大象传媒

V. Into Action on D-Day
Gold Beach, King Green Sector

Order of Battle of 50th (Northumbrian) Division

69th Infantry Brigade
5th East Yorkshire Regiment
6th Green Howards
7th Green Howards

151st Infantry Brigade
6th Durham Light Infantry
8th Durham Light Infantry
9th Durham Light Infantry

231st Infantry Brigade
2nd Devonshire Regiment
1st Hampshire
1st Dorsetshire Regiment

36th Infantry Brigade
2nd Essex Regiment
2nd Gloucester Regiment
2nd South Wales Borders

8th Independent Armoured Brigade
4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards
24th Lancers (to 29 07 44)
The Nottinghamshire Yeomanry
13th/18th Royal Hussars (from 29 07 44)
12th Battalion The King鈥檚 Royal Rifle Corps

On the morning of the 3rd June we loaded the tanks with our bedding wrapped in tarpaulins and stowed on the engine casing. The tanks looked out of place in the pine wood and resembled
large grey evil ducks. In single file the column headed for the
鈥榟ards鈥� to load onto the L.C.T (Landing Craft Tank) - to be met by the Squadron Sergeant Major with his clipboard. The Corporal鈥檚 and Sergeant鈥檚 tank was loaded onto one L.C.T with a couple of tanks from H.Q Troop and the Troop Leader鈥檚 tank on another.
One of the tasks we had learnt during training was semaphore and we semaphored best wishes to each other before sailing in quite a holiday atmosphere.
The craft remained in the Solent for 4th June. D-Day was to take place on 5th June but was postponed because of very bad weather. That night we moored alongside a much larger ship dimly discernible in the black night as a darker sheet of blackness off the Needles.
I slung my hammock from the side of the L.C.T. to the tank but the weather became so bad that the thought of sleep had to be abandoned. On 5th June the flotilla sailed out of the Solent for France. Everyone, except the Sergeant, was very seasick and no one slept.
We arrived off the coast of France, the coast line a grey streak above a slate coloured turbulent sea. The landing was to be H Hour - 7.25 am and the DD tanks were due at H minus 5
minutes - 7.20 am. As the sea was too rough the tanks were to 鈥榳ade in鈥� instead of swimming. This meant driving along the seabed with the screen up. All was quiet. The shapes of the grey battleships were visible behind, nearer to our right rocket ships were broadside to the coast; these were L.C.T鈥檚 with banks of rockets in racks mounted to fire broadside from the craft.
The whole fleet of ships and landing craft were waiting for the order to open the barrage and land the assault troops. The Sergeant, unaffected by the rough crossing, came and whispered to the waiting crews 鈥淗ave a bite to eat, we鈥檒l be off soon鈥�; a
Trooper decided that a cup of tea would go down well and went forward where a large field cooker had been stowed, pumped up the pressure and lit it. Much to the consternation of the skipper of the landing craft and all on board a spiral of orange flame lit up the greyness of the morning. 鈥淧ut it out or I shoot you鈥� bellowed the skipper. It became quiet after this excitement but erupted
again when the battleships opened up; the rockets went off with a deafening 鈥榃oosh鈥� and the ramp of the L.C.T. was lowered. The screen of our tank was raised and we got ready to go.
We followed the Troop Sergeant鈥檚 tank down the ramp and threaded our way through the sea defences towards the blockhouse, which was clearly visible on the shoreline. To the left of it a 鈥楥hurchill鈥� tank was endeavouring to climb the beach. Over the radio the commander was complaining that his periscope had been shot away and he couldn鈥檛 see to fire. It was a special assault tank and had an enormous mortar bomb mounted on it
Our screen was lowered as we stood off in the shallows and engaged the blockhouse with our 75mm using H.E (high explosive ammunition). A Green Howard infantry man has subsequently said that a shell whistled through the aperture of the
blockhouse. What with the 鈥楥hurchill鈥� so close and our H E fire the crew of the blockhouse decided to call it a day and came out, lining
up in front with their hands up. There were about six Germans in shirtsleeves, the commander standing in the centre of the line wearing a peaked cap - all no doubt according to the rulebook.
The driver went to the right of the blockhouse to avoid the 鈥楥hurchill鈥� but at that precise moment the tank fell into a large shell hole concealed in the shallow water and became stuck.
The Sergeant鈥檚 tank backed up with a towrope. The problem was to attach it to the front of our submerged tank. Endeavours by the co-driver to fix it underwater resulted in him bobbing up to the surface. This problem was solved by the driver standing on him whilst he was doing it and he nearly drowned him in the process. Despite efforts by the towing tank ours was firmly stuck and its rescue had to be abandoned. The co-driver was more concerned about his watch; ignoring the crash of explosions and the fearful racket he stood in the shallows shaking his wrist to try and get his waterlogged watch to work.
The bedding was rescued from the back of the tank together with personal possessions and the cooker. Camp was set up by the blockhouse. It had received a terrible pounding and fragments of concrete were scattered thickly all around on the ground. The German 88mm gun was pointing down the beach and must have inflicted many casualties among the assault troops. It was so constructed that the gun was positioned to traverse rear and down the beach to each side; enfilade, hence the mystery of how it operated, not apparent at our briefing for the landing. If it had been able to fire forward we would have been a sitting target. Despite the obvious bashing it had got, it was still very much intact.
The air was still thick with concrete dust and the smell of Germans. They had a peculiar odour that lingered everywhere they had been in occupation. It was noticed throughout the campaign and was thought to be the smell of the gun oil they used.
I thought that it was advisable to stay by the blockhouse until events had quietened down. I got the rescued cooker to work and enjoyed a nice cup of tea and contemplated the scene.
Close by was the half-demolished entrance to an underground bunker and behind it a slit trench destroyed by the bombardment. On the incoming tide the bodies of two young Royal Marines rolled about in the surf at the side of the blockhouse. Out at sea a soldier squatted Buddha-like on the roof of a submerged craft waiting for rescue. When I looked again he had gone. There was the continuous crash of explosions as the L.C.Ts hit the mines and shells of the sea defences.
Another member of our group by the blockhouse was an infantry private of the Green Howards. The 6th Green Howards had landed with our 鈥楤鈥� Squadron. He was helping himself to a bottle of whisky he had extracted from a Captain鈥檚 haversack and he then changed his wet socks for those in the haversack carefully rolling them up and stuffing them in. I asked him what he was doing and he replied the Captain wouldn鈥檛 mind. Possibly he had found the haversack abandoned or knew his Captain was dead. What was he up to spending his time on the beach without any arms or equipment?
The crew went down to inspect the tank which was now accessible as the tide was going out. They found a Canadian in the turret trying to get the No19 wireless set out. They let him get on with it, as the tank was useless.
The museum at Bayeux and no doubt the Southampton one as well show the landing as very dramatic with plenty of red and yellow flashes of gunfire. In reality it was a scene of greys and browns with an atmosphere of casualness except for the bangs of the sea defences going off against colliding landing craft. Resistance, luckily, was minimal on Gold Beach. I very much doubt that the technicolour depicted in the museums was right for the other landing beaches.
There was a lull after the assault troops had left the beach to advance inland. Stretcher-bearers were methodically picking up the corpses and placing them in rows with feet towards the sea; one row for the British and a separate row for the Germans with their boots protruding. The bodies were covered with a large black tarpaulin, the end of which they turned back to receive another body.
The landing craft were beaching to the right of the blockhouse and were clearly having trouble with the sea defences.
To the left the Beachmaster, a naval officer, was endeavouring to sort out his packing cases to set up his command base. I noticed a group of sailors near the demolished entrance to the underground bunker. They were throwing lumps of concrete at a half-buried German in a slit trench. I was sitting down at the time and got up and grabbed the nearest by the arm and told him to stop it. He turned round and said, 鈥淭hey killed my mates鈥�. I thought he was going to hit me. The stretcher-bearers took the German away; whether he was alive or dead I don鈥檛 know.
After the lull the troops started coming ashore, walking up the beach each side of the blockhouse. A single file of infantry stumbled and slipped on the shingle bank; a lieutenant with a green flash of the Dental Corps admonished a stumbling infantryman in front of him. 鈥淜eep in step鈥� he said.
A file of troops with collapsible bikes deposited them by the blockhouse in a pile and marched resolutely inland. What a treat; I took one from the heap. It was capable of being folded in two with a wing nut on the crossbar and another on the lower frame. I liked cycling in my school days when I was evacuated to Wisbech. The flat fens were ideal for cycling; along the River Nene to the two lighthouses at the mouth of the River; around Walsoken on the raised roads passing the potato clamps with the distant horizon and the marvellous skies. I cycled along the beach with the minefields inland on the edge of the sand and in the low grass dunes marked with a triangular sign 鈥楢chtung Minen鈥�.
The beach was quiet again. A few troops pottered about. In the minefield a 鈥楩lail鈥� - a 鈥楽herman鈥� with a rotating drum on the front with chains - was bashing the hell out of the sand clearing it of mines. After a spin up and down the beach I returned and was told we were to meet up with the lorries. It was an extremely long
walk along the beach and I ached carrying the bedding and provisions.
The tide was nearly out by now and we came across the lorries parked on the wet sand. A reserve tank crew gunner, the John who was killed later at Verri猫res, was sitting on an ammunition box unloaded from the lorry as a temporary seat, and drinking tea. Behind the ammo box, stretched out on the sand was a dead German officer firmly wrapped in a naval stretcher. He had been wounded but had died when being taken on board ship for hospital in England. John had been told to hand him over to the stretcher-bearers on the beach.
We went with the lorries inland and stopped in a meadow for the night. I wrapped myself in a blanket and placed my tin hat on my head for protection. I removed it for a minute to watch the tracer bullets from anti-aircraft defences on the beach reaching out into the sky and dropped off into a sound sleep.
In the 70s the blockhouse was still standing but over the years the sea has accomplished what the heavy naval guns failed to do; only the reinforced concrete roof lying on the beach survives. The fortifications immediately inland are intact. The reason for this they are situated at the end of an unmade track 2km to the west of Ver-sur-Mer and so not often visited. On my visits it does not take much imagination to see the garrison emerging out of the part underground bunkers when the alert came on 6th June 1944

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