France

D-Day Part 2

Fortunately, just as it was getting dark an enormous ocean going tug appeared on the horizon from...

Dunkerque: A Brief Encounter

In the lead up to June 1940 we were informed that the German Panzer Division had penetrated the Maginot...

St. Nazaire - Operation Chariot - The Doctor's Perspective - Part 1

If the great dock at St. Nazaire could be knocked out then the great ship would have to return to Germany...

Escape from a German Firing Squad

Jean-Pierre Nogaret and Pierre Broullet were two school friends from the village of Badaroux, who also...

Captured While Defending Dunkirk - Wally's Story

The march As they were marched through Lille in Belgium, a cockney female voice called out to Wally from...

The life of a Gunner

Orderly NCO for today....

The First and the Last: 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards

27, was crewed by Reg Cox, Wilco Willets Trooper Stokes was the gunner, and the hull gunner was Trooper...

Richard Bradley, Escape from Stalag VIIIB, Part 2 - Prisoner of War

On Easter Saturday we were taken to Rennes by hospital train and landed in a French prisoner of war camp....

‘5186379 - My Story’

From Bristol we went to Ludlow Shropshire, then out to France where I joined the fighting unit of the 5th...

An Argyll's send off to France,June 1944

My father, Graham Douglas of Gateshead,was in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. We have a new chap...

The Battle to Liberate Putot en Auge and the Sacrifice made by Thomas Henry Crutchley

The 13th battalion commanders received orders on the 18th to prepare for a night march and attack on the...

1944-1946. A Conscript's Story Continued

Caen was really bad and after that the Falaise Gap was really choked with knocked out German armour, dead...

Fire Orders Chapter 14a

Worcesters, at the time, and were with their forward platoon at their farm H.Q. After studying his map...

"How long shall we remember?"

The Service of Remembrance took part at the Normandy Veterans Commemorative Plaque in St Nicholas Church...

Bomber Command

I helped prepare the Bomb Store for the Dam Buster bombs, but with the new squadron becoming operational 49...

Kings Own Scottish Borderers in Operation 'Heather'

Eventually I was in a distance in front and I lifted my head from below a low fir branch and looked into...

An Experience to Remember

Following the rout of the German army at the Falaise Gap, where the fleeing columns were mercilessly...

Memories of a Very Brave French Resistance Fighter

France at this time was being over run by the German army and both French and British forces were trying...

Facing Three Dorniers, 13 May 1940

The Germans were a step ahead of us as they had sent a specialised unit called the 'Condor' group...

Eight Years in the RAFVR - Part Nine - France 1944

I replied that I had been stationed at Vassincourt in 1939 and wanted to know if Mme Jean was still alive...

Dunkirk - A Soldier's Actual Account: 65th Field Regiment R.A.

All this is happening where for four years men of Germany, England, France and Belgium, besides the British...

The Task of the 51st Highland Division

The brickworks changed hands several times but ended up in enemy hands. On the afternoon of the 11th we had...

From the Lancaster Bombers to the French Resistance

We were told to 'get crewed up' which meant to put a crew together, there were seven to a crew and...

Coal Boat from St Nazaire

Two Royal Navy destroyers arrived to pick us up and take us out to the coal boats — we stood at the...

I was in the German Army and captured by the English!

A GERMAN'S POINT OF VIEW My name is Otto Damm, I was born in Steinweiler, near Karlsruhe on the Rhine....

War Memories: Royal Engineer in North Africa and Europe

We had a victory parade in Tripoli marching down the main street behind bands of bagpipes, but after that...