| "I'd never really seen death close up before and this was a real shocker. It was horrible. It was frightening to think this could happen to you". Now retired at the age of seventy eight, Ernest lives at Meir in Stoke on Trent with his wife, Marje and daughter Lynn. As well as looking after his pet dog Dougie and cat Obie, Ernest likes to paint and sketch. I think the younger generation should be told that it's not all medals and pats on the back "job well done chap". It is frightening and dirty and men doing things to each other in the name of God and Country... no animal would ever do this to one another".
On the 4th June 1944, I sailed from Grays in Essex with about two hundred other Gordon Highlanders. We were sailing to France to fight 'Jerry'. I was just eighteen and to me this was a great adventure. A friend and I stood by the rail and watched as a red bus rolled along the coast road. My chum said "Shan't be seeing that again". I thought, 'Strange?'. A week later he was killed outside Ranville. We made two attempts to land on Juro beach. The seas were so rough. We had to try to get ashore however we could and a few lads didn't make it at all. As soon as we got onto the beach we were thrust right into a kind of 'organized chaos'. Germans in various stages of death, some without Jack Boots or socks. Some say the French took them. There was a pall of smoke and the smell of burning everywhere. Under it all was the mess, the bodies maimed and wounded, ours and theirs bring hefted aboard all the small and not so small craft and taken towards the hospitals in Blighty. I began to think: Ernie, old lad, this isn't quite what you thought it was going to be like. I'd never really seen death close up before and this was a real shocker. It was horrible. It was frightening to think this could happen to you. At dusk we made our way to a small wood to sleep. We'd be given further orders the next day. I fell asleep to the sound of distant gunfire. And so ended my own little bit of D-day. I'd seen more in one day than I'd seen in all my life. I fell asleep wondering what the hell I had let myself in for. King and Country? I don't think so. | 
