D-day: memories from the frontline
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/-sp-d-day-memories-from-the-front-line
A platoon of soldiers in a landing vehicle on D-day. Photograph: Jeffrey Markowitz/Sygma/Corbis
Robert Ashby, Glider Pilot Regiment, describes his part in the operation to take the bridges at Benouville (later know as Pegasus Bridge) and Ranville early on D-day. The operation would help limit any German counter-attack.
Robert Ashby and his wife, Jeane, celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this year.
“There below us, like a badly-shaped question mark, was the mouth of the River Orne and neighbouring canal, exactly as I expected to find them. Further down into France, quite a way off … was the blinking red light of the lead-in beacon positioned by the paratroops to mark our LZ [landing zone] …
“Our gliding approach required us to half-circle the beacon, and before we got there I began putting on flap as we were very much too high. I dived, with Jim, whose duty it was to keep an eye on the instruments, shouting that we were going too fast, at 100mph, enough to tear the flaps off.
"I seemed to sense rather than see the ground coming up, and at the right moment levelled off and put her down. Once touched, she stayed on her wheels and came to a stop undamaged.
"We had expected that all hell would break loose when we landed, but it did not. In fact, when, after a very brief pause to catch our breath, we tumbled out, we were in mortal dread not of the enemy but of other gliders. They were landing all over the place, some with spot-lights on, which was a dead give-away, others approaching from the wrong direction, and many crashing into posts or other gliders.
"All of this happened within the space of about a minute. When it was all over there was a sudden silence. All that could be heard was the gentle sighing of the wind through the grasses. Typically English, I suppose, but the first thing we did in Normandy was to get out the large Thermos flasks and have a mug of tea …”
But there were problems getting the 3-ton bulldozer out of the Horsa glider. It had been brought to clear any obstructions left by the Germans.
By now the pre-dawn light was coming up.
Robert Ashby marries Jeane one month after D-day.
“Shouldering our rifles, bandoliers of ammunition and other kit, we gravitated towards the southern end of the sweep of meadowland which formed our LZ. There we found the church of Ranville at the top of a slight slope and the village beyond. This, though we did not know it at the time, was the first village in France to be liberated.”
Ashby, as a glider pilot vital to airborne operations, was on his way back to Britain the day after landing.
“The beach, all things considered, was remarkably tidy. Some disabled landing-craft were washing about in the surf and there was other wreckage. Round the bastions of the seawall were what looked like piled-up stores under canvas sheets.
"But they were not stores, but the bodies of men who had fallen in the first assault. I noticed a wax-like hand sticking out. It had on it a wedding-ring, token of some poor woman back home who did not know, and would not know for some time, that she was a widow.”
Ashby, now 98, married his wife Jeane, now 89, on 8 July 1944. They live in Chichester. Ashby went on to take part in the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 and the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945. He retired as Surrey’s county librarian in 1978.
Jack Beasley was a tank wireless operator with the 24th Lancers. This is from his diary covering D-day and after. He was 21.
6 June 1944, D-day:
On LSJ 540 we made a smooth passage from outside Portsmouth waters to ‘Le Hamel’. We were extremely fortunate in landing in five feet of water. ‘B’ Squadron tanks, escorted by a handful of infantry, pushed forward three miles within the first hour.
7 June
War is hell. For sheer madness of mind my imagination is left cold with incredibility at the immensity of brutal war. Life is unreal in this world of fantastic figures. I am sure that one day we will all awaken to end a most disturbed nightmare.
8-15 June
Since landing nine days ago our lads have secured no more than a dozen hours respite from fighting. If only those much-talked-about reserves would enter, we would feel rejuvenated.
From Crépan we move forward to the large provincial town of Bayeux. By this date, we (24th Lancers) should have penetrated as deep as Villers Bocage - 14 miles south-west of our present position.
16-21 June
The first light of opening day and we move forward to take up stands outside Saint Pierre. Artillery shells have poured into the village at the rate of 100,000 an hour for several hours. No progress is affected on foot however, Jerry is stubborn and has kept us inside our tanks for 19 hours with his insidious mortar fire …
Suffering acute shortages of food, many Germans are willingly giving themselves up in preference to being subjected to further hardship.
On the morning of the 20th we captured 10 men of the notorious 21st Panzer Division. Lined in order they looked very superior, giants all.
22-28 June
It is at this time that the fierce battle for Tilly Sur Seulles is taking place. The place has already been alternately occupied three times by the (Germans) and ourselves. Once the village is truly taken the main Caen - Villers Bocage road is astride our thrust.
29 June - 1 July
Having seized Fontenay Le Pesnel and thrust towards the outskirts of Juvigny, the long, drawn-out sigh for want of rest is answered. Monty is well-pleased with our efforts - calls us valiant warriors of the noblest order. All we want is a change of atmosphere. To be away from the wild clamour of artillery, no more to see the awful carnage of wrecked humans, to leave the rancid smell of rotting cattle. Unfortunately we have attained a surpassing reputation as a fighting regiment. Such units are used until their strength is no more. Our casualties have been high. We paid dearly and lost heavily for the scant territory in our possession. We have no more than a dozen of the original tanks, fifty per cent personnel are replacements.
Jack Beasley is now 91 and he doesn’t want to remember the war anymore.
Victor Hyams, 44th Royal Tank Regiment
Victor Hyams, now aged 94.
“We drove our tank on the landing craft, which took fifteen tanks. We chained the tanks down. I saw what seemed to be thousands of ships laying off the coast of France and the Belfast was there with all guns blazing. It was an encouraging sight.
“We got in our tanks and the boat crew sealed us in. The crew wished us good luck and we were left with our thoughts. The ramp came down and we drove off. The beach had already been taken and our troops were a mile in by that time …”
After a wait of several days the tanks then bombarded and obliterated two villages before moving into the Bocage.
”I can’t forget the Bocage area - that was a deadly place because of the undergrowth and very high hedges which lined the road and which even a tank found it impossible to get through …
"It was all hard going. The Allied commanders had planned to take Caen on the first day, but by 29 June we found ourselves on the high ground overlooking Caen, with the Germans still giving fierce resistance ...
"We advanced and everything happened in a short period. I was the co-driver and was responsible for the Browning machine gun. I was looking through my telescope and saw armoured piercing shells coming towards us - they are white hot streaks and don’t look very dangerous.
"As I turned my periscope, I saw many of the other tanks being hit and brewing up. The turret opened on one tank and a burning man emerged who hit the ground and tried to roll in the corn. My instinct was to get out and help him. The squadron was being decimated. We continued forward and then the wireless operator dropped down behind me screaming, ‘I can’t stand it anymore.’ He had left us defenceless, as he was the loader for the gun. I turned round and said: 'Don’t worry. It’s going to be alright .’
"The order came through to retreat and we turned the tank around to go back to our original position. I shouted at the driver, 'Zig zag, Wally. Zig zag.’ And sure enough, he zig-zagged all the way back. When we turned round, I could see our tanks burning and lots of smoke, where smoke shells had been fired to cover our retreat.
D-day news report from the Guardian, 7 June 1944.
"We stayed there and I even got out of the tank to have a pee. After about two hours, we got a message that the Germans had broken through on our flank. Lieutenant Rogers turned the turret towards where the attack was coming and told Wally to start up. Nothing happened. We were static in a very bad position. Our gun fired and then we were hit in the turret. Fortunately, it didn’t go through. There was a terrific bang and some pieces sheared off the inside of the tank, blinding the gunner, who didn’t wear goggles because he had to keep his eye to the periscope . Then, there was another bang as we were hit in the rear, which could have been ‘game up’, as our tank was petrol driven.
"The commander gave the order to abandon the tank. There was a plate behind me which I had looked after carefully, as this was an escape hatch and I had practiced this manoeuvre in my mind many times. I got out very quickly and dropped to the ground and almost immediately, we must have been hit again, as I felt a terrific blow to my head, as if I had been hit with a stick. I was blinded. I lay there for a moment, feeling for blood. I decided to crawl through the corn, towards where I thought our troops were, as I wanted to avoid any German troops who may have been advancing. I heard the sounds of war around me and I crawled and crawled, until a feeling overcame me where I decided to abandon life and stood up and started to walk. I was happy that all the pain and the dreadful events I had witnessed would come to an end.
"A voice shouted at me, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I was dragged into a half track where there were other wounded. We were taken to a forward casualty station. The doctor told me I had burns across my eyes, as he tied a bandage around my head. The battle went on all night ...
"The padre came in the morning and told me he was going to lead me out. I put my hands on his shoulders and he led me to an ambulance. As we walked, I remember infantrymen marching in the opposite direction and I remember the sound of their kit banging on their bodies. I felt sorry for them walking into this inferno which I had just left.”
Hyams was evacuated from France and spent four weeks at a special unit treating eye injuries in Glasgow. His eyesight returned naturally. He rejoined his regiment just outside Caen, “so not a lot of progress had been made from the D-day beaches”. He is 94 and lives in Chigwell, Essex.
Jacques Lazare Julius was Jewish and had spent much of the war hiding from the authorities. In 1943, he joined the French resistance group, Dupleix SR, which was based in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, just outside Lyon. Then 22, he remembered what he did on 6 June, though he had no idea at the time, because of the tight security, that this was D-day.
Jacques Lazare Julius (second row, far right, standing holding rifle) with the French resistance during the liberation of Lyons, taken in July 1944.
“One day we were ordered to cause as much disruption as possible to communications. We had to cut telephone lines, destroy bridges, railway tunnels and railway lines as well as block roads by blowing them up. What was unusual about this (on this day) is that we were ordered to do this in broad daylight. Up until then actions of this sort were done at night under the cover of darkness. Later that evening we heard that the Allies landed in Normandy, 6 June 1944.”
Julius moved to London after the war, where he was a tailor for the Royal Household. He died in 2013
Joseph Mommertz, 83, now living in Günzberg, Germany, told us how he heard the news of the Allied landings as a teenager living with six siblings and his mother in their bombed house.
“The all-out war was blistering Aachen into ruins all around us. But the Berlin radio “news” we listened to every evening at eight was busy boosting our patriotic morale.
“One evening, the family around the Volksempfänger (a cheap radio) heard the confirmation after weeks of rumours that British and American enemy soldiers had attacked on the coast of France, but our brave soldiers on the Atlantic wall were driving them back into the sea.
“My mother, seeing our frightened faces, said: ‘No, no, believe me, now the war will be over soon, children. God bless you.’”
Two of his brothers, aged 16 and 17, were in the Luftwaffenhelfer, the corps of teenagers deployed in the flak batteries trying to protect towns and cities from Allied bombing raids. “They were very afraid, going out into the fields being shot at by enemy planes” said Mommertz, who later worked for an American environmental waste company, based in the UK, though he remained in Germany.
For further accounts, go to GuardianWitness
A platoon of soldiers in a landing vehicle on D-day. Photograph: Jeffrey Markowitz/Sygma/Corbis
Robert Ashby, Glider Pilot Regiment, describes his part in the operation to take the bridges at Benouville (later know as Pegasus Bridge) and Ranville early on D-day. The operation would help limit any German counter-attack.
Robert Ashby and his wife, Jeane, celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this year.
“There below us, like a badly-shaped question mark, was the mouth of the River Orne and neighbouring canal, exactly as I expected to find them. Further down into France, quite a way off … was the blinking red light of the lead-in beacon positioned by the paratroops to mark our LZ [landing zone] …
“Our gliding approach required us to half-circle the beacon, and before we got there I began putting on flap as we were very much too high. I dived, with Jim, whose duty it was to keep an eye on the instruments, shouting that we were going too fast, at 100mph, enough to tear the flaps off.
"I seemed to sense rather than see the ground coming up, and at the right moment levelled off and put her down. Once touched, she stayed on her wheels and came to a stop undamaged.
"We had expected that all hell would break loose when we landed, but it did not. In fact, when, after a very brief pause to catch our breath, we tumbled out, we were in mortal dread not of the enemy but of other gliders. They were landing all over the place, some with spot-lights on, which was a dead give-away, others approaching from the wrong direction, and many crashing into posts or other gliders.
"All of this happened within the space of about a minute. When it was all over there was a sudden silence. All that could be heard was the gentle sighing of the wind through the grasses. Typically English, I suppose, but the first thing we did in Normandy was to get out the large Thermos flasks and have a mug of tea …”
But there were problems getting the 3-ton bulldozer out of the Horsa glider. It had been brought to clear any obstructions left by the Germans.
By now the pre-dawn light was coming up.
Robert Ashby marries Jeane one month after D-day.
“Shouldering our rifles, bandoliers of ammunition and other kit, we gravitated towards the southern end of the sweep of meadowland which formed our LZ. There we found the church of Ranville at the top of a slight slope and the village beyond. This, though we did not know it at the time, was the first village in France to be liberated.”
Ashby, as a glider pilot vital to airborne operations, was on his way back to Britain the day after landing.
“The beach, all things considered, was remarkably tidy. Some disabled landing-craft were washing about in the surf and there was other wreckage. Round the bastions of the seawall were what looked like piled-up stores under canvas sheets.
"But they were not stores, but the bodies of men who had fallen in the first assault. I noticed a wax-like hand sticking out. It had on it a wedding-ring, token of some poor woman back home who did not know, and would not know for some time, that she was a widow.”
Ashby, now 98, married his wife Jeane, now 89, on 8 July 1944. They live in Chichester. Ashby went on to take part in the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 and the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945. He retired as Surrey’s county librarian in 1978.
Jack Beasley was a tank wireless operator with the 24th Lancers. This is from his diary covering D-day and after. He was 21.
6 June 1944, D-day:
On LSJ 540 we made a smooth passage from outside Portsmouth waters to ‘Le Hamel’. We were extremely fortunate in landing in five feet of water. ‘B’ Squadron tanks, escorted by a handful of infantry, pushed forward three miles within the first hour.
7 June
War is hell. For sheer madness of mind my imagination is left cold with incredibility at the immensity of brutal war. Life is unreal in this world of fantastic figures. I am sure that one day we will all awaken to end a most disturbed nightmare.
8-15 June
Since landing nine days ago our lads have secured no more than a dozen hours respite from fighting. If only those much-talked-about reserves would enter, we would feel rejuvenated.
From Crépan we move forward to the large provincial town of Bayeux. By this date, we (24th Lancers) should have penetrated as deep as Villers Bocage - 14 miles south-west of our present position.
16-21 June
The first light of opening day and we move forward to take up stands outside Saint Pierre. Artillery shells have poured into the village at the rate of 100,000 an hour for several hours. No progress is affected on foot however, Jerry is stubborn and has kept us inside our tanks for 19 hours with his insidious mortar fire …
Suffering acute shortages of food, many Germans are willingly giving themselves up in preference to being subjected to further hardship.
On the morning of the 20th we captured 10 men of the notorious 21st Panzer Division. Lined in order they looked very superior, giants all.
22-28 June
It is at this time that the fierce battle for Tilly Sur Seulles is taking place. The place has already been alternately occupied three times by the (Germans) and ourselves. Once the village is truly taken the main Caen - Villers Bocage road is astride our thrust.
29 June - 1 July
Having seized Fontenay Le Pesnel and thrust towards the outskirts of Juvigny, the long, drawn-out sigh for want of rest is answered. Monty is well-pleased with our efforts - calls us valiant warriors of the noblest order. All we want is a change of atmosphere. To be away from the wild clamour of artillery, no more to see the awful carnage of wrecked humans, to leave the rancid smell of rotting cattle. Unfortunately we have attained a surpassing reputation as a fighting regiment. Such units are used until their strength is no more. Our casualties have been high. We paid dearly and lost heavily for the scant territory in our possession. We have no more than a dozen of the original tanks, fifty per cent personnel are replacements.
Jack Beasley is now 91 and he doesn’t want to remember the war anymore.
Victor Hyams, 44th Royal Tank Regiment
Victor Hyams, now aged 94.
“We drove our tank on the landing craft, which took fifteen tanks. We chained the tanks down. I saw what seemed to be thousands of ships laying off the coast of France and the Belfast was there with all guns blazing. It was an encouraging sight.
“We got in our tanks and the boat crew sealed us in. The crew wished us good luck and we were left with our thoughts. The ramp came down and we drove off. The beach had already been taken and our troops were a mile in by that time …”
After a wait of several days the tanks then bombarded and obliterated two villages before moving into the Bocage.
”I can’t forget the Bocage area - that was a deadly place because of the undergrowth and very high hedges which lined the road and which even a tank found it impossible to get through …
"It was all hard going. The Allied commanders had planned to take Caen on the first day, but by 29 June we found ourselves on the high ground overlooking Caen, with the Germans still giving fierce resistance ...
"We advanced and everything happened in a short period. I was the co-driver and was responsible for the Browning machine gun. I was looking through my telescope and saw armoured piercing shells coming towards us - they are white hot streaks and don’t look very dangerous.
"As I turned my periscope, I saw many of the other tanks being hit and brewing up. The turret opened on one tank and a burning man emerged who hit the ground and tried to roll in the corn. My instinct was to get out and help him. The squadron was being decimated. We continued forward and then the wireless operator dropped down behind me screaming, ‘I can’t stand it anymore.’ He had left us defenceless, as he was the loader for the gun. I turned round and said: 'Don’t worry. It’s going to be alright .’
"The order came through to retreat and we turned the tank around to go back to our original position. I shouted at the driver, 'Zig zag, Wally. Zig zag.’ And sure enough, he zig-zagged all the way back. When we turned round, I could see our tanks burning and lots of smoke, where smoke shells had been fired to cover our retreat.
D-day news report from the Guardian, 7 June 1944.
"We stayed there and I even got out of the tank to have a pee. After about two hours, we got a message that the Germans had broken through on our flank. Lieutenant Rogers turned the turret towards where the attack was coming and told Wally to start up. Nothing happened. We were static in a very bad position. Our gun fired and then we were hit in the turret. Fortunately, it didn’t go through. There was a terrific bang and some pieces sheared off the inside of the tank, blinding the gunner, who didn’t wear goggles because he had to keep his eye to the periscope . Then, there was another bang as we were hit in the rear, which could have been ‘game up’, as our tank was petrol driven.
"The commander gave the order to abandon the tank. There was a plate behind me which I had looked after carefully, as this was an escape hatch and I had practiced this manoeuvre in my mind many times. I got out very quickly and dropped to the ground and almost immediately, we must have been hit again, as I felt a terrific blow to my head, as if I had been hit with a stick. I was blinded. I lay there for a moment, feeling for blood. I decided to crawl through the corn, towards where I thought our troops were, as I wanted to avoid any German troops who may have been advancing. I heard the sounds of war around me and I crawled and crawled, until a feeling overcame me where I decided to abandon life and stood up and started to walk. I was happy that all the pain and the dreadful events I had witnessed would come to an end.
"A voice shouted at me, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I was dragged into a half track where there were other wounded. We were taken to a forward casualty station. The doctor told me I had burns across my eyes, as he tied a bandage around my head. The battle went on all night ...
"The padre came in the morning and told me he was going to lead me out. I put my hands on his shoulders and he led me to an ambulance. As we walked, I remember infantrymen marching in the opposite direction and I remember the sound of their kit banging on their bodies. I felt sorry for them walking into this inferno which I had just left.”
Hyams was evacuated from France and spent four weeks at a special unit treating eye injuries in Glasgow. His eyesight returned naturally. He rejoined his regiment just outside Caen, “so not a lot of progress had been made from the D-day beaches”. He is 94 and lives in Chigwell, Essex.
Jacques Lazare Julius was Jewish and had spent much of the war hiding from the authorities. In 1943, he joined the French resistance group, Dupleix SR, which was based in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, just outside Lyon. Then 22, he remembered what he did on 6 June, though he had no idea at the time, because of the tight security, that this was D-day.
Jacques Lazare Julius (second row, far right, standing holding rifle) with the French resistance during the liberation of Lyons, taken in July 1944.
“One day we were ordered to cause as much disruption as possible to communications. We had to cut telephone lines, destroy bridges, railway tunnels and railway lines as well as block roads by blowing them up. What was unusual about this (on this day) is that we were ordered to do this in broad daylight. Up until then actions of this sort were done at night under the cover of darkness. Later that evening we heard that the Allies landed in Normandy, 6 June 1944.”
Julius moved to London after the war, where he was a tailor for the Royal Household. He died in 2013
Joseph Mommertz, 83, now living in Günzberg, Germany, told us how he heard the news of the Allied landings as a teenager living with six siblings and his mother in their bombed house.
“The all-out war was blistering Aachen into ruins all around us. But the Berlin radio “news” we listened to every evening at eight was busy boosting our patriotic morale.
“One evening, the family around the Volksempfänger (a cheap radio) heard the confirmation after weeks of rumours that British and American enemy soldiers had attacked on the coast of France, but our brave soldiers on the Atlantic wall were driving them back into the sea.
“My mother, seeing our frightened faces, said: ‘No, no, believe me, now the war will be over soon, children. God bless you.’”
Two of his brothers, aged 16 and 17, were in the Luftwaffenhelfer, the corps of teenagers deployed in the flak batteries trying to protect towns and cities from Allied bombing raids. “They were very afraid, going out into the fields being shot at by enemy planes” said Mommertz, who later worked for an American environmental waste company, based in the UK, though he remained in Germany.
For further accounts, go to GuardianWitness