Remembering D-day: Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes

‘We’ve got a fairly big job on. Something comparable to the city of Birmingham hasn’t merely got to be shifted; it’s got to be kept moving when it’s on the other side . . .’

Trucks, jeeps, transports and staff cars caused a vast traffic snarl-up in the days before D-Day. In Andover, Hampshire, office workers were given 15 minutes extra at lunchtime to cross the street.

Pilot Officer

R. H. ‘Chad’ Chadwick

RAF Lancaster navigator.

‘The crew was fairly typical of those in Bomber Command. Although we were in a Royal Australian Air Force squadron, the pilot was the only Australian in the crew. I was the only officer. Mick was a flight sergeant and the remainder were all sergeants. This made no difference. We seven were firm friends with tremendous mutual trust and respect and rank or position had no part in our approach to the job. This was highly desirable, of course, in the making of an efficient bomber crew. As an officer, I felt lucky to have one or two privileges that the others did not get and to make up for this I tried to do a few extra chores around the aircraft, before or after a trip.

‘We all felt ourselves lucky to be on this particular squadron as we found that Australians were a wonderful race with whom to go to war. They had little time for anyone who pulled rank or position, and basic discipline was good, but it was a discipline coming from natural leaders with a team keen to get on with the job. As RAF chaps found, an Aussie could call a man “a Pommy bastard” and make it sound an absolute term of endearment! On the other hand, any officer who started to put on airs and graces – very few did – merited the derogatory description “He’s gone Pommy”.’

Mike Henry DFC

Boston air gunner, 107 Squadron.

‘When we lived under canvas at Hartford Bridge Stan Adams [the navigator] and I shared a tent. The tent site, with a large marquee for our messing, was a long walk across many muddy fields from the main camp. It was good fun in a novel kind of way but it had its drawbacks. For one thing I ruined one of my best suitcases which had soaked up the moisture through the coconut matting on the grass floor of our tent. However, it wasn’t for long and there was a good reason for preparing us in the event of a dire lack of accommodation when we moved across the Channel. As it happened we never saw a tent when moving to France.

Australian and RAF crews of 192 Squadron, 100 Group in front of Halifax BIII Matthews & Co. Express Delivery Service at Foulsham, Norfolk. Flt Lt Matthews RAAF, 4th from left. W/C David Donaldson CO, is to his left. S/L John Crotch, is 3rd from right. On D-Day, when 100 Group aircraft jammed enemy radars and made spoof attacks on the French coast, 192 Squadron maintained a constant patrol between Cap Griz-Nez and the Cherbourg area to see if the enemy was using the centimetric band for radar, all the known enemy radars being effectively jammed.

John Crotch

‘Apart from the three Boston squadrons at Hartford Bridge, we had two Dutch squadrons using the airfield for a short time – 322 with Spitfires and 320 with Mitchells. Their crews were dressed in the uniform of the Royal Netherlands Navy. When we found out how much they were paid, we gasped. Apart from their set pay scale, which was higher than ours, they received extra money for every flying hour. We didn’t see a lot of the Dutch chaps for they messed elsewhere, but we often saw in our mess Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Bernhard.’

‘Phoenix Afloat’.

U.S Navy Combat Art Collection

Countdown

June 1943

Americans are now living in 100,000 buildings in 1,100 locations in Britain. In December, 30,000 further acres of South Devon are taken over and 3,000 residents evicted from 750 properties. Landings are rehearsed in Devon’s Bideford Bay, chosen for its similarity to the Normandy coast.

August 1943

During Churchill’s voyage aboard the Queen Mary en route to Quebec for the summit with Roosevelt, professor John Desmond Bernal, a scientific adviser, uses a loofah as a wave machine and 20 paper boats as the D-Day fleet. With the PM and aides looking on he proves success would depend on vast floating harbours, Mulberrys – represented by a Mae West life preserver.

November 1943

Thirty directives for Overlord issued.

6 December 1943

General Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed to command landings in France.

1 January 1944

General Montgomery relinquishes command of 8th Army in Italy and flies to England to set up his invasion HQ at his old school, St Paul’s, Hammersmith. Montgomery will remain in command of ground forces until September 1944 when General Eisenhower will assume direct control. For the purposes of Overlord, RAF Bomber Command and the 8th US Air Force are placed under the operational direction of the Supreme Commander to add to the aircraft of the Allied Tactical Air Forces.

2nd TAF’s 11 squadrons of Bostons, Venturas and Mitchells in 2 Group moved to Hampshire to be nearer the enemy coast and newer types of aircraft like the de Havilland Mosquito FBVI fighter-bomber and Mustang fighter arrived. Mosquitoes of 140 Wing (21, 487 RNZAF and 464 RAAF Squadrons) specialized in pinpoint bombing of key targets in France in the run up to D-Day. During March–April to simulate the type of tactical targets against which 2 Group would be employed, Boston, Mitchell and Mosquito crews took part in two-week training exercises in full field conditions.

Major General Francis de Guingand

Chief of staff, 21st Army Group, shortly before D–Day, in a conversation with General Montgomery.

‘I’d feel a lot happier if the Australian 9th Division was going ashore with us.’

The Australian government had withdrawn the last of its divisions, the 9th, from the Mediterranean early in 1943 in order to reinforce their armies in the Pacific.

Jan Caesar, 15

an English schoolgirl.

‘We lived in a rented house in Derby Road, Southampton, a very neighbourly area. I was one of five sisters who had moved back to Southampton from Bournemouth with our mother after being evacuated in 1939. US convoys were parked all along the streets, waiting for the “off”. One was composed of black men – they didn’t mix races. My 14-year-old sister and I were besotted with one of them. He was charming. But after a couple of days they moved on. They were replaced by a convoy of white soldiers who included Julius Kupke, a German who had become a naturalized American and hated what the Germans were doing. He was short and squat – no oil painting, but my, could he sing. Whenever I hear “Rose Marie” my mind goes back to D-Day.

‘My mother took pity on the men who were desperately tired and had been forced to sleep in their lorries. She invited several into our home where they crashed out on beds and chairs. My mother didn’t have much to offer because of rationing but she made gallons of tea and cut up piles of bread for cucumber sandwiches, which they thought so English. In return, they gave us their rations. They made our eyes pop out – tins of meat, fruit, sweets and chocolate.

‘When the convoy moved off we said fare-well with promises to write. My mother was upset, knowing where they were heading. Julius returned early the following morning to say thank you again with another parcel of goodies. They had been held up at the docks, waiting for a boat. My mother kept her promise and wrote to him and his fiancée in America for quite a while but we lost touch when we moved around after my father was de-mobbed.’

Bill Goodwin

Bricklayer on the maintenance staff sealed into the US Camps D2 and D4 in Dorset two weeks before D – Day.

‘I queued with the Americans for breakfasts, which included a pint of tomato or fruit juice, a large plate of sweet pancakes with eggs and bacon and a pint of coffee with sugar and carnation milk. We also had the US’ Women’s Voluntary Service calling at the camp. They’d walk around with trays loaded with free cigarettes, glucose tablets, chewing gum, and ring doughnuts, chewing and pipe tobacco. In the Big Tent there were also live shows with US artistes.’

Private Ken McFarlane

Anti-Tank Platoon, 1st Battalion Dorset Regiment, 50th Northumbrian Division.

‘After a few weeks on Bren Gun Carrier driving at Bowness on Windermere, mechanics at Fords of Dagenham and range firing at Harlech in Wales, I finally arrived at a wooded camp just outside Fawley, Southampton, posted to 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment. Time was spent studying maps and a sand tray model of our next exercise, Overlord. We were issued with waterproofing kit (side extensions, gunge for dill and brakes, breathers, etc.). During the week American MPs were posted outside the camp to prevent us from leaving but vehicles and drivers were sent on to the road outside to line up on painted white squares. We outsiders had heard that the lads inside had been paid 200 francs apiece, so thought the next manoeuvre must be the real thing.’

US LSTs 499, 284 and 380 of ‘Force U’ at Brixham, Devon being loaded for the voyage to Utah Beach.

National Archives

Frank Scott

Because it was thought the retreating Germans would destroy large quantities of French currency, French francs were printed in America. Of these, 2,899,500,000 francs were allotted to the 21st Army Group. On 21 June the Base Cashier landed in France with five and a half tins of notes which were held in the specially reinforced cellars of the Chateau de Courseulles. The sterling equivalent of £21.7 million was sent to France.

Countdown

17 January 1944

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force established in London.

21 January 1944