Normandy Landings

This is one of the memoirs of my grandfather:

We landed on gold Beach but the forward troops had cleared the beachhead and there was plenty of room; we landed with no problems at all. The most notable thing was all the dead cattle, lying all over the place; a few houses up the front blown to pieces, but it was all the dead cattle I really noticed. We blew our waterproofing off the back around the exhaust and then we pulled up and found a staging place because the military police — always got a bad name but they do a lot of hard work at times and always up the front — were guiding tanks to their staging camps by the colours on them and ours was just outside Bayeux. Not very far outside, very quiet, just a few mortar shells coming over. We waited for the rest of our regiment, division to come ashore before we had orders to move. Again it was different fighting in that part of the country than it was in North Africa. As we moved in towards France we came into a little village called Tillé and one called Jerusalem. It was a job clearing them, so many hedgerows, you just couldn’t see very far, and high banks. The further you got in the worse it got, the enemy could hide anywhere. You couldn’t see where he was or where he was firing from, couldn’t see them. But they did develop a tank which would bulldoze its way through the banks, just destroy them; ordinary tanks just couldn’t get over the top of them. We lost quite a few troops in Tillé and it was decided that they would bring the division around so that we could get through. So they pulled us back and we went through the American lines, to come up through south of Caen. I remember seeing the American soldiers crouched down in the ditches with their rifles pointing forward and watching us as we went by; there were no shots, no shells, nothing happening. The Germans were up the front somewhere but nobody was firing at anybody. There was a ford we went through that afternoon and we laid up that night for fuel. Next morning we had to move on and down the winding roads. Ahead I could see the German scout car, way, way up the front, watching us. We got to Villers Bocage, stopped on the high grounds on the outskirts, looking down on top of the village and there was a chateau to the left. Well I sat outside of the tank in the sunshine and the brigadier came up along the side and the major and the colonel were talking to the brigadier, trying to gather information, whether the Germans were about or not. The information was that there were tanks about but they had run out of petrol. So we decided to go straight through the village. We went down into the village, the French were greeting us, throwing food at us, blocking the road, you couldn’t get through; all over the tanks cheering and waving. No, no Germans about, no tanks, no petrol, we got through the village and up on the high ground, about a mile out. Three parts up the hill and then all hell broke loose. There were flames and explosions galore and the HQ squadron following us were blown to pieces. There was no way out for us so we went up to the high ground on the top and all we could see was hedges and a road away and a farmhouse to the left. We stopped on the high ground for about an hour. There was nothing happening, it was quite peaceful and quiet. A lot of messages flying over the radio, do this and do that. The major and corporal got out and went to liaise with the colonel. After about an hour the Germans counter-attacked; they really threw everything they could at us. We were fighting in 27 ton Cromwells, opposing us were 60 ton Tigers. Now our 75mm guns wouldn’t knock a Tiger out at a hundred yards, but their 80mm could knock us out at about half a mile, no problems. Foot troops came up to try to give us some protection but we couldn’t see who was firing at us anyway — they were all over the place but obviously in tanks. They were going to come up the road but we didn’t stop them, they just came straight through us. Before they got to us the colonel said our position was hopeless, we can’t hold them, everyman for himself, get back if you can. By then my tank commander — Scott — had been killed, a lot of people had been killed, so we got out of the tank and tried to make a run for it in the ditch, but I didn’t get very far — bullets were ripping along over the top of the ditch just by me - I thought I’d had it so we stopped and were captured. I thought they were going to shoot us all but they didn’t. I wasn’t frightened, nor were many others; they were just doing a job of work.

What did Max Hastings, the historian, say that was wrong about the battle?

He described how a German tank commander got to the top of a hill and then went all down the hill, driving down the embankment shooting at all the tanks; but there was nobody down the road — we were on top of the hill. I could look straight down the hill. Tanks down the village were burning but this roadway, trucks and tanks were supposed to have blown up. Well I saw a Frenchwoman pushing a pushchair up there, she had one child in the pushchair and a toddler by her side. I thought ‘I hope someone looks after her or takes them out the way’ and she walked up, but according to their story you just couldn’t get down there, a tank couldn’t get down there, he had to go down sideways and blow them up that way. Absolutely wrong, all poppycock. I saw it, as I say, I was at the top of the hill in my tank. I didn’t have a tank commander because he went to liaise with the commander and got killed. So I was more or less an extra. I looked out the co-pilot and saw this woman coming up, I could see right down the hill. According to them there was one tank commander, he was daring and went down and blew all these tanks and trucks up and changed the whole face of the battle. But the first tank that went down there was about 1 o’clock in the afternoon — I know that because over the radio came the instructions that we were cut off and everyman was to get back if they can. I got out of my tank, into the ditch, scrambled along the ditch, got to make a run for it, and the Tigers came along and he was just firing his machine gun along, all along, the bank. I just ducked down, the bullets were going through the grass just above my head and he stopped on the top of the hill and looked down. That was the first tank to go down there, first Tiger, that was at 1 o’clock. There was nothing to stop him going down at all; he went down the roadway, no problems. Absolutely wrong they were. They say the colonels’ tank was knocked out; the colonel was with us, right up the front. Some fantastic story they got from somewhere, glamorising and dramatising it, making a Hollywood epic out of it. It just didn’t work that way.

I remember you telling me that you went for miles and miles without really seeing any Germans.

Yes, we were told to come out at a little village called Jerusalem. We had a little problem there because there were snipers and they kept picking the tank commanders off. The commanders, damn silly fools, always stuck their heads out the top and they were being picked off. So they asked the Gloucesters to come up to clear the village out. The Gloucesters, they were on bicycles poor souls. They came on their bicycles, put them down on the grass verge outside of the village, they cleared it and the order came to move and the poor old bikes were gone for a burton, run over by the tanks.

They took bicycles over on the landing craft?

Yes, they took all sorts of things. One funny thing that really did happen, we landed on a tank landing ship at Felixstowe. There were 11 tanks on that, a flat fronted thing with just a ramp and on each one was an Irk, which was an RAF bloke and he had a barrage balloon and the idea was that he came over with us and put the balloon on the beach to protect us from the aircraft. Of course we were all packed up so close together and the wind was blowing, most of them got tied up in knots before they started off. That chap did remarkably well, he saved it, got all the way to the Channel, landed with it and an aeroplane came along, zip, zip, zip and down it went, all that for nothing!

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