NORMANDY LANDING
The tide was fairly high as the landing craft headed towards the beach. There were a few tall houses behind the beach and a sea wall with a gap leading inland.
We had all been issued with lifebelts; these were semi-circular in design and tied around the waste. After beaching from our landing craft we discarded the lifebelts in heaps piled up by the sea wall. I shudder to think how useless these ‘lifebelts’ would have been in the sea.
The area of our disembarkation was designated as Gold Beach. The precise area, I believe, was designated as Gold Beach King Red, an area between La Riviere and Asnells and in front of the village or Ver-sur-Mer; the track I believe we took is now called the Rue de 50th Division.
There were some damaged seafront houses, but fortunately they had no enemy in them, although I still felt a bit exposed on my BSA M20 motorcycle (Ed Note: Tony was Battery HQ despatch rider).
From the beach we continued to move some hundreds of yards in convoy until reaching the Ouistreham – Arromanches road. We then crossed over that road and, skirting the town of Ver-sur-Mer, we continued along a track where two dead German soldiers still lay in a ditch by the roadside; this was quite a sobering sight.
Naturally we became a little more cautious as we advanced further inland, and at the top of a field about 300 yards further on we halted in a small wooded area.
On dismounting my motorcycle I unslung my Sten gun from my shoulder and stood it down between my legs. At this point I heard the slight click of the breech block moving back under the impact of standing it down, which had been sufficient to push a bullet into the barrel.
Fortunately the impact had not been quite hard enough to cause the gun to fire, but in inspection the firing pin had actually made a small dent in the base of the bullet’s percussion cap. The gun had been set for rapid fire, which would have meant the whole magazine of 28 9mm bullets being fired – another lucky escape!
I can recall another incident where a Sten gun became caught in some camouflage netting resulting in the death of a comrade. There were many incidents and deaths with the Sten gun until a simple modification was made enabling the breech block to be safely secured.
More THINGS REMEMBERED tomorrow
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