A Safe Entry into France

My unit was 101 Beach Signals, of 3 British Div., and the LCT landed me on Sword Beach right on schedule at 10.30.

Altho' the congestion prevented my transport from leaving the beach in the direction of my assembly area(Hermanville,a mile or so inland) for half-an-hour,it did give time to take in the general scene -seemingly, at the time, one of utter chaos.The immediate area was still subject to sporadic sniper fire emanating from one of the sea-front houses which, while was I was watching, dissolved in a cloud of dust having been struck by a salvo of rockets from a ship some way off shore.

I was to learn later that the real reason for the lack of heavy enemy artillery fire that might have been expected at that time, lay in the fact that the Merville Battery of heavy naval calibre guns - completed only two weeks prior to D-day - had been captured and put out of action. The area of Sword Beach and beyond was visible from those guns, indeed the heavily fortified site had been constructed to cover the beaches and it leaves little imagination to realise the mayhem and loss of life that would have ensued - even the possible failure of the landing in that area - had the threat posed by the battery not been eliminated earlier in the day.

But the capture of the Merville Battery did cost many young lives. This is why I put on record my debt to the paratroopers, average age 21, led by Lt. Col. Terence Otway who made it possible for me, and many others before and after my getting ashore, to survive the landing. Their action created a "window" of relative safety and I have
paid my respects to those who died several times where they rest, in the cemeteries at Ranville and Hermanville.

Later that day the situation changed when the enemy brought within range of the beach mobile field guns. Two signalmen from my unit died in the afternoon while laying telephone lines.

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