D Day and beyond

Charles Stephenson, DoB 25/11/1919 Corporal and Medic in the Royal Ulster Rifles

After landing on D Day, we advanced to the village of Cambes, we gathered at the top of a cornfield leading down perhaps four hundred yards to woods on the edge of the village.

B Company, about a hundred men, were sent to attack German positions in the wood, but they were cut down and retreated to the ridge of the slope. We waited about thirty six hours until the next asssault, this time with a full batallion.

During the attack one of our Bren Gun carriers was hit with a 75mm shell, a bren gun carrier was like a small tank and usually had a crew of four. The carrier was ripped apart, Corporal Boyd hanging out of the turrert with the driver, Private Hilde, blown clear.

I called a stretcher bearer and we ran out to attend the wounded, first going to Boyd, he was still alive but one leg was was trapped in the carrier, it was completely crushed and only hanging on by sinews and flesh, I cut through the leg with a pair of scissors. I appled a tourniquet and went to treat Hilde. All the time time we were being peppered with machine gun fire, how we didn’t get hit , I don’t know. Hilde was in agony with terrible injuries to both his left arm and right leg.
“Shoot me, I can’t take it“ he was screaming.
I told him to stop moaning, and that I’d patch him up up and have him back in no time.
A Canadian tank came by and we loaded them up and got them back to RAP (Regimental Aid Post).

About four years later I was at a reuniuon at the Duke of York Barracks in Chelsea. Hilde was standing at the bar, minus leg, but never the less enjoying a beer.

After eventually taking Caen we moved on and reached Troan. Again meeting stiff resistance, we dug in.

It started raining and didn’t stop for three days, but at least the shelling stopped, it gave me a chance to read the Lillliput, a magazine we used to get. Private Woolf and I were in a two man trench, about six feet long, three feet deep, two feet wide, the Germans were already dug in, facing us, about fifty yards away.

I can’t for the life of me think why Woolf was there, he was an Irishman from Dublin and had volunteered for service, he was married with seven children and at 38 too old for front line duty, most of us were in our mid twenties or younger.

Woolf seemed a bit edgy that day, the battle at Cambes Wood had shaken him up badly, he had given up smoking years ago and used to give away his rations, but out of the blue asked me for a cigarette.
“Do you think it will always be like this Steve?” Woolf asked
“ No we’ll push on and win, it’ll be over in a few months” I said and went back to reading my Lilliput magazine.

I was sitting at the right of the trench, the end I had dug, Woolf to the left. The trench had been steadily filling up with water making things even more uncomfortable. Gradually the rain started easing and the shelling started again, a call went up for wounded and I went back to RAP to help. I had been gone about thirty minutes and on my return found Woolf sitting at my end of the trench which was dry.
“Don’t worry Steve I’ve dug a soak away to drain the water away, I’ve put a ration box over the sump hole you can sit on that, it’s dry”
Having now swopped ends we sat tight praying that the shelling would stop.

Then darkness, my arms pinned to my side, a mortar had landed directly in our trench. I had the presence of mind not to struggle as a pocket of air had formed over the lip of my helmet, I didn’t want to disturb the earth. I had enough air left for a few minutes.

Very soon I heard voices and sticks were being poked in the earth, one of which hit my helmet, “Corporal Stephenson and Woolf are here” I heard.
As they were digging me out I could feel pain in my right leg, Woolf was lying across me, they lifted him from on top of me, I could see he was dead, he must have taken the full force of the blast, being in my end of the trench.

I was stretchered back to RAP, my right tibia smashed. Eventually I was taken back to the coast and boarded a hospital ship back to England.

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