D-Day 75

[geoffers]

My late uncle (who died in December last year aged 95) was Flight Engineer Warrant Officer in a Halifax (644 Sqn) which towed a glider into Pegasus Bridge after taking off from Tarrant Rushton Airfield (between Wimborne and Blandford in Dorset and adjacent to the Iron Age hill fort of Badbury Rings) on D-Day. He always reckoned their glider was the first one down. Later they towed a glider into Arnhem for Operation Market Garden. Was awarded the French decoration Legion d'Honneur in his early 90s which we all inspected at his funeral last January. I have read his flight log books and all very interesting including drops from Beaulieu to SOE and the Resistance in France.

[sb67]

 

Been stuff flying around Essex today, I enjoyed watching the commemoration on tv, so many fascinating stories to hear from very unassuming hero's.

Steve.

[AY Mod]

The Daks were a wonderful sight over the coast this evening, nice touch with two P51s following on. Watching the mass drop from a few miles away was a sight never to forget. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

22 hours ago, EddieB said:

Let us not overlook the contribution of the Canadians - a large country, whose small population sacrificed greatly for our freedom.

 

I've seen it suggested that in September 1945 Canada was the 4th most powerful country in the World, such was the scale of their contribution to the allied victory. 

[Ozexpatriate]

8 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I've seen it suggested that in September 1945 Canada was the 4th most powerful country in the World, such was the scale of their contribution to the allied victory. 

Wikipedia

Quote

The financial cost was $21.8 billion between 1939 and 1950. By the end of the war Canada had the world's fourth largest air force, and fifth largest navy. The Canadian Merchant Navy completed over 25,000 voyages across the Atlantic, 130,000 Allied pilots were trained in Canada in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. On D-Day, 6 June 1944 the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division landed on "Juno" beach in Normandy, in conjunction with allied forces. The Second World War had significant cultural, political and economic effects on Canada, including the conscription crisis in 1944 which affected unity between francophones and anglophones. The war effort strengthened the Canadian economy and furthered Canada's global position.

Canadian contributions to the war effort are under-reported, particularly I think relative to their contributions to the Atlantic supply lines to Britain. 

[Steamport Southport]

5 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Wikipedia

Canadian contributions to the war effort are under-reported, particularly I think relative to their contributions to the Atlantic supply lines to Britain. 

 

Not forgotten in Liverpool. 

 

Possibly the most important part of the Pier Head is dedicated to the Canadians. It's even named Canada Boulevard,

 

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMER6A_Canada_Boulevard_Pier_Head_Liverpool_Lancashire_UK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason

[pH]

34 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Wikipedia

Canadian contributions to the war effort are under-reported, particularly I think relative to their contributions to the Atlantic supply lines to Britain. 

 

Here's a book on the Battle of the Atlantic, written by a Canadian military historian:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Atlantic-Marc-Milner-ebook/dp/B01HFL0IYE

 

I found it very interesting.

[AY Mod]

'At the going down of the sun' may be an overused line but the sunset over Sword beach tonight was magnificent with the clearest 'green flash' I have ever seen.

 

 

Far better weather than the poor guys faced.

[Tricky-CRS]

2 hours ago, AY Mod said:

The Daks were a wonderful sight over the coast this evening, nice touch with two P51s following on. Watching the mass drop from a few miles away was a sight never to forget. 

I was stood under it in a field of beet, some land in the field beyond the drop zone, one nearly on the road that was open and very busy.

 

Although very late it was amazing to witness and to have them coming down around me was brilliant. Gold beach at 07:00 tomorrow at Arromanches and try and catch piper and fly past later.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

'At the going down of the sun'

You are remembering them Andy.

 

7 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

the clearest 'green flash' I have ever seen

An added gift. I have seen many sunsets over a west coast. They can be elusive and you need just the right conditions. Lucky you.

[AY Mod]

The most touching tale I heard was of the ceremony to inter a veteran's ashes today after his death last year alongside his twin brother who died just after D-day.

[TheSignalEngineer]

16 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

'At the going down of the sun' may be an overused line but the sunset over Sword beach tonight was magnificent with the clearest 'green flash' I have ever seen.

 

 

Far better weather than the poor guys faced.

Thanks for all the reports Andy and others. My Dad spent the actual D-day at a harbour somewhere on the south coast as a MP marshalling troops onto landing craft. He went over a himself a couple of days later, landing on Sword. His job was escorting supplies up to the front line starting around Ranville. He was involved in the battle for Caen then spent the next six months heading through France and Belgium to the Dutch border. One of the unit's regular jobs was marking safe routes round minefields as the front line advanced. Following that he was then transferred to the Indian Army for about 2 years. As the British pull-out approached he was offered a commission if he extended his time in the army which he declined as his job would have been to set up a new unit to go on policing duties in Palestine.  

[62613]

1 hour ago, pH said:

 

Here's a book on the Battle of the Atlantic, written by a Canadian military historian:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Atlantic-Marc-Milner-ebook/dp/B01HFL0IYE

 

I found it very interesting.

Read that many years ago; it is indeed a good book.

[Graham_Muz]

https://grahammuz.com/2019/06/06/75-years-on-turn-left-for-france-operation-overlord-the-southern-railway-and-the-d-day-landings/ 

 

lest we forget, we honour and offer our thanks to them all. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

...we honour and offer our thanks to them all. 

Recalling also that the extent of the combined effort encompassed many people not able to follow their heart.

 

A good example is a late friend who deeply regretted not being able to follow his father and uncles who had won distinction in earlier conflicts. His technical expertise as a GPO engineer at Dollis Hill meant that he was very much reserved occupation, and had to spend the war grafting away there: at work he knew to be most essential, but...

[RedgateModels]

5 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Recalling also that the extent of the combined effort encompassed many people not able to follow their heart.

 

A good example is a late friend who deeply regretted not being able to follow his father and uncles who had won distinction in earlier conflicts. His technical expertise as a GPO engineer at Dollis Hill meant that he was very much reserved occupation, and had to spend the war grafting away there: at work he knew to be most essential, but...

 

Agreed, my other Grandad was a Deputy Shotfirer and was most definitely in a reserved occupation. His and his fellow workers contributions to keep the country fuelled are honoured too

[TheSignalEngineer]

Having thought about my earlier post, it seems no time since one of my children was on a school trip at the time of the 40th anniversary.  It was that trip which finally got my Dad to speak about his army experiences. He didn't say too much about the horrors he saw right up until he died four years ago.

[Tricky-CRS]

Gold beach at 07:00 (local time) ready for piper. 

 

Last picture to Matadors pulling a duck out the sand, sunk up to its axles. Yank truck gave up after begin dragged along by its own winch and chain snapping.

[Mike Storey]

The bravery of all those involved is quite incredible.

 

But what I cannot stomach is that you have to pay, more than once, and/or perform some dogged investigation (many records were lost or are partial), with absolutely no guarantee of success, to find out what your own relations did. My father was in minesweepers throughout the war, as a signaller, and in one that was paving the way for the invasion fleet several days before 6 June. Like so many others, he rarely talked to us about what he did, and his few surviving letters to my mother were, naturally, heavily censored and tell you little. Ironically, he was not sunk around D Day, but was sunk three other times, twice in the Baltic on convoy duty, and once in the Med. He never told us, but mum remembered it.

 

You have to apply to the MoD for individual service records, after 1920, and their website directs you to two commercial websites in the first instance. Even the Yanks don't do this. An initial search on those two, and two others, says his records just don't exist. So a strange way to "honour" our heroes?

 

[Ozexpatriate]

Inevitably there's been a lot of well intended pre-edited D-Day tribute stories for network television news in the last day or two - a good thing certainly. Equally inevitably, each of these video packages seems to have included historical newsreel footage of daylight paratroop drops (one of which looked very much like "Market Garden" to my eyes).

 

Mindful that I should not be too pedantic, I think it sets a wrong impression of what Allied paratroops actually did in the early hours of D-Day, jumping in the dead of night.  For recent generations, not brought up in the aftermath of the second world war (like I was) it creates an inaccurate narrative.

 

I congratulate everyone who was able to be in Normandy today to help commemorate this historic milestone before it completely passes from living memory. In some ways it reminds me of newsreels from 1938 during the 75th anniversary of Gettysburg.

[peanuts]

On 04/06/2019 at 12:52, AY Mod said:

The first man to fall on D-Day when seizing Pegasus Bridge. Born in Smethwick, still Staffordshire at the time, leaving a wife who was 8 months pregnant who gave birth to his daughter a few weeks later.

 

 

Chatted to Madame Gondree on Sunday, a small girl at the time who lived in the first house liberated in the early minutes of the day. Still very sprightly and running the family cafe 75 years later.

 

his daughter was on radio 5 as part of theyre coverage of the Portsmouth memorial on weds .spoke very eloquently about her mother must say have enjoyed the radio fivelive coverage where they have taken a lot of testimonies of people whos family members fought on D-day some very moving and very humbling tales .

[Bernard Lamb]

10 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

The bravery of all those involved is quite incredible.

 

But what I cannot stomach is that you have to pay, more than once, and/or perform some dogged investigation (many records were lost or are partial), with absolutely no guarantee of success, to find out what your own relations did. My father was in minesweepers throughout the war, as a signaller, and in one that was paving the way for the invasion fleet several days before 6 June. Like so many others, he rarely talked to us about what he did, and his few surviving letters to my mother were, naturally, heavily censored and tell you little. Ironically, he was not sunk around D Day, but was sunk three other times, twice in the Baltic on convoy duty, and once in the Med. He never told us, but mum remembered it.

 

You have to apply to the MoD for individual service records, after 1920, and their website directs you to two commercial websites in the first instance. Even the Yanks don't do this. An initial search on those two, and two others, says his records just don't exist. So a strange way to "honour" our heroes?

 

I know what you mean and I also do not agree with the government attitude of flogging off information.

However as next of kin you should be able to get a service record from the MOD for free.

I got this for my father and my dad while mum was still alive by filling in the forms and applying in her name.

They were very helpful and came up with  a large amount of information.

TNA at Kew also holds a great deal of material. But it is not always easy to find what you want.

When the material on Japanese POWs was released in 2011 I spent many hours going through documents looking into my dad's experiences.

I discovered which were accurate and which were nonsense by working with other people who had a personal interest.

I find it quire upsetting that this material is now available on a commercial site without any explanation as to why certain documents contain the information that they do and leave put other things.

Historians in the future are going to get a very lopsided view of some events.

I did manage to find the war diaries for my father at Kew, luckily they did exist for his unit, who landed in Normandy shortly after D Day.

My dad and my father are different people for those who do not know my background.

Bernard

[Kingzance]

2 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

 

When the material on Japanese POWs was released in 2011 I spent many hours going through documents looking into my dad's experiences.

I discovered which were accurate and which were nonsense by working with other people who had a personal interest.

Thanks Bernard.

This has prompted me to investigate further my late father’s part in WWII. He joined up in 1938 (RAF), trained as an armourer in Lincolnshire and was posted to Alore Star in Malaya early in 1941. He had to have his appendix removed early December ‘41, next day their base was overrun by Japanese forces and he was marched down to Singapore before being incarcerated for the duration in Changi POW camp. Meanwhile, mother (who at that time was unaware of father) became a WREN and worked in the Japanese Cypher department at Bletchley Park.

[peanuts]

after all the honour of yesterday where bravery and sacrafice were rightly marked this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-48553889

 

why just why ?

[Bernard Lamb]

42 minutes ago, Kingzance said:

Thanks Bernard.

This has prompted me to investigate further my late father’s part in WWII. He joined up in 1938 (RAF), trained as an armourer in Lincolnshire and was posted to Alore Star in Malaya early in 1941. He had to have his appendix removed early December ‘41, next day their base was overrun by Japanese forces and he was marched down to Singapore before being incarcerated for the duration in Changi POW camp. Meanwhile, mother (who at that time was unaware of father) became a WREN and worked in the Japanese Cypher department at Bletchley Park.

Pleased to be of help.

It was unusual to remain in Changi for the duration.

The best place to start is at TNA Kew with WO345 and WO367 series.

These documents are lists of men and their individual record cards.

You can learn a lot from them and then the fun starts in trying to fill in the gaps.

It was at this stage that I asked for one particular file and was told that I could not take it into the reading room but could view it in a private room under supervision.

There is also a questionnaire that many of the men completed on returning to the UK.

I have found this to be of uncertain value as a lot of people did not want to write down any details.

I believe that the record cards and the questionnaires are now available on a subscription based web site.

Funnily enough I have recently been looking into the history of my former English teacher and he was at Bletchley park and married a WREN who also worked there as a Linguist.

Bernard