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We were landed at Liverpool. We were billeted at Stoke Poges near Slough. We were given leave and immediately afterwards started to train for wherever we were going next. We were issued with our Eighth Army medal ribbon to be equal to the Americans.

Whilst on Sicily I was promoted to Lance Corporal and had to go on First Class Trade Tests which I passed. My money then was very good indeed - I received almost the equivalent of a sergeant. Anyway that was that.

After Christmas we were sent on a course with the Royal Engineers outside Bletchley in Bucks. We spent the best part of a month doing all sorts of drills, bridging and all things we could do for our battalion for canal crossing and related things. Then we moved to Suffolk where we did further training for the role we were to play in the invasion. Of course, we did not know that until later but with hindsight we realised what it had all been about.

From there we were taken to a camp not far from Tilbury, on a golf course where we were all billeted in tents. We were given twenty-four hour passes out. Eventually we were told, "No more," the gates were shut and that was that. We were paid in francs so we guessed we were going to France. The next thing we knew we were being trucked to Tilbury to get onto landing craft.

This happened on a Saturday. We had a service on the boat on Sunday - we were supposed to sail that night but the weather was so bad that it was postponed. Then it was decided that the invasion would go ahead on the Tuesday and we sailed down the Channel on early Tuesday morning - D. Day. It was inclined to be misty so the Germans couldn't see us from the French coast and we weren't shelled.

Just off the beaches there were thousands of boats of all shapes and sizes. At about four o'clock in the afternoon we gradually started to nose in and, at about five o'clock, we actually beached. The skipper let down the ramp but the first soldiers were up to their necks in water so he shouted, "Stop. Stop!" The ramp was pulled up. Nearby there was a blown up landing craft which had its ramp in shallow water and the skipper told us over his loud-hailer to get off our landing craft and onto that and then down its ramp. So we did that and we didn't get wet above the knees.

I was in the advance party of the First Battalion Gordon Highlanders. The 7th Battalion had arrived before us so we had the 5th Black Watch with us, who were in the same Brigade. We were taken to a small clump of trees and told, "No smoking, no fire lighting - nothing like that." We had the usual selfheating tins of soup and all our rations to survive on for the night. The following morning we were put out into defensive position and the German airforce came over and dropped antipersonnel bombs but none of them landed near us.

It was another three days before the battalion came over and almost as soon as they arrived we were taken across the bridges over the Orne - the river and the canal - and onto a defensive position with the Airborne Division. I'll never forget that first night over there - talk about being frightened! We were taken up a lane - just a footpath really - with overhanging blackberries and vegetation which scratched our faces and everything else. We were taken into fields and oh, gosh, was it eerie! Someone ran up in front of us and a shot rang out. We didn't know which direction we were facing.

The next day we got sorted out into positions where we had a better idea of where the enemy were. We were in the "infamous triangle" as it was known. It was during this time that a comrade and I went to tidy up our three ton truck. Suddenly one or two bullets hit the front of the cab and soon afterwards one came through the cover. I said to my comrade "We have to get out of here," and instructed him to get into an empty dugout close behind us. As soon as he was there I followed to another dugout a little further on. A sudden burst of machine gun fire sent bullets shaving the legs of my trousers midway between knee and ankle - a lucky escape from losing my feet.

After a few days in the infamous triangle our C.O. went to a conference. When he came back he said,"I need a volunteer to go out on reconnaisance with a mine detector. There are two sets of cross-roads in front of us - we need to know whether they're mined or not." Nobody volunteered. Then he looked at me and said "Corporal Stephen, you'll go," and that was it.

I went out at midnight and got to the first crossroads with the officer and two other chaps who were supposed to give me protection whilst I was sweeping the crossroad with my detector. The officer stopped and said, "Right, you go on and do your job." I replied, "Sir, you've got to be in front of me, not behind me. I can't hear a thing when I put the earphones on." He did as I asked and we found that the first crossroads were clear.

We went down the road on the right a little way, through the hedge and fence into a field. We were crossing it when, all of a sudden, beyond the fence and hedge at the other side of the field we saw two Germans with their guns slung over their shoulders. We flopped down in the field and luckily they never saw us. We crept over the field to the other side, saw that they'd gone and we went onto the track they'd gone down and turned left. After a few minutes we came to a main road that ran through the Germans' lines to try to get to the other cross-roads.

We moved up but we could hear the Germans with all their vehicles making a heck of a noise. They were moving around to our left. We sat there a while and listened. Our officer said, "We can't go there, that's obvious." We went back to the crossroads I'd already swept. Then we had to cross a mango field where the enemy had a lookout from which they'd watch our front line during the day. We had to go and check it out. Luckily, there was nobody in it that night, so back we went having completed all the reconnaisance we could do. There was a wall on the edge of the field so we stayed there until four o'clock in the morning which was the time we were due back in through our own lines.

There was my platoon with them all standing to. My officer said to me, "You can go to bed, Stephen, as you've been out all night." I'd hardly settled down when all hell was let loose. "Moaning Minnies", shells of all description and mortars all came raining down on us. Fortunately we didn't get too many near us. In this position our mortar platoon did a marvellous job and thwarted the Germans from getting into our lines. They went round us and got away behind us on our left.

Later that day I was sitting looking across a field from a dugout in a dry ditch and saw three Germans coming across it. There were two together - one carrying a machine gun and the other trailing behind. We shouted at them and opened fire. The one trailing behind ran back to the other side through the fence and there, across on the other side of the field, we could see a string of Germans going away amongst some trees but they didn't take any notice of us although we fired.

The two who had the machine gun got into the ditch next to the road where we were. The officer poked his head out and shouted to me, "Corporal Stephen, send somebody up to guard the road." I replied, "Right, I'll go myself." I got a sten gun off one of the other chaps and gave him my rifle, went up there, stood behind a tree and watched two Germans coming towards us. They couldn't see me but they spotted our officer's dugout and he and his batman both dashed out. The Germans threw in a "potato masher" - a hand grenade, which hit the batman on the head and gave him a bruise but, fortunately, it bounced far enough away so that they weren't injured.

My sten gun wouldn't go off. I pulled the magazine out and saw that the first bullet was upright instead of lying flat to allow it to enter the breech. I took the magazine out as quickly as I could and corrected the bullet. The same thing happened again. But by this time the Germans had spotted me so I had to take cover and get my rifle. The Germans then went away back down the side of the field and gave themselves up later on.

We in the pioneer platoon had dug several command posts in this area and, as we carried a roof on our three ton truck to go over a command post, the C.O. asked "Could you blow one?". We said that we'd been shown how to do it by the engineers. After the first blow a shell came over but it landed about a hundred yards away. We dug all the loose stuff out of the hole and put more explosives into it for the second time. As soon as it went off three or four shells came rattling over right amongst us from an 88mm gun.

The signal platoon caught the worst of it. My sergeant and I made a run for a dry ditch. There were already several comrades there. A piece of shrapnel had gone right through his cigarette tin and cut the contents in half in the field dressing pocket of his battle-dress. That was a near miss — talk about luck! I seem to have had it all.

The infamous triangle was quite a place. We were there off and on for some time until the big break through came in August. We were in different positions also in that bridgehead over the River Orne and the canal. Whilst there we saw the two big raids on Caen which still hadn't been taken. Then, one night we were moved out beside Ranville. We were told we needn't dig in there that night but first thing the next morning as soon as it was daylight as we were liable to get shelled. However we were all dug in when it started. A comrade who came running across to come in beside me was hit by a piece of shrapnel from a shell which had landed quite near him. He was wounded right above his knee. I ran out and bandaged him up. (He had been in the Sheffield blitz and was more nervous than most of us.)

A comrade brought a sheet of corrugated iron and we carried him on this to a nearby farmhouse. Soon we got a stretcher-bearer with stretcher and he was taken away and then got back to the U.K. as there was an airfield nearby. He lost his leg.

Then we got ready for the big push and the break-out. We were in reserve to the Polish Division after the big attack went in. They got in to a bit of a mess and we had to go in and relieve them. We expected to be counter-attacked but, luckily, we weren't. Then we had to move forward and take the town of Liseux. As we were so thin on the ground it was a case of every man up to the front. We always had to do mine-lifting or mine-laying but this night when every man-jack was in Liseux we weren't counter-attacked.

Gradually we moved forward towards the Seine. We were given the task of clearing the south bank of the river on our front. One night I was sent with "C" company with a mine-detector along with a Major Robinson who, I imagine, is dead now. He had been my platoon officer since some two years earlier.

After crossing the Seine we turned west towards Le Havre but we didn't attack it straight away. We were put on farms all around - anywhere we could get cover - in barns and outbuildings. Luckily, the weather was good. I put a new handle on a cart for the farmer whose farm we were on and he gave us a few eggs in return.

Then we attacked Le Havre. We were on the north-west side of it and we had to go right the way out to where the enemy had big concrete bunkers with guns, But, fortunately for us, they couldn't bring them to bear on us - they all faced out to sea. That was a consolation. We also took a number of prisoners there. Soon afterwards we got our transport back and we then had the task of following up in the corridor that had been driven through to try to get to Belgium and Holland and onwards to Arnhem.

France by this time was clear of Germans and I don't think many were left in Belgium. In Holland, of course, on either side of the corridor, there were loads of Germans. The Highland Division was given the task of clearing up the pockets of resistance left behind. Many were taken prisoner.

I did the cooking for the platoon during that time as no-one else would do it, as and when necessary and according to our rations. On one particular day we were at a small farm and I made boiled rice pudding with lots of condensed milk and water. This was always welcome. The lady of the farm had been watching and approached me to ask whether I could give her some rice so she could make rice pudding for her children who were about three and five years old. We had used all the rice that day but there was more in the rations the following day so I made some more than usual and gave the lady a saucepan with quite a lot of rice pudding left in it. The look on the faces of these two children when they were scoffing that pudding is a memory I will never forget! I was able to give their mother a pound of rice and a tin of condensed milk from our rations without making us short.

The next afternoon she, the mother, came and gave me about a dozen fresh herring — one for each of us- cleaned and ready to cook. I dipped them in oatmeal and fried them. What a delicious treat after only eating army rations!

At times when I had only plain flour and some dried fruit I made spotted Dick and cooked it in large margarine tins. On one particular occasion I realised I had got rid of all of these but I had plenty of camouflage silk instead. I boiled a piece to find out whether any of the dye came out and as there was no sign of any I made two puddings using Andrew's Liver Salts as a raising agent, wrapped them in the silk, put them into a pot of boiling water to cook. Unfortunately when I unwrapped them just before our meal I found that they were slightly green on the outside. I scraped the worst off and told the lads that I had spilled pea water on them. The spotted Dick was all eaten and with no ill effects, thank goodness.

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