Journey to the Beach

The journey starts in Aldershot just after D-Day, with a convoy of the Regiment moving off in sections to the port of embarkation. The journey through Hampshire, Surrey and then the outskirts of London, hte Despatch Riders of which I was one, were to assist the police motor cyclists to keep the convoy moving at a steady speed, this meant that at each road junction the civilian traffic had to be stopped to allow the military convoy to proceed unhindered, this entailed ateach junction, a DR or police motor cyclist would stop the traffric until the from to the convy had passed that junction before mocing off to the next, leapfrogging as we went along. We had the Hampshire Police to the Surrey border, then the Surrey Police to the outskirst of London, then the Metropolitan Police for the remainder. We passed people on our route some waved but I think most knew where we were heading and stood very silent, most stopped what they were doing until the convoy had passed.The route rounf the outskirts of London was on the North Circular Road, Hangar Lane, Stonebridge Park, Neasden, Staples Corner, then on through Tottenham close by "Spurs" football ground and on to Gallows Corner, here the Metropolitan Police would leave the convoy as we awaited the Military Police to lead us to the Assembly Area, here our motor cycles weere loaded in to the backs of 3 tonners, all the vehicels were then driven to the docks for loading.

We were in an Assembly Area and not allowed to leave. Our next move was in open trucks, through the streets to the docks, here people waved and the odd bottle of beer was passed up to the chaps on board. On arriving at the docks we debussed and went aboard the ship that contained our vehicles. We sailed out of the Thames into the English Channel, (on the voyage we sampled tins of self heating soup, a heating element, ignoted by a cigarette did the rest), then down the channel and on to Normandy and "Sword Beach", the vehicles were unloaded onto "Rhinos", a motorised raft which took us to the shore, we drove off up the beach to a harbour area, where my motorbike was unloaded, we were to told to dig slit trenches, but the top soil was only between 1-2 inches, then colid chalk. I spent the night in the back of a 2 tonner, with 200 shells etc. peacefuly. Next morning went to a farm nearby, in the hope of buying some eggs for breakfast, all appeared deserted, except for the chickens, decided that in case there was someone inside with a shot gun, best not to venture further, the only sign of conflict was a steel helmet with a bullet hole in the front with the Canadian Flag paintedon the sied. Later that morning we moved off, but htat is another story...

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