The Last Heroes E-Book

Gary Bridson-Daley

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 497

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Second World War is famed for being the conflict that changed the face of warfare, and it is the last that changed the face of the world. In addition to remembering those who passed away in those dark days of war, a sincere debt of gratitude is owed to all those now in their twilight years who gave all that they had for King and Country. In this new and revised third edition, with additional material to celebrate the lives of D-Day and Arnhem veterans, Gary Bridson-Daley presents 46 of over 150 interviews he conducted with veterans over recent years, adding to the history books the words and the original poetry of those who fought and supported the war effort to ensure freedom, peace and prosperity for generations to come. From each corner of the British Isles and every armed service, from Dam Buster George 'Johnny' Johnson through to riveter Susan Jones: heroes, all.

Leseprobe

AUT SI QUID EST IN VITA IN AETERNUM RESONAT

WHAT WE DO IN LIFE ECHOES IN ETERNITY

From when I began the ‘Debt of Gratitude’ project, The Last Heroes, in mid 2014, my on-going motivation and mission have remained the same, to write a book and subsequent work from the heart which is:

About veterans

For veterans

To honour veterans

Because to remember is to honour.

Gary Bridson-Daley

To my beautiful mother Sylvia June Bridson, who was very proud of The Last Heroes but who sadly passed before its release.For you Mum.

26 March 1942–27 January 2017

Forever in my Heart

I would like to further dedicate this book to the memory of some wonderful people who touched many lives including mine in a very special, caring and lovely way: Brenda Griffin, Nancy Teacher, Violet Meltzer and Tony Parkinson. Thank you for your friendship and kindness; it will always be remembered.

First published 2017

First published in paperback 2020

This updated third edition first published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Gary Bridson-Daley, 2017, 2020, 2024

The right of Gary Bridson-Daley to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprintedor reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without the permission in writingfrom the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75098 657 1

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Dedications

Foreword by Dame Vera Lynn

Author’s Note

Second World War Timeline

Scale of the Conflict

Diversity of Those Who Served

D-Day: Veterans and Anniversaries

D-Day 80

Arnhem: Veterans and Anniversaries

Arnhem 80

THEATRES OF WAR

1   Army and the War on Land

2   Navy and the War at Sea

3   Air Force and the War in the Air

4   Intelligence and the Secret War

5   Home and the War on the Home Front

Connecting with History

Veterans’ Poetry and Songs

Casualties of War

For Those Who Never Returned

VE Day

Sacrifices Never Forgotten

Hope for a Better Future

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Dedications

This book is dedicated firstly to all veterans, servicemen and servicewomen from the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries from all backgrounds and cultures who served this country in any and every capacity during the Second World War, who when called upon to help in a time of peril and danger answered that call selflessly to be part of the fight against evil in order to preserve our freedom and way of life. It is this conflict and generation that my book is focusing on; this book has been written to represent and thank all veterans of that conflict.

Additionally and very importantly, I also wish to extend this dedication to all the men and women who have ever served this country and those who do so until this present day in order to give us that same freedom, safety and democracy that we and our families and our nation still enjoy. This freedom was bought at a very high price, mentally, physically and emotionally, and it still is. It is for these reasons that I feel remembrance is such a necessary and valuable thing to undertake and something that hopefully the nation will always continue to do.

This book also pays tribute to those who have made vital contributions in civilian life; those from the past through to those who currently perform their duties as part of the essential civilian services, such as the police, fire, medical services, mountain and sea rescue and all others.

To all these men and women, military and civilian, this is truly dedicated to you as a real debt of gratitude which you all deserve.

‘They were a wall unto us both by night and day’ – 1 Samuel 25:17

Forewordby Dame Vera Lynn

I believe it is our shared vision to honour veterans from all the services – Army, Navy, Air Force, Intelligence and Home Front – and keep alive both now and for future generations what these amazing people did for us and our country, and the freedom they gave us through their selfless actions and contributions which we and our families still enjoy to this very day.

‘A Debt of Gratitude’ [The Last Heroes] brings to life the voices of World War Two veterans, from the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Countries, all with their own unique contribution and each heroes in their own way, and not only covers many aspects of the conflict but also includes poignant veterans’ poetry.

This book by Gary Bridson-Daley could well become an integral part of our country’s historical library.

Dame Vera Lynn DBE, LLD, M.Mus

April 2016

Author’s Note

All information given to me by veterans during the interviews and at all stages during the making of this book has been taken on trust and comes mainly from memory on their part and from resources provided by them. It must be remembered that each veteran has supplied personal accounts from their own experiences that are more than seventy years old and therefore should be treated, enjoyed and respected as factual human interest stories that have been gathered in order to capture and preserve those vitally important narratives before they were lost forever. I have, when and where possible, researched Second World War material from many additional resources in order to check and reinforce the accounts within this book.

The different material that was combined to compile the veterans’ profiles came from the following varied and extensive sources: the stories told and information imparted to me directly both face to face and in conversations over the telephone with veterans; additional supplementary information shared by spouses, family and friends of the veteran; and material resources I was allowed to view or take copies or pictures of, such as service records, log books, pay books, identification documents and miscellaneous documents from many sources. The information also comes from the videos made during the interview process, written and audio accounts given to me, and additional notes taken during the interviews plus veterans’ wartime and other photos. On the odd occasion, original quotations from the veterans have been lightly edited for the sake of clarity. Further resources came from helpful veteran- and military-related associations and organisations, Ministry of Defence requests, online research and various materials kindly loaned to me.

Second World War Timeline

Although the Second World War officially began in September 1939 there were many events over a number of years leading up to that point that influenced and were directly and indirectly responsible for it happening from 1931 onwards when Japanese aggression in Manchuria began, and later with the rise and expansion of the fascist regimes of Italy, Germany and Spain and their aggressive expansionist policies. In time all of these combined would lead to the much bigger cataclysmic events of the Second World War, of which the main battles and events are shown here:

1939

1 September

Germany invades Poland, Second World War begins.

3 September

Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

30 November–12 March 1940

USSR and Finland Winter War.

1940

9 April–10 June

Germany invades Denmark and Norway.

10 May–22 June

Germany attacks Western Europe.

10 June

Italy enters the war, invading southern France on 21 June.

10 July–31 Oct

The Battle of Britain.

27 September

Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact creating the ‘Axis Triangle’.

1941

February

The German Afrika Korps arrives in North Africa.

6 April–1 June

Germany and Axis allies invade Yugoslavia Greece and Crete.

22 June

Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union.

7 December

Japan bombs the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

8 December

The United States declares war on Japan, entering the Second World War.

11–13 December

Nazi Germany and its Axis partners declare war on the United States.

December

– Mid 1942

Extensive Japanese offensives throughout S.E Asia and Pacific.

1942

4–8 May

Japanese Navy lose the Battle of the Coral Sea.

30 May

The first 1,000-bomber raid when the RAF bombs Cologne.

May–August

Germans advance in North Africa and in June take Tobruk.

3–7 June

Battle of Midway, another US victory in the Pacific.

June-September

German offensive in Southern Russia reaches Stalingrad on the River Volga.

23 October

–11 November

Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, ‘Turning Point’ in the Desert War.

8 November

Operation Torch. US and British troops land in Algeria and Morocco.

1943

2 February

German 6th Army at Stalingrad surrenders to the Russians.

13 May

All Axis forces in North Africa surrender to the Allies.

5–15 July

Kursk offensive in the Soviet Union and biggest tank battles in history.

10 July–17 August

US and British invasion of Sicily.

3 & 9 September

Allies invade Italy at Calabria and Salerno.

1944

17 January–

18 May

Monte Cassino battles in Italy.

22 January

Allied troops land near Anzio, south of Rome.

6 June

Operation Overlord, D-Day, France, Allied invasion of Western Europe.

22 June

Operation Bagration. Russian offensive destroys German Army Group Centre.

15 August

Operation Dragoon. Allied forces land in southern France.

20 October

US troops land in the Philippines as the strategic Island hopping campaign in the Pacific continues.

16 December

Battle of the Bulge last Significant German offensive, defeated by Jan 1945.

1945

12 January

–Mid April

US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.

7 March

Soviet offensive liberates Warsaw and pushes on into Germany.

16 March

US take the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

16 April

Soviet final offensive, encircling Berlin, heart of the Third Reich.

30 April

Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin.

7 May

Germany surrenders to the Western Allies. The war in Europe is over.

8 May

Victory in Europe (VE Day). Celebrated by countries all over Europe.

22 June

US take Okinawa, last island stop before the Japanese islands.

6 August

The United States drops the first atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima.

9 August

The United States drops the second atomic bomb (Fat Man) on Nagasaki.

14 August

Japan unconditionally surrenders.

2 September

Japan formally surrenders on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending the Second World War.

Credit to the United States Holocaust Museum website for the main text used in the timeline.

Scale of the Conflict

The Second World War was a completely global conflict and the sheer scale of it is truly mindboggling: no corner of the planet was left untouched by it. During the six years that it raged it would encompass almost every type of terrain within its theatres of war, from the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Burma, from the icy steppes of Russia and the skies above Europe to every ocean of the world and deep below them.

It would lead to the mobilisation and inclusion of nearly every country in the world directly or indirectly, and would pull into it hundreds of millions of personnel who served in one way or another in the many and varied roles that their nations needed, both on the battle fronts and the home fronts. They would be locked in a deadly life and death struggle using every means of warfare, from conventional to those of intelligence, sabotage and deception and many other aspects, including the development of new technologies and secret weapons that eventually led to the use of the most destructive of these, the A-bomb.

It was a war that was also fought on another level and dimension, one that had not existed before. It was against evil ideologies that all those engaged against it understood had to be defeated in order to preserve all the rights that good men and good nations believed in and stood for, such as freedom, democracy, liberty and the right to peaceful self-determination. Had Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and their allies won the war, the outcome and alternative, which was already evident in occupied lands, would have been enslavement, oppression, totalitarian rule, tyranny, fear and, for many, death.

The Second World War also differed from other previous conflicts in that civilian deaths were for the first time more than double those of combatants. As a result of starvation, disease, bombing, forced labour, extermination programmes and other causes, more than 50 million civilians lost their lives, compared with approximately 20 million combatants. In comparison, the total number of combined casualties for the First World War was around 20 million. It is also important to remember that behind each one of these statistics there was a real person, a story, a life lost and a family that grieved his or her passing.

The nature of warfare had changed and knew no boundaries. This is reflected in the figures shown below for comparison between the two world wars:

Proportion of dead

Military

Civilian

First World War

95%

5%

Second World War

33%

67%

For most, this really was the ‘Second’ World War in many ways because it was the second conflict that they had seen, fought or been involved in, and sadly in just over twenty years. It brought back painful memories, both mentally and physically, and of those who had survived the First World War, for a variety of reasons, many would not survive the Second.

The anguish experienced and the self-sacrifice and courage that was shown was equal to, and in many cases surpassed, that of wars and conflicts that had gone before it, both for the combatants and for civilians that were embroiled in it. Also, the frightful advances in weapons and tactics and the means of killing on an even bigger industrial scale than had been seen previously all added to the terrible experiences of people on both sides.

A rallying call to the nation from the Minister for Aircraft Production.

Another aspect that further reflects the scale of this conflict was the huge variation in roles and contributions of our servicemen and women to help bring about victory. It is this interesting variation that is reflected within the book alongside the personal recollections of the veterans and it is intended to capture and show as many of these different aspects as possible.

The scale of the conflict is further shown by the chart below that lists most of the countries involved, the sides they were on and their situation. Others not listed here mainly but not solely came under the United Kingdom as its Commonwealth and what were then essentially considered countries and possessions of the British Empire.

Allied and Axis Alliances in the Second World War, plus Occupied and Neutral Countries

Axis

Allied

Occupied

Neutral

Bulgaria

Argentina

Albania

Andorra

Croatia

Australia

Belgium

Ireland

Finland

Bolivia

Czechoslovakia

Liechtenstein

Germany

Brazil

Denmark

Portugal

Hungary

Canada

Estonia

Spain

Italy

China

Ethiopia

Sweden

Japan

Chile

France

Switzerland

Romania

Columbia

Greece

Turkey (until

Costa Rica

Latvia

February 1945)

Cuba

Lithuania

Uruguay

France

Luxembourg

Vatican City

India

The Netherlands

Iraq

Norway

Lebanon

Philippines

Mexico

Poland

New Zealand

Yugoslavia

Paraguay

South Africa

Soviet Union

United Kingdom

United States

Diversity of Those Who Served

A further indication of the size and scope of the Second World War is the number of Commonwealth countries and islands that answered Great Britain’s call for help in her hour of need, and who in most cases volunteered to stand by us. In doing so, many paid the ultimate price for a country they had never even seen. These invaluable contributions should always be recognised and remembered with the same amount of respect and reverence that we give to the memory of our own veterans from the United Kingdom.

The Second World War drew into it all the major countries and world powers of the time along with all their available resources and manpower and also that of their allies. On one side were the Axis nations of Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan, along with a number of countries which at some point aided and supported them such as Finland, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

On the other side were the biggest Allied nations known as the ‘Big Four’, which consisted of the United States of America, the Soviet Union, China and Great Britain along with the countries of her Commonwealth and colonial possessions. These consisted of a staggering array of countries and islands all over the world from what was still considered the British Empire in one form or another such as Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Kenya, Rhodesia, Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gold Coast, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, Mandate Palestine, Singapore, Hong Kong, Aden, Fiji, and many more, again reflecting the true global nature and scale of the conflict. Between them they provided a massive amount of manpower, material resources and very important bases from which the Allied powers operated in many theatres of war.

It should also be remembered that we were joined by the mixed nationalities of many occupied nations who continued the fight in many ways through active and organised resistance in their own countries, and additionally through and with the help of their countrymen who volunteered and served within every branch of our armed forces. These included the Polish, Czechs, Dutch, Danish, Norwegians, Belgians, Greeks, Yugoslavians, French and those from the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and elsewhere.

Within this book these invaluable contributions are also rightly acknowledged and their veterans, some of whom settled in the UK after the war, are honoured alongside our own. This continues to show the diversity of those who served in what truly was a ‘world war’, who came from many different countries, cultures, religious and ethnic backgrounds (as the famous wartime poster shown on the previous page demonstrates), and served, worked, lived and in some cases died alongside British servicemen and women.

They were bonded and united by the absolute understanding of the need to come together to defeat the evil of the Axis countries and all that they stood for; as the stories within this book reflect, they did exactly that!

D-Day: Veterans and Anniversaries

Operation Overlord, 6 June 1944, was the largest amphibious invasion in history, involving landing Allied armies over 150,000 strong on a 50-mile stretch of coastline in Normandy on five beaches with airborne landings in support of them. It was the start of a long and costly campaign to liberate north-west Europe from Nazi occupation. Troops were landed in this gigantic first phase called Operation Neptune, as shown on the map over the page, from west to east on assault beaches with the following code names and formations:

US 1st Army

Utah: US 4th Infantry Division

Omaha: US 29th Infantry Division

US 1st Infantry Division

British 2nd Army

Gold: British 50th Infantry Division

Juno: Canadian 3rd Infantry Division

Sword: British 3rd Infantry Division

D-Day invasion map showing the forces involved and the Normandy beaches on which they landed during the biggest amphibious assault in history.

Among them were other forces from Commonwealth and occupied countries, such as Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, Rhodesia, Poland and France, where the Free French were returning to help liberate their country after four years of brutal German occupation.

The airborne element consisted of US 82nd and US 101st Airborne Division troops being dropped behind Utah Beach to secure the western flank and British 6th Airborne Division troops being dropped behind Sword Beach to secure the eastern flank. In the planning of Overlord the Allied commanders learned very important lessons from previous failures at Dieppe in France and Anzio in Italy. Along with huge deception plans, the established air supremacy and other factors contributed towards success on that critical day and the days that followed, which allowed them to gain a vital foothold in France at the beginning of this campaign. D-Day was the first part of the ‘Normandy Campaign’ which, as mentioned before, began on 6 June and cumulated in the fall of Paris on 25 August 1944. After this Allied liberation forces continued across Western Europe until eventually, by the end of war on the continent and VE Day on 8 May 1945, they were well into Germany itself. At various points, they had linked up with allies from the Soviet Union, who had been fighting fierce battles with immense casualties across half of Russia and into Germany to defeat the Nazis from the east. Importantly, the success of D-Day also ensured that the Western Allies were firmly established on the continent by the end of the Second World War, providing a counter to Soviet-backed communism at the start of the Cold War.

The aims, starting at D-Day and the Allied campaign to liberate Western Europe thereafter, can be summarised in this General Order issued within the US High Command:

‘You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.’

US Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, February 1944

The important stories and historical narratives that follow are from veterans of all the main services and reflect very different perspectives, experiences and/or involvements in D-Day, their varied contributions showing some of the many facets that made that great undertaking such a successful one. Included here is a new interview I conducted with Marie Scott especially for this special eightieth anniversary edition of The Last Heroes, and a new piece of D-Day poetry called ‘D-Day 80’, but of course all the stories within the book’s pages will remain preserved here and forever timeless.

Wren Marie Scott

Served with: Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)

Service number: 91414

Interviewed: Kingston-on-Thames, London, 15 October 2023

Service History and Personal Stories

    Born: 26 June 1926, Waterloo, London, United Kingdom.

    Marie left Battersea Central School aged 14 in 1940, and by 1942, when she was 16, had applied for and got on to a course with the General Post Office (GPO) to train as a switchboard operator. Having been trained, Marie worked throughout 1943 and into early 1944 at a number of GPO exchanges in London, gaining good experience in that role and on the switchboard equipment used by the GPO, which stood her in good stead.

    In March 1944 Marie volunteered for the Royal Navy and joined up at their Mill Hill Recruitment Centre in Barnet, London, and after a two-week probationary assessment and basic training period, was then, due to already being GPO trained, sent directly to her first posting as part of the Royal Naval Women’s Service to Fort Southwick in Portsmouth. Here she worked in their top-secret underground (communications) headquarters (UGHQ), which received its orders and messages from nearby Southwick House, the main Allied Forward Headquarters for the Normandy invasion that housed the top generals and decision makers. It was from here that General Eisenhower triggered the whole invasion with the famous words, ‘OK let’s go!’

    Initially Marie worked on the combined WRNS, WAAF and ATS switchboard team but closer to D-Day was chosen, trained and specially assigned to work on a VHF long-range radio set and given the very important job of relaying scrambled messages to those leading troops on the beaches of Normandy as part of Operation Neptune, the first amphibious landing phase of the bigger Operation Overlord, code names for the Allied assault on Nazi-occupied Europe.

    This she did on D-Day itself and for a few weeks after as Allied armies pushed forward, and later was transferred back onto the main switchboard at Fort Southwick. When King George VI visited the facility Marie was part of the march past by the WRNS on 16 November 1944. By 1945 she had been transferred down to the Stone Frigate HMS Mercury, site of the Royal Navy Signals School near Petersfield in Hampshire, continuing in that role.

    By July 1945, with her skills as a Wren Sw/Op no longer required, Marie was sent to the WRNS Pay Section Office at Skelmorlie House, HMS Largs, in Ayrshire, Scotland, remaining there for a year until July 1946, when she was sent to be demobbed right back to where it all began for her two years and four months earlier: Mill Hill Recruitment Centre in Barnet, London.

I first met Marie Scott at the Bayeux War Cemetery in Normandy, France, on 6 June 2019, during the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when a number of us were having lunch in the VIP tent after attending the memorial services at both Bayeux Cathedral and the cemetery, where dignitaries, political leaders and royalty were present for those very big and important events. Not long after, she was awarded the well-deserved Légion d’honneur. However, due to circumstances, it wasn’t until nearly four and the half years later that I met Marie again, when I finally interviewed her in October 2023 for a very fitting and valuable contribution to the D-Day part of this special edition of The Last Heroes in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day in 2024.

On D-Day, Marie played her own pivotal role in events as the troops hit the landing beaches as part of Operation Overlord. From the secret underground communications nerve centre at Fort Southwick, in the Portsdown Tunnels, embedded within cliffs at Portsmouth, Hampshire, she sent and received secret coded messages to officers leading their men into battle on that historic and fateful day. We now directly find out more about:

The Vital Part Marie Played in the Success of D-Day

Before the war I had already been trained with the GPO as a Switchboard Operator, and so when I went to Royal Navy recruitment and joined in March 1944 they snapped me up because I would be of use in communications, and I became part of the WRNS – the Women’s Royal Naval Service, as a Wren SW/OP or Switchboard Operator, but as a young 17-year-old girl I initially had no idea the place I would end up and the things I would be involved in on D-Day! That place would be at the UGHQ – Underground Headquarters of SHAEF the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force deep below ground at what was known as Fort Southwick in Portsmouth, where as a WREN I would be, most the time, on the switchboard of that centre of communications on the run up to and during the invasion of Western Europe. It was from nearby Southwick House that Eisenhower and Montgomery, also other officers in the High Command would send orders and messages that we had to pass on via the switchboard to people and places elsewhere that were involved in that huge undertaking. Some of us were billeted in a lovely place in Fareham, Surrey called Heathfield House and were driven to and from work every day [like those working at Bletchley Park and other secret establishments were during the war].

Switchboard Operators at work in London during the war, doing the same job on similar equipment that Marie did most the time whilst at Southwick House. The servicewomen in this particular picture are Canadian.

It was from that deep subterranean system of tunnels approximately 100ft (30m) and 350 steps below the surface that this extremely complex nerve centre operated twenty-four hours a day, and where Marie and many other WRENS worked around the clock to maintain the vital comms required to help make the invasion a success. She now tells us more from her unique perspective:

On the big day itself I was already assigned to a different piece of equipment and I was operating a VHF radio sending coded secret messages to the troops as they were landing on the beaches, via their Signals radio operators to what I think were officers commanding different formations, and passing on the coded messages I received from them which could have possibly gone to a number of rooms and departments of various branches of the armed forces at the UGHQ, including the main plotting room and also the Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals at the high command in Southwick House itself, after all these facilities were coordinating the whole invasion. It was a one-way system, I would raise the lever, send the encrypted message through and they would respond, and when they lifted their lever you could hear the real and terrifying sounds of war, such gunfire, loud sustained gunfire, bombs exploding, men barking out orders, injured men screaming in obvious agony, suddenly you realised my God there are men dying there! Whenever the lever went up on their side I was thrown back into the full-on horrific sounds of war as they were unfolding! Although I had already lived through the Blitz in London this was totally different because it seemed somehow more personnel as I was directly communicating with those in the midst of that frightening reality, at first it was all such a shock for me as a teenager to hear those petrifying things that I though I’m not sure if I can carry on doing this, I felt quite scared, then I thought to myself don’t be so silly you’re safe inside a cliff many miles away from all of that whilst young men are stuck in the middle of it all giving their lives!

So knowing I had a job to do, and one that I believed was important with all the messages being enciphered like that I pulled myself together and carried on sending whatever was given to me to wherever I was told to send it, and passing on whatever I received from the different operators on what seemed like different beaches. I never understood the content of anything I was sending or receiving but felt because it was in special secret cypher and directly to the front line of the action that it was of course extremely significant and maybe could be the difference between life and death for some, so it was a great responsibility to do the job as quickly as possible and as best possible as those things were happening at that very moment, we owed it to our brave servicemen to do that much when they were giving so much more! Who knows maybe my work helped save some lives if the content of those messages were acted upon in time by High Command? After D-Day a few weeks of Signals work continued on the VHF set, but as the Allies advanced into Europe and SHAEF HQ started to move into Europe to follow them, I didn’t need to transmit from the UK anymore as I think various other Signals units would have taken over that role out there as required, and so with that very interesting work completed I went back to my original job on the switchboards once again. As it was wartime many other interesting things happened as well, I remember when the King came and we marched on parade by him and took the salute from him and he gave a thank you speech for the important work everyone did there, and whilst on leave one time I returned to the family home at Tremadoc Road, North Clapham, a V1 Flying Bomb came down and destroyed houses nearby in our area, after spending months safe underground that ironically could been the end for me! Also when the war in Europe finished I went up to London for VE Day and joined the celebrations at that time.

Fort Southwick, UGHQ, the communications ‘nerve centre’ for Operation Overlord was in a secret network of tunnels excavated between February and December 1942 by 172 Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers, lying at 100ft (30m) underneath Fort Southwick, well out of harm’s way and the reach of any enemy bombs in use during that era. The call sign of this base was ‘MIN’.

Looking back now retrospectively I am very happy I became a WREN, because the WRNS changed my life, gave me a new outlook and raised my expectations in life as it did for many women in the services who were empowered and encouraged to do more outside of the conventional lives they normally led! Regarding D-Day, I am proud to have played my own small part in that historical event and I am very grateful that it has been very kindly acknowledged by the French Government with the prestigious Légion d’honneur and additionally that I am able to visit Normandy time and again and see where these things happened thanks to the great work of the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans in London.

The motto of the WRNS was ‘Never at Sea’ but, along with all those women of the Royal Naval Women’s Service who served during the Second World War (around 75,000), Marie’s contribution to the war effort was a very good, vital and valuable one. For this many people respect and thank you, me amongst them.

Additional Information and Life After Service

    Rank at end of service: WREN (Private).

    Medals and honours: 1939–45 War Medal, Légion d’honneur.

    Post-war years: After being demobbed Marie became a secretary from 1946 to 1958 for R.T. James & Partners Civil Engineering company in Victoria, London. Then, after she had children, she went part-time for Surrey County Council as a secretary and typist, finally retiring in 1992 aged 66. She married Maurice in 1953 at Wandsworth Town Hall, and they were together until his passing in 1981. They have two daughters and three grandchildren. Marie has a great love for opera, classical music and the arts, and she has been fortunate to have seen greats like Maria Callas (in her debut performance as Norma at Covent Garden), Richard Strauss (conducting at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane), Pavarotti and many more.

    Associations and organisations: Kingston-on-Thames Branch of the WRNS Association, Taxi Charity for Military Veterans.

Sergeant Cyril Tasker

Served with: 716 Company RASC, 9th Battalion, 6th Airborne Division

Service number: T/10696981

Interviewed: Lewes, East Sussex, 31 August 2016

Service History and Personal Stories

    Born: 25 April 1923, East Hoathley, England, UK.

    Cyril joined the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) in April 1942 and after training as a driver he was posted to Northern Ireland, where he delivered supplies to many Army bases.

    In 1943 he returned to the UK, where he joined the 6th Airborne Division. He was trained in Horsa gliders for D-Day and dropped at Ranville.

    His unit, the 716 Company RASC, supplied forward units at Pegasus Bridge, the Merville battery and on throughout France, Belgium, Holland and eventually into Germany.

    As part of the 9th Battalion, 6th Airborne Division, in 1944–46 he was also involved at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, the link-up of Allied and Russian troops on the Baltic coast, and he later served in Gaza, Palestine.

    Cyril was chosen to escort Field Marshal Montgomery and Major General Gale to take soldiers’ ashes to Ranville cemetery on 6 June 1954 for the tenth anniversary of D-Day.

Every man and woman who was involved in the war in any way whatsoever has a story to tell which is as unique and different as they are themselves. For each individual we get a very personal account of their own experiences, which helps capture many aspects of this global conflict. None more so than those in the services that were engaged in front-line action, where life and death situations were a daily occurrence. The story of Cyril Tasker is another great example of that, a serviceman who was involved in some of the most well-known events of the latter part of the war. He was at the heart of the action from the moment he landed in Normandy in his Horsa glider as part of the airborne assault on D-Day through to his involvement in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, to being present at the link-up of Allied and Russian troops on Germany’s Baltic coast.

Cyril was driving and delivering supplies of one kind or another locally since he was 16 years old when he worked for the Allen West factory in Brighton that produced various commodities for the Army. Then, at 17 he was delivering goods to Army camps and depots all over the country. So it was no great surprise that he carried on with what he was already very good at and had a fair bit of experience in: logistics. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) on 16 April 1942 aged 19 and was sent to Bulford Training Camp near Salisbury for his basic training, then to Hadrian’s Camp near Carlisle for Army driver training. Then from September 1942 until September 1943 he was posted to Northern Ireland, where he delivered essential supplies to Army bases in Belfast, Antrim, County Londonderry and County Down.

The mythological emblem of the Second World War British Airborne Forces, Bellerophon riding the flying horse Pegasus.

When Cyril returned to Salisbury with his unit, the 716 Company RASC, the Allied preparations for D-Day were in full swing and he volunteered to become part of the airborne forces and joined the 6th Airborne Division. This choice would take him in a whole new direction and on a journey that would lead him to experience things he could never have imagined at that point. Cyril tried both parachute and glider training and chose to become part of an airborne glider troop, after which his training intensified in the months running up to D-Day.

On 6 June 1944 Cyril and his company were dropped around mid-afternoon into Ranville as part of the 19,000-strong force that would descend from the skies over Normandy in support of operations from the sea. He landed in a Horsa glider with two jeeps and two trailers loaded with petrol and supplies, and four men for each jeep. They were now attached to the 9th Battalion of the 6th Airborne Division, and once they had landed their remit was to try to keep the 9th and any other units they were ordered to help supplied at all costs in the areas where they were actively engaged, and wherever that front line was or moved to as they advanced. They were to continue supplying with the materials dropped from aircraft or brought up later after the beaches and ports were secured. This they successfully did from when they linked up with Major Howard and fellow 6th Airborne troops at Pegasus Bridge, through to getting essential materials to the 9th Battalion at the Merville gun battery. For three months they were based around the Pegasus Bridge area, where they had to make and guard their storage dumps and then deliver what was needed, wherever it was needed at the front line. Despite coming under close-range fire and being exposed to frequent shelling from the Germans during their supply runs, they stuck to their remit.

By mid-September 1944 the 9th Battalion had been sent home via the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches to regroup after hard months in the line. Then on Christmas Eve 1944 the men got the immediate order to mobilise once again. There was a major emergency as the Germans had launched a massive offensive in the Ardennes and they were being sent to re-join the 6th Airborne to reinforce the line. By Boxing Day they were in Belgium and working to help supply the defensive line between Dinant and Namur. They also worked closely with the American First Army to supply beleaguered troops when and wherever needed during what was to become known as the Battle of the Bulge. In extreme winter conditions and under constant enemy fire they played their part in turning the tide and eventually thwarting the German offensive.

Once the panic was over, by mid-January 1945, the 9th Battalion, 6th Airborne, continued on into Holland, and in March 1945 was involved in Operation Varsity, the airborne operation over the Rhine. The 9th Battalion, of which Cyril’s 716 company was a part, then continued through Germany, ending up in Wismar on the Baltic Sea where they historically joined up with Russian forces in May 1945. After the war in Europe was over, Cyril’s service continued when he was again sent overseas as part of the 6th Airborne Division to the Middle East to help police the troubles in Palestine. Based in a big Army camp in Gaza, his unit experienced attacks from insurgents who, as Cyril recalls, would during some attacks randomly spray the Army tents with machine gun fire. Cyril was based there from September 1945 until December 1946, after which he returned home to Widdingdean near Brighton. He was eventually demobbed in May 1947 at the Kiwi Barracks, Bulford Camp, Salisbury, home of the 9th Parachute Battalion. However, Cyril’s story does not end there because ten years later, through his work with the Royal British Legion in Brighton, he was selected to accompany Field Marshal Montgomery and Major General Gale for the tenth anniversary commemorative service at Ranville cemetery on 6 June 1954. He carried soldiers’ ashes at this very important event, which for him was also held at a place of great personal significance where a decade earlier to the day he had landed to play his part in the liberation of Europe.

Cyril with Montgomery and Gale, 6 June 1954, in Normandy.

During his time as a serviceman in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, Cyril experienced many things and has many stories, some of which he now shares with us:

Serving with the 6th Airborne Division in the Liberation of Europe

When we were driving into Ranville we came across General Gale. He said to me: ‘You’re lost, soldier.’ I said: ‘Yes, sir,’ and whilst we were talking he suddenly pushed me into a ditch! A second later he was on top of me and behind us was a huge explosion, and when we got out he said: ‘You haven’t been in action before have you soldier?’ I said: ‘No, sir,’ and he said: ‘That was a mortar bomb that just landed where we were standing!’ And so a general had saved my life that very morning. Ten years later when I went to Normandy with General Gale and Field Marshal Montgomery he remembered me and said: ‘I had wondered if you survived the war, glad you did.’ A lot of the time whilst in Normandy we were getting shelled and mortared and machine gunned, and the Germans used air burst shells that exploded over our heads. Many of our men died because of those. At Christmas when we were called to the Ardennes it was a very rough time, horrendous, severe cold, the German attacks were still strong, a huge loss of life, mainly American but we were taking some heavy casualties, too. It was all a huge shock from an enemy that we thought was nearly finished at that stage of the war, and even though we were the RASC we had Sten guns and found ourselves having to use them when we came across Germans. After the Battle of the Bulge we went up and through Holland over the Rhine and into Germany. Eventually we ended up in Wismar on the German Baltic coast, where we linked up with the Russians a few days before the war finished. When it was over we were dancing in the streets with the Russians. Throughout, we did our job and kept the supplies flowing from Normandy to the Baltic. We were a small part of a much bigger picture, each one of us proudly doing our bit to help win that long and hard-fought war, which we eventually did in the end.

Additional Information and Life After Service

    Rank at end of service: Sergeant.

    Medals and honours: Legion d’Honneur (French Government), 1939–45 Defence Medal, 1939–45 War Medal, 1939–45 Star, France–Germany Star, General Service Medal Palestine 1945–48.

    Post-war years: After the war Cyril returned to the Allen West factory in Brighton from 1947–67, then had one year as a farmhand in Billingshurst. In 1968 he returned to transport and worked for Sussex County Council at its Ringmar depot until his retirement in 1988. He married Jean in June 1947 and they have two children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

    Associations and organisations: Royal British Legion Lewes and Brighton, Blind Veterans UK.

Private Raymond Shuck

Served with: 4th Air Landing Anti-Tank Battery, 13th Battalion, 6th Airborne Division

Service Number: 4927330

Interviewed: Bolton, Lancashire, 26 June 2015

Additional Conversations: 2015–19

Service History and Personal Stories

    Born: 6 October 1923, Birmingham, England, UK.

    Joined the South Staffordshire Infantry Regiment at Worchester Barracks in 1941 at only 17 years of age. 1941–42 did basic Infantry training at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, followed by more intense training at Whittington Barracks in Lichfield, Staffordshire which included the use of the 6-Pound Anti-Tank Gun.

    At the end of 1942 Ray volunteered to be in the Airborne forces and became part of the 6th Airborne Division, and throughout 1942–44 amongst other places was posted to Bulford Camp and Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire for Glider Training, and at RAF Ringway for Parachute Training with the 13th (Lancashire) Parachute Battalion with static line jumps over Tatton Park, Cheshire, all in preparation for the invasion of Europe.

    At 3.30 a.m. on 6 June 1944 Ray, now in the 4th Air Landing Anti-Tank Battery, 13th Battalion, 6th Airborne Division, was dropped in a Horsa Glider as part of the biggest Land, Sea and Air invasion in history, Operation Overlord.

    His Airborne mission (Operation Tonga) on what was to become known as D-Day was to help reinforce and secure areas around the captured key strategic Caen Canal Bridge at Benouville and the Orne River Bridge at Ranville (later renamed Pegasus and Horsa Bridges), to help repel Nazi counterattacks as and when they arose using his 6-Pound Anti-Tank Gun and personal small arms like his Bren Gun.

    Whilst in action around Ranville, Ray was shot in the head by a German sniper and by pure luck due to the deflection and angle of the bullet when it hit his helmet it passed in one side of his head, across the very top and out the other side.

    He was found by a young boy and taken to a makeshift medical station at Ranville Church, then medevaced to the UK, after plastic surgery to the head and convalescence in Cheltenham Ray was put on ‘Light Duties’ which included tending to returning malnourished POWs from the hellish Japanese prison camps in South-East Asia.

    Ray was demobbed in Aldershot in September 1946.

Dad, grandad, great-grandad, brother, friend to many, D-Day veteran, war hero, these are just some of the many different ways and words that we can use to describe this all round great man. A man that touched many lives in many good, positive and beautiful ways, he meant a lot, to a lot of people, and always will …

These were the opening words to the eulogy that I was honoured to write and deliver at the funeral of my good friend Ray Shuck at St John’s Church in Farnworth, Bolton, on 1 February 2019. These carefully chosen words are an apt description of Ray and a very fitting tribute with which to describe the story of this remarkable and much loved veteran.

Ray now shares some of his incredible wartime experiences:

We did our Glider Training alongside some of the American 101st Airborne Division around Salisbury Plain and practiced glider drops with full equipment, like it would be for real when we went into battle, the only difference was there were no Germans shooting at us like there would be later! In our Horsa glider there were three men, including me, and two glider pilots a jeep and a gun, a 6-Pounder, I always remember in training we landed real heavy, we were shaken but not stirred! As the time got closer we knew that D-Day was coming because we were locked down in our camps to make sure no one talked and gave anything away, but as far as the training went we felt 100 per cent ready for anything and everything, we also had hours of briefings and felt like we almost knew France before we got there and we were motivated because we knew we were fighting for England, for our country and to liberate others!

So when it was for real, we crash landed our glider safely, and I remember before I got shot that we were fighting in Ranville and lots of Germans were giving themselves up. But there was still loads of vicious fighting with the Germans trying to take the bridges back because they knew by then if they didn’t the troops landing on the beaches would get there, link with the Airborne troops and be able to secure those areas and that would be that!

Horsa glider at Pegasus Bridge like the one Ray landed in nearby at Ranville on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

You’d see a lot of your comrades dead and Germans dead, and the three of us from our Anti-Tank Battery who went into battle together didn’t fare well at all, Private Les Atwell got his leg blown off below the knee and I got seriously wounded early on – a few days after arriving in Normandy when I was shot in the head. I don’t know what happened to Sergeant Marriot, others I knew like Sammy Lines he was a Lieutenant he got killed and Bombardier Hill he got killed as well, very sad.

I was found by a young lad who I thought was French, it works out he was Russian. I had blood pouring from my head and in the heat of battle had been assumed dead, I ended up at a temporary medical station in the church at Ranville. Much later on I found out that Sergeant Atwell had shot the German Sniper out of a tree – the bugger had who got me! I don’t remember much for a while after that because of my head injuries, but eventually I ended up back in Blighty, and after I had recovered in Cheltenham I was put on light duties like helping other convalescing soldiers who had been returned home from the Far East.

It was at this point when Ray was talking about the servicemen he had helped that I was very moved by his deep empathy and compassion towards them, especially after everything he had been through himself. He went on to say:

One of the jobs I had once I was on ‘Light Duties’ was helping feed up and get these poor half-dead prisoners of war well again, they’d been in POW camps around Asia and had been starved and beaten and used as slaves by the bloody Japs, who were as bad as the Nazis in how they treated people! We had to feed them like babies on liquids on what was like mashed food before they could take anything solid or they could die! Poor sods, I felt really sorry for them, they were in a very bad way. Just goes to show there are always people far worse off than yourself!

To conclude his profile, I finish with two things, first something humorous from Ray, as he was well known for his great sense of humour. With a big smile on his face, he recalled to me, ‘In France there were always plenty of bullets flying around. I caught one of them, nutted it – when I look back I think it knocked some sense into me!’

The second on a more humbling and thankful note is this: the motto of the 13th Parachute Battalion, of which Ray was a part, was ‘Win or Die’, something he truly honoured. In service to his country, in combat Ray overcame near death to help the Allies win the Second World War. It is because of sacrifices such as these by Ray and many other veterans like him that we will always owe ‘A Debt of Gratitude to the Last Heroes’.

To a great man, I know I speak for myself and many other people when I say it was an honour and a privilege to have known you and to be able to have had your magic in our lives.

No life is truly finished until all the lives it has touched and all the good it has done has passed away.

It is with these words in mind that I feel that Ray’s legacy will be a long-lasting one indeed. ‘Gone but Never Forgotten.’ God bless you my friend. GBD.

Additional Information and Life After Service

    Rank upon finish of service: Private.

    Medals and Honours: 1939–45 Defence Medal, 1939–45 War Medal, 1939–45 Star, France-Germany Star, Legion D’ Honneur.

    Post War Years: Between his demob in 1946 and his retirement in 1996 aged 70, Ray had a few jobs, including being a panel beater at Lomas’s making Ambulances, whilst his wife Olwyn was a hairdresser. Later they set up Ray’s Transport Cafe in Walkden, Manchester, then went into the camping and sports business that evolved into Tent Valeting Services (TVS), which was a family business. Ray married Olwyn in February 1944; they have one son, one daughter, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

    Associations and Organisations: Manchester Parachute Association (Bolton Branch), Blind Veterans UK.

Sergeant James Baker DSM

Served with: Royal Marines, 544 Assault Flotilla

Service number: PO/X105481

Interviewed: Blackpool, Lancashire, 11 July 2015

Service History and Personal Stories

    Born: 8 April 1923, Blackpool, England, UK.

    Jim Baker joined the Royal Marines just before his 18th birthday on 1 April 1941. After rigorous training he undertook U-boat hunting on a converted trawler in the Western Approaches.

    On D-Day he was a helmsman on a LCA (Landing Craft Assault vessel) on one of the first waves of the invasion to land on Juno Beach, after which he directly engaged the enemy and was injured.

    After being discharged from a field hospital he was later transferred to operations at Omaha Beach, working closely with the Americans, where he completed twenty-two troop drops to the beach.

    He won a Distinguished Service Medal for his valour, which was awarded at Buckingham Palace by King George VI in November 1944.

    After the war, Jim served as a captain in the Royal Marine Forces Volunteer Reserve (RMFVR) from 1946 to 1956.

In most cases, when we think of D-Day and the Normandy landings, we visualise the pictures, newsreel footage or a documentary that we may have seen, or think of the horrific scenes of a film such as Saving Private Ryan. That is probably as close as most of us will get to or be able to comprehend what it must have been like to be there in that most horrendous of situations on those beaches on that historical day. The only other way that you might get a real insight into what happened is if you are lucky enough to meet, talk to or interview a survivor. When I met former Royal Marine James Baker DSM at the seventy-first D-Day anniversary in Normandy in June 2015 and interviewed him at his home in Blackpool a month later, I felt that fate had picked me one of the finest examples of a veteran who was absolutely in the very thick of it right from the very beginning. He was part of one of the first assault landings on the morning of 6 June 1944 when, as one veteran put it, they ‘stormed the gates of Hell’. This is the story of a serviceman who was trained in both amphibious and land warfare, who as a helmsman of a landing craft assault vessel (LCA) hit Juno Beach and went from his badly damaged craft straight into battle alongside his Canadian brothers in arms, showing the extreme bravery and leadership skills that earned him a Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry in the face of the enemy.

Combined Forces emblem, representing each of the armed forces.

The Royal Marines is the United Kingdom’s amphibious infantry force, forming part of the naval service along with the Royal Navy. The corps was formed in the reign of King Charles II on 28 October 1664 as a unit of seagoing soldiers, and in 1802 it was officially titled the Royal Marines by King George III. During its long and prestigious history it has been involved in more battles on land and sea around the world than any other branch of the British armed forces. So numerous are the corps battle honours that they are simply represented by the famous globe and single honour ‘Gibraltar’. The Marines are also widely acknowledged to have some of the world’s most elite commando forces; their dual combat role is echoed in their motto Per mare per terram, meaning ‘By sea by land’. During the war some 80,000 men served in the Royal Marines, and they continued to operate at sea and in land formations, but 1942 saw the formation of the first Royal Marines Commandos. 5 RM Commandos was amongst the first unit to land on D-Day, and two-thirds of all the landing craft involved were crewed by Marines. Some 16,000 members of the corps took part in Operation Overlord in many roles, some even manning tanks. Jim Baker was a part of that proud tradition. He joined the Royal Marines on 1 April 1941 in Preston, Lancashire (All Fools Day, as Jim recalled with a wry smile), after which he was sent to do his intense basic training at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines (CTC-RM) in Lympstone, Devon. This lasted six months, during which time he was also trained on Bren Carriers, and he was then attached to the 2nd Mobile RM Reconnaissance Unit. At that time at the end of 1941 the Royal Navy required more manpower to help in its war against the U-boats, so Jim volunteered and was transferred to HMS York City, a trawler that had been converted into an anti-submarine vessel and fitted with depth charges and other equipment.

He was based at Milford Haven in South Wales, from where he would set out on patrols in the Western Approaches. This would last until late 1942, after which Jim was attached to the 18th Battalion Royal Marines and sent up to Scotland for assault landing craft training. He was based at Inveraray and Port Glasgow, two of the many new Royal Marine and Commando camps that were set up for specialist training in Scotland. There he began training to be a coxswain or skipper in various types of landing craft, mainly the smaller LCAs that were used to deliver the first waves of infantry on to beaches during an invasion. He undertook continuous practice landing exercises, many under live fire conditions, mostly around the Isle of Arran. It was during this time that ‘combined forces’ training began to take shape, with joint exercises taking place incorporating Royal Marines, Royal Navy and infantry soldiers with the Royal Air Force in support. This would form the basis for the essential three services combined forces operations that would later be a key factor in making the Normandy landings a success. After Scotland, in early 1944, Jim was sent to Dartmoor in Devon for unarmed combat training, and finished with more intense combined training with Canadian troops of the French Canadian Regiment de la Chaudière doing LCA landings at Slapton Sands, Devon, where they narrowly missed being intercepted by German E-boats, and at Hayling Island, east of Portsmouth. Now they were as ready as they could be for the real thing, which would come soon enough.