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Story elicited during interview with ‘Peoples War Volunteer’.
Harold and Ted were both ‘Brummies’ who joined up together in 1942 and completed their basic anti tank specialist training at Church Stretton.

Their first action was landing on Gold Beach at Arromanches on D-Day plus 12 “or thereabouts”. Their lasting memory of that beach was the noise and heat from the shells being fired by HMS Warspite, Nelson and Rodney off the coast. The heat on the backs of their necks was amazing.

After some skirmishes they eventually finished up around Bayeux being prepared for the assault on Caen.

Ted remembers being injured and taken to the field hospital at Bayeux where a nurse told him to take off his boots as she was going to wash his feet. He refused at first saying he hadn’t had his boots off in weeks and his feet would smell terrible. She insisted and so he took his boots off but they had to peel his socks off. He was surprised when he discovered his feet were not black as expected but very very white and wrinkled as if they had been in water for a long time. The nurse washing his feet he remembers as one of the kindest acts any human being can do for another.

Harold remembers they moved from Bayeux towards Caen, which was still in German hands, on the morning of the 8th July they came by a wood near St Contes, NW of Caen, where they were ambushed with phosphorous bombs and grenades. They had four guns in their unit and three were knocked out without firing a shot. The fourth only got about one off before it was smashed. Major Marsh, a New Zealander, their unit commander, rallied a small group of them to attack the wood and they routed the Germans. Harold remembers him saying, “Come on lads, we all know the British can take it. Now let's show them we can dish it out too.” Harold said, “He was a very brave man.” Their unit sustained 75% losses that day.

Ted recalls always carrying a little bible with him, which was presented to him by his Church young people’s fellowship. One day after they had sustained a lot of losses in their units a big 6’4” Geordie came up to him and asked Ted to lead them with a few words from his bible. Ted thought he was having his leg pulled but they insisted.

He took out his bible and it came open at Isaiah 30 and he started reading at vv 19 ‘… thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of your cry; when he shall hear it he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction …… And then thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it……’. He remembers it as wonderful words of comfort to this day.

The Regiment took a lot of losses and while Ted was recovering from wounds Harold was redeployed into the Hampshires Infantry Regiment and later the Somersets serving throughout the Normandy campaign through the Falaise pocket and into Germany.

Whilst with the Hampshires, Harold remembers being ordered onto a Firing squad for a man found guilty of murder. They were marched into a firing range at 0600 hours, each man on the squad having been given one live round to load into his rifle. They were ordered to fire at a square of white paper covering over the area of the heart. On command they fired and the man fell with all shots through the paper and in the heart. Their job done they were marched out and given the rest of the day off.

Harold had many more stories to tell including burning down Belsen and being trapped under a tank by a sniper but time precluded noting them all down.

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