大象传媒

When war broke out I was seventeen and volunteered almost straight away to join the Green Howards because I wanted to stay with my friends rather than being moved around the country as was happening to many people. I had wanted to join up because the one part of school that I had loved had been the 鈥淥fficer鈥檚 Training Corps鈥�. In the time between when I joined up and when I was called up in February 1941 I worked on a farm, something I had always wanted to do.

My preliminary training took place at the Green Howards depot in Richmond, Yorkshire and involved a lot of marching and discipline for three months. I then became a Corporal, one of the hardest things I ever did in the army, before going through equally difficult training in Kent and on the Isle of Man to become an Officer. I then re-joined the Green Howards as an Officer. There I became friendly with John Franklin, a General鈥� s son, who was also an Officer. We were beginning to fret as nothing seemed to be happening. Then one day he told me not to worry as he was sure something was going to happen, his father had obviously told him. The sixth and seventh battalions were coming back from Sicily to be assault battalions in D-Day and when they arrived in February 1944 I joined the sixth battalion. I was given a very experience platoon to command as a Second Leftenant but was promoted to Leftenant before D-Day. My platoon Sergeant had fought in the desert in North Africa and had lost an eye but was determined to return to the army, but I was welcomed with open arms.

We then started assault training in Inverurie and Hayling Island as we knew that we were to be assault battalions. However, no one was prepared for the Normandy countryside which was entirely different to the training grounds and anything anyone had fought on before. Eventually, we were put in sealed camps so that we were not allowed out for a week to a fortnight before we went to France. All of our letters were censored so that no security was breached but at that time we still knew very little about what was going to happen. I wrote home to my parents once, only to later find out that my father had known where I was in the sealed camp as the army had stamped the envelope with a Winchester postal stamp. I was amazed that the Germans had no idea where we were going to land. We then began to prepare for the landings and got to know more about where we were going to land.

We went over on an American ship that held thousands of people, and we boarded on June 1st at Southampton. We knew that we were intended to land on June 5th but the awful weather on June 4th forced it to be postponed to the 6th. The 24 hours that it was delayed was probably the worst 24 hours of all our lives as we had got all keyed up for going and then it was delayed. Even worse than that, we knew that if we couldn鈥檛 go that day then it would be held off for another fortnight because of the tides. The journey went ahead on the 6th and the sea was very rough, many people were sea sick. We anchored about seven miles from the coast and got up at about three in the morning. Those of us who could eat were given a damn good breakfast of bacon and eggs and at about 5:00 am we had to climb down nets and jump into assault landing craft. That experience was probably the worst of the day for me as we had on full equipment and then had to go down scrambling nets and jump into a landing craft. We circled for a long time on the choppy water and got into the right sort of order. I think that some of the men were so happy to get on to dry land when we got to the beaches that it was an incentive to them.

We landed on Gold beach at about quarter to eight to join two of our other companies who had landed quarter of an hour earlier. The landing craft took us in exactly where we were supposed to be and we had a perfect landing. Not everybody did, some hit mines, some landed in deep water and drowned, but my platoon was lucky. I was first off the landing craft and I charged across the beach to be faced by signs indicating that there were mine fields all along it. We were incredibly lucky to not incur any casualties while crossing it, either that or it wasn鈥檛 actually a mine field. One of the strangest things was that for all the apprehension of the day before, as soon as the ramps to the beaches came down, fear seemed to leave me. The feeling was; we are here, it has to be done. I knew that people would die but I thought it wouldn鈥檛 happen to me, you had to think that. I don鈥檛 think I was unusual in thinking this. Coming from a local regiment there was a great bond between the men. I think especially being a Yorkshireman, I never thought that my fellow Yorkshiremen would let me down, and they didn鈥檛.

We had a flail tank heading towards our target; the house with the circular drive. We followed it up the lane where I believe Stanley Hollis, the only Victoria Cross winner of D-Day, saved the lives of my platoon by taking out a pill-box single-handedly. Then my company took the lead which meant that I was leading the whole battalion which was rather daunting as I had had no battle experience at all and was leading a battalion of men who had had far more practice than me.

Although we had a few skirmishes, we managed to reach the village of Cr茅pon by the end of the day. D company took care of Cr茅pon while we were instructed to continue advancing. The most noticeable things were the small fields and all of the cattle that had been killed by the shelling earlier in the day. I am sure that the great noise of the shelling that was created that day is what is to blame for my need for hearing-aids now. Also by the side of the road were many dead bodies and people who were crying out for water but we were ordered not to stop as there was a danger that they were hostile and also because the troops further back would take care of the wounded.

My platoon was incredibly lucky as we didn鈥檛 have a single casualty throughout D-Day. It was remarkable. I think that by the end of D-Day we were one of the furthest forward battalions, if not the furthest forward from Gold beach. It was very very tiring which I think was reflected in all of my letters home from that time. That night, I asked a butcher in my platoon if he could cut some steaks from the cows that were dead in the field, so we had steak for supper on D-Day.

Five days later, we were ordered to take a hill overlooking Caen. The hill had been reccied that morning by many commanders from different regiments and it was clear that no-one was there. IF we took the hill we would have a great view of Caen which would have made all the difference. Unfortunately, the Germans had had the same idea and got there first. When we were halfway up the hill, all hell was let loose on us. Machine gun fire was coming from hedges and I think we had a fifty per cent casualty rate in the battalion that day. Once again, I was one of the lucky ones as I had been instructed to go up the opposite side of a field to where most of the people were killed. We had to withdraw and replacement troops were called in.

A few weeks later, I was one of the last officers in the battalion to be wounded. I had been made intelligence officer for the battalion and I was riding a motorbike on a road that I thought that we had taken to visit forward troops. Unfortunately there was a German coming the other way on a motorbike thinking exactly the same thing. However, he had a machine gun and I didn鈥檛. He shot me in the groin, about a millimetre away from my femoral artery. Again I was incredibly lucky apart from the fact that the wound became gangrenous. I was one of the first army people to be saved by penicillin. I was in hospital in Sheffield for three months after which I returned to the Green Howards headquarters as an intelligence officer. I then went to Cyprus as a Captain with the 7th battalion and was put in charge of motor vehicles which was great, I had my own jeep to drive around Cyprus on. After that battalion was disbanded I was thinking of staying in the army so I went to Cairo in Egypt where I sent back German prisoners of war. We had to send them back to the Russians as our allies and I fear that many of them were put to death on their return.

I am still in contact with many of the people who I fought with in the war and am still involved with the Green Howards. regiment.

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