HORACE TRIM MY TIME IN NORMANDY 1944 AND THE GOOD PEOPLE OF CHEUX

HORACE TRIM

MY TIME IN NORMANDY 1944
AND THE GOOD PEOPLE OF CHEUX

AS TOLD TO JOHN TENNANT

HORACE TRIM

I first met Horace in 2004 when I was writing a feature for The Polden Post on the 60th anniversary of D Day and the Battle for Normandy. I was introduced to Horace through the Royal British Legion of which he had been a stalwart member.
Horace by then was 91 years of age and living in Burnham-on Sea. Sadly shortly before we met Eve,his wife of 70 years, had passed away. Since I completed my feature Horace and I have kept in touch and he has asked that I commit to paper his memories of his time in Normandy, something which I am honoured to do.
Horace was Shoemaker and Equipment Repairer for the Battalion in the Worcestershire Regiment which was part of the 43rd Wessex Division (The Fighting Wessex Wyverns) which also included The Somerset Light Infantry, hence the local interest. Although not present on D Day itself the 43rd Div played a crucial and proud part in the ensuing Battle to retake Normandy from the German invaders. This is Horace's story in his own words.

"On the 1st June 1944 we were at Heathfield in the grounds of a large estate doing manoeuvres for no apparent reason. Walk, with full kit, dig a trench and sleep through the night only to return the next day to Heathfield.

I was transferred from HQ to C Company with Ken our cook. We left the van nice and tidy and we thought that we were away to France. We dug trenches about 5 miles away, returned the next day. We did that twice.
The third time we did not. The next day we had orders to go with full kit as
before and we never took the trouble to tidy up. Brushes left up in the bushes etc and we never returned but marched all the way to Newhaven (15 miles).

Straight to the docks and on to a large bottom boat or raft. We had never seen anything like that before. It was rocking as we all stood up and then
they said get off as it was too rough to cast off.

We were marched back; I think it was to Glinburgh and there were
pitches just like football grounds and we had to stay put. 2 Doodle Bugs came over and it was the first time we had seen one. You could just see the flame it made. They sounded like a 500cc Triumph side valve.
.
We were marched back to the docks and on to The Canterbury (a Dover to Calais boat) which had been armed as a transport. We crawled round the coast to Gosport near the dock forts. Boats everywhere. As we sailed we were covered by barrage balloons to keep the enemy aircraft away.

JUNE18
We waded onto the sands of Normandy on Sword Beach very close to Juno Beach. On the beach we were being shelled and I dived down and I hit my chest causing a nasty pain. Later an Xray showed that I had a broken collarbone. Just off the beach I took my Mae West off and Ted, a Brummie pal of mine, said you have to keep this on until you find a heap of them so that they could be used again. He said in Brummie slang Cow-um and threw his down.

I could see the Red Cross through the Bocage; they put a huge plaster across my chest, I was told to breathe in. It was at least 6 ins wide and across to under my armpits. I found I could breathe without pain.

That night we had a terrible storm. The next day we were moving forward.
There was a terrible storm and the steam was rising from our jackets.
We took over from the Seaforth Highlanders and I said to one marching by the side of a carrier “What`s it like up there.” With his bagpipes under his arm I took him to be someone special. He couldn't even speak and the look on his face I shall never forget, DEAD BODIES laid out in line. Ahead was a little clump of trees and Harry said make for them. There were two dead Jerries in two trenches. I pulled one out and got in, the smell was terrible. I could see a pile of earth so I crawled to it and it was a deep trench and empty except for water in the bottom.

Later in the afternoon 2 Jerries walked towards us with hands up and at the same time a tank pulled up by my side and under a small tree. I was surprised as it was a Canadian Sherman tank and not an 11th Armoured Div; the best armoured division of Great Britain. The turret lifted up and out jumped a Canadian. He searched the jerry and he could see we had the other one covered, he calmly took a fag out of his pocket and lit up before we beckoned the other prisoner on. He really enjoyed that smoke.

4 Officers and 10 men were killed and 14 wounded, our first action, by that little clump of trees. We were close to the end of the main runway of Carpiquet airfield near Mouen sw of Caen.

That first night at Cheux the password was “Lark”. I heard someone move and I asked for the password only to be told “It`s Leo”. I cannot repeat what I called him!

We had orders to move aside as the airport was being bombed that night and if they overshot their load we might be killed.. We moved aside about 1/4 mile and I just walked out of a cornfield in a cowbean field and I heard a hiss pass my right ear and then crawled on. Bullets I thought so I moved back in the cornfield. 300 bombers, so they say, came over and the pathfinders lit up the sky before the bombing.

We moved back to that little clump of trees and had orders to get through Cheux. We could see our shells drop on the village and at that time we thought good. We got through Cheux and the Church's pointed tower was still intact, but the rest looked terrible. I saw a dead horse and water everywhere. We lined up outside Cheux and were told that Jerry was behind the railway line. We were given a pill and had our faces blacked. I was hit in the face by a bayonet by one of my own side.

Before our barrage started up a tank pulled up by our side, a Canadian Sherman. When our 200 guns opened up the tank fired at the same time. It shook the ground and lifted my body up.

We had a three creeping barrage attack as we moved to forward to take Mouen. One Jerry dropped down out of a cider tree and there he stayed.
We were still being shelled and mortared and I dived into a banked hedge and finished up with a mouthful of primrose. An Officer I had not seen before rounded 7 of us up and took us to a position in a little orchard by the church.

As I entered the orchard I saw a wrecked Jerry staff car by the first tree. We had just entered the orchard and he said dig in as Caen had not been taken. As he spoke we could hear a very heavy shell coming. I dived into a shell hole close by and Harry Harrison dived in on top of me and the butt of his rifle hit my back. We were very lucky. A Jerry Opel staff car had been completely wrecked by earlier shelling and that large shell hole saved both of us.

The officer, a Canadian, was nowhere to be seen, blasted away by a direct hit. Boozy was killed and Leo died in my arms as I went to lift him up. Bill was killed by a bullet, Ken Jordan by overhead shrapnel. Of the eight who went into the orchard only two of us came out, the 2 H's.

An ambulance soon arrived by the orchard gate and I went over to tell them. They were just picking up the wounded. One ambulance man said the house was the Mayor`s House and it was empty. The ambulance moved off and I thought I would have a look in. There was a dead DCLI in the hall under many Jerry coats. The house was very untidy, Jerry boots and clothes everywhere. They had left in a hurry. There were steps from the hall leading to a very large cellar. It was
full of bottles. I took two Calvados bottles over to the orchard and there we sampled them. It burnt your mouth. So I went down to the next house, it was a crofters and he had a huge barrel of wine in one of his barns. He had a ladder to climb and he took up a large metal jug and filled it for me. It was a good mix with Calvados; one third Calvados to two thirds wine. 1t was later called "that special brew". Our new Canadian officer came to sample it. I emptied my water bottle and filled it and took it to Hill 112.

We had stayed in that orchard 5 nights and one night when I was on guard I woke Harry up and said Jerry was at the bottom of the orchard. It was a lovely moonlit night. He passed the message on to Ken and Jordan. Nothing happened. Next morning I noticed a black and white cow had wandered into the orchard and as it passed the farm, which was painted with white cement, it looked to me as Jerries! We both had a good laugh.

A Pioneer brought 3 crosses and asked Harry and myself to bury the dead as they were so busy because of an attack by 3 Stukkas which howled down killing many men. With tears in our eyes we carried them out to the bottom of the orchard and buried them one foot deep with earth on top to make a mound.

Snowy Parker, Ken's pal, came as we were burying them. I asked how a certain colour sergeant was taking it. Snowy said he had dug a trench so deep he could only see the tip of the shovel, and this was the colour sergeant who wanted to take a biscuit tin in the cook's truck with straw to make a commode

The next day, through the Bocage to the Oden, the river of blood, dammed by piles of men and animals. Some of us waded across up to our waist. Either them or us had made a bridge across with huge pipes about 20 ft wide draped with matting. There were many dead lying there. I was surprised to see a lovely building in the distance; it was the Chateau de Fontaine. As we were moving towards the Chateau there were dead Jerries, one an officer, a pair of field glasses lay near by. I picked them up and looked ahead and I could see Jerries getting up out of the corn and moving behind a banked hedge. They looked just like BRYANT AND MAY'S safety matches.

Another officer I had not seen before took us around the Chateau and there were plenty of Wilts dead everywhere. He said we are to not stopping here, so we got back behind the Chateau and waited for further orders. They came and it was that we had to advance as close to that hedge as possible. Tracer bullets would be fired along the hedge for 20 minutes. While we were waiting for the tracer bullets to open up I saw smoke coming from a hedge close to the Chateau. A Jerry appeared and started to run away with his hands up. He was running away to his own men. He never ran very far. I thought of the hayrick at Mouen in the garden. I was looking for a spade that helped us to dig a deep trench underneath that Opel staff car. That spade saved us. I saw a hayrick that looked queer. Jerry had cut it out to nest a machine gun. We could hear the drone of a heavy machine gun by the Chateau and it tumbled to me that, that Jerry had killed most of these Wilts and his firing had set the hayrick on fire.

When the tracer bullets opened at the hedge Harry and myself moved up to about 50 yards and tried to dig in but the ground was so hard. A Jerry armoured car moved up to our left. I fired and the tank stayed put. It was hit by our mortars and the officer was killed.

The shelling and mortaring was heavy and late afternoon I was hit on my right ear. Harry bandaged me up and I made my way down through the corn to the Chateau where there was a Red Cross post. Eric thought I was falling down because of mortar fire but I was passing out with pain through my jaw. I was taken to an underground dressing station cleaned and taken away under sedation to a small hut straw and laid down. I became aware that my false teeth had been blown out on HILL 112. I was then taken to a huge marquee; bales of straw everywhere. I think I was the first one to be put there.

An ATS girl brought a steaming bucket of water. I asked what it was for; she said to have a bath ! Oh No !. I just laid down to sleep. They put me in an ambulance with a Jerry and one of ours. We were taken to an Anson transport plane and landed at Bognor Regis. King George used to say Bugger Bognor but I thought it was lovely. I had left Normandy just in my shirt sleeves. My mouth wide open with the ring of the hand grenade lodged in my mouth.

Then on to Chichester Cathedral where an operating theatre had been set up for head cases. I must have looked dreadful my mouth was wide open as the part of the hand grenade had lodged in my jaw and I couldn't close my mouth. The surgeon gave me a tot of brandy when I came through. He said I was very lucky as it was part of the ring of the hand grenade that had gone through my right ear.

Chichester was the first time I had my boots off since leaving England 25 days before and the nurses took them off.
Wounded in Normandy on the 13th, back in England on the 14th. I thought what lovely service. I was still A1 pending specialist when I was demobbed despite a broken collar bone, damaged spine, friendly bayonet wound and the grenade wound through my ear!!

I can still picture those children cheering on the beaches as we marched in full kit to Newhaven. We emptied our pockets; we gave and threw pennies, sixpences, bobs and two and sixes as they cheered with tears on our cheeks. Also the peewits sharing a ditch in the Bocage, the chirping of the young peewits as they hopped towards me before that terrible storm.

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