Waiting in Anticipation
There’s nothing worse than having your flight cancelled at the last minute. The anticipation, all the preparation, waiting and then nothing - what an anti-climax. Two nights later my mates and I took off heading for the time of our lives – literally. The moonlight spread a peculiar luminosity over the clouds below and after about an hour we began to lose height, the drone of the engines faded along with our boisterous singing and joking. Descending in a dark eerie silence, we linked arms, locked fingers in a “butchers grip” and intuitively lifted our feet as we brushed over the canopy of some poplar trees – no one said a word.
The pilot held 28 lives in his hands. Crash! We hit the ground hard, screeching across the hard earth like a fingernail across a blackboard. We rattled, skewed, and skidded in a shower of sparks before coming to rest.
No time for congratulations, we could be attacked at any moment. I kicked my way through the plywood walls of the Horsa glider – it was that flimsy. We scrambled out of the splintered wreck unscathed apart from the pilot who hit his head on the controls. Luckily, he soon recovered.
The first thing glider troops must do after landing is run for cover away from the landing zone – never stay in the open. In pitch dark I ran towards some trees.
“Where are you going Private _______?” Major asked in a low voice.
“I’m not sure sir,” I replied.
“Follow me.”
Two more gliders landed safely close by and Major ____ _______ of the Ox and Bucks 6th Airborne Division quietly and calmly assembled D company (90 men) in preparation for our surprise attack. Eyes, teeth and bare metal glinted in the dim light.
We ran silently and breathlessly towards the target. A lone sentry looked down from the bridge, spotted us, shouted something in German, and fired a warning flare. We cut him down with our Sten-guns. I was sweating and my hands were trembling. At the age of twenty it was the first time I had ever fired at a living thing. It was 0:15 on 6th June 1944, we were in Normandy.
Rushing up to the pillboxes we deftly deposited high- explosive grenades through the slits - just like posting letters.
This woke the Germans up and we came under heavy fire from the surrounding area. Major _____ was hit, a bullet penetrated his helmet, skittered across the top of his scalp, and came out the back. He was dazed but not badly hurt.
We had trained for this moment: the topographical people back in England found the ideal spot just outside Exeter where a river and a canal ran closely together, crossed by bridges. For six days and nights we attacked those bridges practicing in every conceivable condition. Should only one of our six gliders each carrying a platoon, make it to the objective that platoon knew exactly what to do to complete the mission.
Our pilots practiced 43 times in total, day and night in all weathers. By May they could fly by moonlight, cast off at 6,000 feet and glide for 8 miles to the target. They were ready.
Our job was to capture and secure the bridges over the river Orne and the Caen canal so that the Germans could not bring up tanks and infantry from Caen to push back the Allied landings. We had to keep the bridges intact so that our forces could break out from the beach area and push south to take the city of Caen.
Our coup-de-main (an attack that relies on speed and surprise to accomplish its objectives in a single blow) was over in the time it took to smoke a leisurely cigarette. We successfully captured both bridges.
By dawn we were barely holding on. The German garrison came to life and put us under heavy rifle, rocket and mortar fire, making movement over the bridge difficult to impossible.
We kept the bridges intact despite heavy fire and were mightily relieved when the Green Berets arrived at 0:30 – they’d thrown their helmets away.
An ominous rumbling could be heard on the other side of the canal bridge. We took cover, primed our weapons, and watched a brave commando gingerly cross the bridge carrying his PIAT (Protector Infantry Anti-Tank). He edged passed the Gondree Café, crawled beside a hedge on his stomach and positioned his rocket launcher while we waited in anticipation. Rumbling intensified, the silhouette of a tracked vehicle appeared out of the darkness moving in our direction. Bang! He hit it head on, a massive explosion lit up the night sky. The other German tanks fled.
Early in the morning a woman dressed in black carrying a basket walked between us and the Germans. Both sides stopped firing. She gathered her eggs, strolled off and firing resumed.
We held the bridges all night and most of the day while under heavy fire from the 21st Panzer division. A terrific barrage began, you could feel the whole ground shaking towards the coast. We had never been under naval fire before; damn great shells were sailing over our heads - we ducked instinctively. Incredibly, the distant sound of bagpipes could be heard above the noise - more commandos were on their way.
After a while it went relatively quiet so a few of us wandered across the bridge to the George Gondree Café – the first house in France to be liberated.
_______ ushered us down to the cellar where his wife and children were sheltering. His wife _______ hugged and kissed us until her face became black with camouflage paint. We helped _______ dig up 98 bottles of champagne he had buried in 1940…
I found it hard to leave, we had been there all night and most of the day and we felt this was our bit of territory, but we pressed on to Ranville in the dark and continued the fight for another 91 days.
I am not one for reunions, but I made the crossing to Normandy on June 6th, 2004. The Queen was in attendance along with French president Jacque Chirac and for the first time the German Chancellor was invited.
Among hundreds of veterans, Americans, Canadians, Norwegians and many other nationalities, my wife and I were chaperoned to re-enactments of the original landings, which were scattered all over the Normandy countryside: landing craft on the beaches at Arromanches, field hospitals, and a dummy parachutist hanging from the church steeple at Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Dakotas flew over and hundreds of parachutists filled the sky. Original military vehicles were roaring about all over the place, and I met Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
My wife and I were staying in a hotel in Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer and on June 8th (2004) we decided on an early breakfast. The only other person in the dining room siting by the window overlooking the beach was a young man with a moustache. I said good morning and asked him if he was in the RAF. We struck up a conversation and sat together. He told me that he visited Normandy nearly every year on his motorcycle for the D-Day remembrance, which also happened to be his birthday. He was particularly knowledgeable about the airborne landings. He said he had been to Pegasus Bridge the day before where Prince Charles unveiled a life-size model of a Horsa glider.
I smiled and said: “They are taking me there today; I haven’t been back for 60 years…"
Note: Individual names have been redacted for GDPR purposes.
