大象传媒

After basic training we were being shipped out when we noticed all these big bails of muslin on the transport ship, so we thought we were going to the Middle East but we were wrong. It was there to fool the enemy as we were going in the opposite direction. When we turned up all our watches were going to Iceland. We left the port of Gourock and the big boat landed at Reykjavik. One company disembarked there but we travelled further round to the East coast. I was still infantry then for 12 months with a rifle and everything. Whilst I was there I noticed on the notice board they wanted some men to be trained as signalmen to form a signals platoon for the infantry. I went through the course and passed it.I'd almost finished my time there when B company set off for the next fijord. It is daylight all night there in Summer and the men from B company went through Vestalsery and up the mountainside to go over the top.The weather changed so quickly that when all the men were found the next morning they were huddled together - dead - they died of exposure. It made the headlines in the News of the World. My father sent it out to me. When we moved on to the farthest Fiord called Akureyr the Americans relieved us.

We then came back to England to train and while we were on the way back we were coming through Leeds and I didn't know it was Leeds as it was pouring with rain and you couldn't see. When the train stopped I shouted to a signalman 'Where are we now' he says 'This is Leeds' - 'We're in Leeds' I couldn't believe it. I didn't even know we were coming back - so I wrote on a cigarette paper and the man said 'throw it out and I'll post it for you' and it was soaking wet as I didn't have an envelope and he took it and must have dried it out on an oven. I wrote 'We're just passing through Leeds'. They were so pleased they got it at home. We finished up in Ross on Wye in Herefordshire and from there we trained around the country and there were different other regiments too probably preparing for the D-Day landings. I landed on D-day plus 4, on Sword beach at Arromanches. At this point I was a signalmen went into the signal platoon not as a riflemen but as a radio operator. I was in Lowestoft before D-day and we didn't know it was going to happen until Montgomery came and gave us a valour speech. He stood on the bonnet of his car and spoke to about 1000 men rallying 'I hope you do well and I want you to do well so look after yourselves and give us a good show'. Well it was a frightening experience, as we knew we were going into battle. From that day on I was in a Bren gun carrier attached to the officer, Captain Dixon of the 3-inch mortar platoon. Whenever he wanted to signal I had to go through radio procedure to get information etc. We ended up near London in Canning Town and at payday we got paid in French francs. So we knew then that was what we were going to do. Next morning we were taken on transport with the infantry down to Tilbury Docks, boarded the landing craft boats and went over to Normandy By the time we got there there were big guns firing from big battle ships and oh it were tremendous noise and all these shells were landing inland to give us the cover to land. As we got off the landing craft we went straight through and up the hillside. There were Redcaps telling us 'keep going keep going don't get stuck on the hillside cause its just a muddy path up'.They hadn't had an opportunity to make it solid enough for bren gun carriers to get up. There were German aircraft probably reconnaissance going over we got over the top and they put us all in a field and they covered everything up in black sheeting so that nobody could see us from above. But the Germans were chasing us and they put the spot lights on but they didn't see anything of us. By the next morning came they started moving further into Normandy and took more positions including Le Havre with 11,000 prisoners. After many battles through France and Holland then end of the war in Europe came on 8th May 1945.

Recorded by Mike Kingham at Scholes Library Leeds December 2004
Transcribed by Mike Kingham Leeds Central Library

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