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Ernest Binding first wrote his account of D-Day in 1974, some 30 years after the event. The three decades that have elapsed since then have done nothing to lessen the impact of his experiences.

Awaiting a momentous occasion

During the late afternoon of 5 June 1944, our infantry battalion, the 1st Buckinghamshires, was waiting restlessly on the promenade at Southsea. We had been endlessly briefed and made aware of the tremendous occasion in which we were about to be such a small cog in so enormous a wheel.

From our position close to the pier, we could see hundreds of craft of all kinds. They were milling about the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour and the immediate vicinity of the pier where we were to embark.

A perilous and astonishing adventure

As the preparations for the invasion gathered momentum, we nervously anticipated the fact that our turn would surely come. We were about to set out on a perilous and astonishing adventure, together with many thousands of other soldiers and sailors.

The platoon, 18 Platoon, D Company, of which I was platoon sergeant, consisted of the platoon officer (a first lieutenant) and myself as well as three sections, each containing a corporal, a lance corporal and eight infantry men, one of whom carried a bren-gun.

The officer carried a revolver. I had a Sten sub-machine gun, as did the corporals. The remainder of men had rifles, grenades and spare ammunition for themselves and for the bren-gun. Also attached to our platoon were two first-aid soldiers and a signalman with a portable radio.

Sailing in darkness

The weeks of waiting had been tedious, so it was almost with a feeling of relief that we finally boarded our boat, an infantry landing craft. In the early hours of 6 June, our aim was to dodge and weave through the shallows and sand dunes of the French seaside town of Rivabella.

Sailing in darkness, we spent a restless, nervous night crossing the Channel, accompanied by thousands of other ships. I admit to a sense of considerable alarm at the prospect that faced us. But seasickness — or fear — and the possibility of being attacked by German ships made me long to get to land and get it over with.

An incredible, saddening, terrible experience

So, when the moment came, amid the noise and confusion of naval barrages and answering fire, I was almost hysterically glad to rush up the beach, yelling with excitement and terror, to reach the comparative cover of the sea wall.

The succeeding events were desperate — but almost an anti-climax. We'd made it. And although there were many casualties and hardships in the remaining months of the war, no other event has engraved itself on my memory to such an extent. It was an incredible, saddening and terrible experience that I shall never forget.

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