the army his sister was in the REMS, his father was in the first world war and worked in the cavalry but Mr Atkinson fought for Durham light infirmary. He has got 8 different medals, some are for fighting in Italy, France, Germany, Dunkirk, Africa and protecting England. They almost got captured as prisoners but luckily they didn鈥檛.
He thought it was right to go to war because they were standing up for there own rights and their country. Everyone smoked at that time, they got 50 cigarettes from India. When they were wounded in the war they were given pencilling for the first time but some people hadn鈥檛 heard of it because they were testing it on soldiers, luckily for Dick he wasn鈥檛 allergic to it. When he was shot in the desert in Africa he got out his case of photos and buried them under the sand so that the capturer wouldn鈥檛 get them. Dick knew it was right to go into war and he has no regrets of fighting the enemies because he knew what Hitler was like and he knew he had to fight for his country.

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