I'm the daughter of a sapper who was part of the 10th beach Party who landed on Gold Beach at 7.30am on 6th June 1944 near Le Hamel. I'm very proud of my father and luckily for us he has written an account of his time in the war which makes excellent reading. However there are still so many questions I'd like answers to which sadly, he now can't give as his memory is extremely poor.
Having just returned from my first trip to Normandy, I'm so keen to discover exactly where my father was from D-Day until around August 1944. He has written that after a couple of days on or near the beach, clearing the coast road and laying 'webbing' for the tanks, they went into Le Hamel where they set up a workshop for repairing military vehicles in a garage which was below a doctor's house. They were actually billetted in a farmyard also in Le Hamel.
I couldn't find exactly where Le Hamel is today although found a site which matched some of my father's descriptions further back from the sea in the village of Comte de Fresnes. I'm also thinking that perhaps he meant Asnelles.
I'd dearly love to hear from anyone who might recognise the places I'm talking about & know where he might have been staying. Or exactly where Le Hamel is today as there didn't seem to be much left. This, despite the fact that in many other accounts I've read it's referred to as a town, attacked by 2 companies of the Hampshires on D-Day in a difficult assault which took until the afternoon to relieve whereas Asnelles was more quickly relieved in the morning. This indicates that Le hamel must have been reasonably large.
Hopefully someone will be able to help me on my personal quest which is by way of a homage to my father who is now almost 84 and a little confused these days. If someone reads this who actually was in the same 10th Beach Party, I'd be ecstatic to hear from them.Maybe I have some details etc which I could pass onto to you. Who knows?
Many thanks for reading this anyway
In hopes
Deborah