Some personal accounts of men involved in one way or anthoer with the 6th Airborne Division prior to and during D-Day 1944 taken from ATB, D-Day. Planning for D-Day started at the beginning of 1944. No.2 Wing of the Glider Pilot Regiment (formerly the 1st Battalion GPR) had returned from Sicily, much depleted and in need of further training. No.1 Wing (previously the 2nd Battalion, GPR) had been formed in the United Kingdom and I found myself in command of B Squadron stationed at Brize Norton. The task of the regiment was for 1,500 glider pilots to be trained and exercised in mass landings on a scale never tried before and in time for what was to be, from an airman’s point of view, the most complicated operation of all time. There were three types of gliders: The Horsa, Hamilcar and Hadrian (or Waco). The Horsa, which was the main glider used in operations by the British forces, was of timber construction and was designed to carry a load of three tons. Originally, this was to consist of 26 fully-armed troops, but it was soon realised that the Horsa was of more use carrying weapons such as anti-tank gun and a Jeep or a light field gun or similar loads. Unloading on the battlefield, under fire, was a problem which was solved by making the tail unit detachable by a series of quick release bolts. (I can assure anyone that they were far from being ‘quick’!). The story is told of the overzealous passengers who, in order to expedite the unloading, started to undo the bolts and cut the control cables before landing! Fortunately, they were stopped just in time! The Hamilcar was a massive glider, also of wooden construction, designed to carry a load of seven tons, for example a light tank or Bren carrier, a 25-pdr gun, or similar loads. It had to be towed by a Halifax with specially boosted engines. The Hadrian or Waco was an American glider of steel tube and canvas construction, but would only carry a gun or a Jeep but not both which meant that the two gliders must land together. The gliders were towed by Albemarle’s, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Dakotas. The glider pilot was a volunteer from any branch of the Army and was trained to fly light aircraft at the same flying training schools as the RAF and was then converted onto gliders. Not only had he to be a fully-qualified pilot but, once on the ground, he had to fight alongside the troops he was carrying which meant he had to be a jack-of-all-trades able to fire any gun, drive any vehicle, operate a wireless and to use his initiative to the full. On the RAF station where he was based, he crewed up with the tug crew who were to tow him and, as far as possible, carried out all training together with them so that on the operation they were an integrated team. During the build up to D-Day, I was involved in the many exercises held to practise landing large numbers of gliders in a mass operation. This culminated on April 23rd when 185 gliders landed by daylight in a single mass formation at three airfields: Southrop; Brize Norton and Harwell. (It was necessary to use airfields as landing zones in order to retrieve and fly the gliders back to base.) Finally, we landed 100 gliders by moonlight at Netheravon. I well remember the occasion I was flying with Colonel George Chatterton, the Commander Glider Pilots, as my co-pilot. For some reason, the ground staff had put out the landing ‘T’ at 180 degrees to the direction we had all been briefed to land. Half the gliders followed their briefing instructions and half followed the ‘T’. The result: gliders approaching from all directions in moonlight. The Colonel was appalled and his language was memorable, but we landed safely and surprisingly so did all the others with no casualties and with only three gliders damaged. Our training had obviously borne fruit. As D-Day drew near, I was asked by Colonel Chatterton to pick three crews for a most important task which was to land a total of six gliders (B Squadron to provide three of them) in a small field, by moonlight, without any landing aids, released silently from 6,000ft some distance from the field. At the time, we did not know what the objective was but we commenced training on spot landings by moonlight. Unfortunately, our Albemarle tugs were not powerful enough to take a fully-loaded glider to the required height in the time allowed so, regretfully, my crews had to be transferred to Tarrant Rushton where the Halifax tugs were stationed and where the remainder were training. Shortly afterwards, I was asked to select three crews for a most hazardous operation. Colonel Chatterton told me they must be volunteers but, when I asked for volunteers the whole squadron stepped forward so I had the invidious task of making a selection. I picked three of my very best pilots for the flying ability and initiative. The task was for three gliders to land on a heavily defended battery of guns commanding the British Sword Beach, which had to be silenced before the landing from the sea commenced. We did not know the location of the battery until three days before the operation-it was the Merville battery- which was to be carried out by the 9th Parachute Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Otway. Landing aid were to be provided in the form of a radio beacon called ‘Eureka’ placed on the landing area by a parachutist and a receiver known as ‘Rebecca’ placed in a glider. I flew several trails with this equipment using dark goggles to simulate a night landing and found it quite efficient. For the operation, three brand new gliders were to be provided fitted with the ‘Rebecca’ and also a parachute arrester gear which would reduce the speed of the glider once it touched the ground. Two days before the operation, six new gliders arrived at the airfield-three fitted with ‘Rebecca’ and three others fitted with the parachute arrester gear! Someone had blundered-Panic! Eventually, three gliders were produced with the correct equipment but while two were brand new, the third was obviously not. There was no time to flight test them and I had to get the pilots to draw lots as to who should fly the ropy one. Sadly Staff Sergeant Arnold Baldwin drew the short straw. On take-off, he found his glider most unmanageable as it had been rigged incorrectly, with the result that when the combination went into a cloud the tow broke and Baldwin had to make a forced landing at RAF Odiham. The remaining two gliders reached the objective but the ground ‘Eureka’ (Which had a self-destruct charge should it fall into enemy hands) unfortunately blew up when the parachutist carrying it had a heavy landing. So with no landing aids and in cloud, rain and smoke, and being fired at from the ground, the tug pilots circled the area to find the objective and, although both gliders made heavy landings, they were able to take part in the battle in which the 9th Battalion eventually silenced the guns. For the D-Day landings, I supplied 17 crews of the 72 required for the final part of Operation Tonga which was the night landing behind the beaches in areas which had been covered with anti-landing poles. These had to be demolished by the sappers before the gliders landed. For the main daylight landing on D-Day itself, I provided 42 crews out of the 256 gliders which were briefed to land. The remainder of my squadron, including myself, were held in readiness to carry the 1st Airborne Division to be landed a few days later to the east of Caen to completely enclose the city, but this operation never took place. Major Ian Toler, 1994
The morning of Monday 5th June passed quietly. Very few people as yet knew that this was now definitely D-1. But at lunchtime, the whispered word ran round among the operational officers, ‘Final briefing at five o’clock!’ There were three briefings, each taking an hour, for three separate but co-ordinated operations, and I listened to them all with rapt intent. The Station Commander, Group Captain Surplice, opened the proceedings in each case by reading orders of the day from the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, and the Commander-in-Chief, Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Then, having explained the general layout of the sea borne assault, he asked General Gale to describe the part his invasion was to play. The briefing over, we returned to the mess. After dinner, a few of us gathered around a very special bottle of wine that I had brought down for the occasion and together we drank to the success of this great venture. It was now ten o’clock and Group Captain Surplice had very kindly suggested that, if I accompanied him, I would see the take-off to the best advantage. First we made the complete tour of the airfield in his car; everything was in order; there was no necessity for any flap or a single last minute instruction. Then, we went to the watch tower, to within a few yards of which each aircraft would taxi up before receiving the signal to go. Midnight came, but somehow we did not think of it as the beginning of the long-awaited D-Day. That had already started hours ago for us. A number of us rendezvoused at General Gale’s glider. There was no awkwardness in that last three-quarters of an hour. The General had just returned from a last visit to his men before they left their camp. He had drunk good English beer with them, and they were still cheering him as they came onto the airfield. I had noticed that chalked on the side of the glider was the name of an English King-Richard the First. That meant, I knew, simply that Richard Gale was to be the first British General to land in France for many hours, but the unintended parallel with the Great Crusader struck me most forcibly. The last scene before the General emplaned was one of those simple, kindly jests in which the British delight. A few mornings before, the General had exclaimed with joy on finding that there was golden syrup for breakfast: ‘By Jove, I love golden syrup, and I haven’t seen any for years!’ Upon which he proceeded to tuck heartedly into it. So now, our smiling Group Captain, who had been his official host, formally presented him with a tin to take to France. I contributed a pound of airtight, tinned Charbonnel & Walker Chocolates. Dennis Wheatley, 1980
On April 21, 1944, my second pilot, Staff Sergeant Fred Baacke, and I were told to start some special training. Apart from gathering that it had something to do with D-Day, we did not otherwise have the slightest idea at that stage of what we were ultimately required to do. The training started in daylight with 6,000-foot tow from Brize Norton to Netheravon where a very small area had been marked out with white tape. ‘Now we want you to get in there’, we were told. This went quite well and we repeated it several times until it was decided that our Albemarle tugs did not have sufficient power for the 6,000-foot climb with a full load and we were transferred to Tarrant Rushton and to Halifax II tugs. For the next phase, a formation of trees close to the east side of Netheravon airfield had been selected and two small fields, side by side, were created. Each day, the six chosen glider crews, three from B Squadron and three from E Squadron, were towed from Tarrant on the same height and course and pull-off point to simulate the operation’s requirements, of which we still knew nothing. Three gliders would land in each of these two very small fields. RAF ground crews were there each day to somehow get the Horsa’s back onto the airfield and service them, which meant that we could only do one landing each day. The operation required that the three gliders were to attack the river bridge had to shed their 6,000 feet as quickly as possible, whereas the three gliders attacking the canal bridge were to carry out a longer more orthodox approach. Our three gliders had only about half the distance to fly although from the same height of 6,000 feet and, in order to lose so much unwanted height in sufficient time, we would have to apply full flaps as soon as we released. This would make navigation extremely difficult, but it had been decided by those formulating this brilliant and audacious plan that the height was necessary to deceive the Germans into thinking that it was a bombing raid. As soon as we cast off, the Halifax tugs were to continue straight on to dropped bombs on Caen. By this time, we were training at night. We had a few lights on the ground but, as our landings became more precise, these were eventually removed and we were told to do spot-on landings in these small fields with no lights or aids of any kind. At first, I thought that it could not be done but, after one or two hairy missions, we found that it could. On May 28, we met our ‘load’ of Major John Howard and his Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and, in my case, Lieutenant Fox and his men. There followed the most intensive briefing on the military side of the operation, greatly aided by an elaborated sand table. This showed every detail of the terrain with all the trees and of course the river and canal with its bridges, but we did not know where it actually was until about two days before D-Day. At 9pm on June 5, we assembled on the runway and loaded our troops under Lieutenant Fox. As No.6 glide, Fred and I were last off and we staggered into the air with a very heavy load at approximately 10.55 pm (Double BST). Latter, I was to suspect that every man probably took a few more grenades here, and extra rounds of ammunition there, because the weight proved to be greater than we had allowed. We crossed the coast near Worthing and set a direct course for Normandy. About three miles from the French coast, the tug navigator gave us a compass check and told us we were on course. Because of the very steep descent angle of a Horsa with full flap (about 45 degrees), our standard P4 compass would have become inoperative, so it was supplemented with a gyro direction indicator. What we were required to do had never been done before, nor to the best of my knowledge was ever required again in the subsequent airborne landings of Arnhem and the Rhine, namely to navigate various courses on a 45-degree angle of descent, dropping at a rate of 2,000 feet per minute in the dark and without aids of any kind. ‘Good luck. Cat off when you like’, came the tug navigator’s message through the wire in our tow rope. Whether I liked it or not was at this stage academic. The culmination of all my training, and indeed of the short 21 years of my life had reached a point of no return and I cast off immediately. I reduced speed and applied full flap but, to my horror, I found that I could not get the speed below 90mph even with the stick fully back. That extra weight was going to ruin all our calculations. I turned my head to the right towards the door between the cockpit and my load and shouted: ‘Mr Fox, Sir! Two men from the front to the back-Quickly!’ This manoeuvre corrected our trim and the Horsa was under proper control again. As well as the gyro-compass, Fred had been supplied with a special light strapped to his head so as not to spoil my night vision which in the next few precious minutes was going to be vital for all of us. So far we had seen nothing, not even the coastline over which we had released. Suddenly, bright as day, we were illuminated by a German parachute flare. Thankfully, we entered a cloud and when we emerged all was dark again. But we were falling like a brick and steering a course at the same time of 212 degrees, to be held for 90 seconds as Fred checked the map and his stop-watch. This covered the first two miles and we turned again onto 268 degrees which we held for 2 minutes and 30 seconds covering a further 3.3 miles. Still not seeing anything of the ground but continuing our half-way-to-the-vertical dive with only the hiss of the slipstream to be heard among all the now silent men, we turned on our third course of 212 degrees for the final run in. We were now at 1,200 feet and there below us the canal and river lay like silver, instantly recognisable. Orchards and woods lay as darker patches on a dark and foreign soil. ‘It’s alright now Fred. I can see where we are’. I said. I thought that it all looked so exactly like the sand-table that I had the strange feeling that I had been there before. I took off the flaps for a moment to slow our headlong descent and to ensure we had sufficient height. I put them back on as we shot towards the line of trees over which I just had to scrape. We the deployed the parachute break specially fitted to the glider in order to shorten our landing run to the minimum to avoid overshoot and being crushed as we hit the embankment which I knew lay at the end of our field. Up with the nose and there came the heavy rumble of the main wheels as we touched down a few minutes after midnight and close to the river bridge. ‘You are in the right place, Sir’, I shouted to Lieutenant Fox who seemed both happy and surprised at the same time as, with a drumming and a crash of army boots along the floor of the glider, he and his men disappeared into the night to shoot up the Germans guarding the bridge. It was up to Fred and me to unload the rest of the stores but now we received a shock as we climbed out through the door of the glider into the field. Where were the other gliders? We had been No.6 and should have been the third to land in our field. Yet apart from a herd of cows which had panicked in front of us as we landed, we were quite alone. Alone in front of the whole invasion force which was not to land on the beaches six miles away until daybreak, and ahead of the main parachute drop by half an hour. It was only much later that we learned that No.5 had undershot by some 400 yards, whilst No.4 due to its tug navigator’s error, was ten miles away with its load busy capturing a bridge on the wrong river. However, realising the error, they were later able to orientate themselves and fight their way through the night to liaise at our bridge-an astonishing feat of skill and determination in itself. Staff Sergeant Roy Howard, 1994
In the glider we all wore Mae West’s, and, taking our places, we all fastened ourselves in and waited for the jerk as the tug took the strain on the tow-rope. Soon it came and we could feel ourselves hurtling down the smooth tarmac. Then we were airborne and once again we heard the familiar whistle of the air rushed by and we glided higher and higher into the dark night. I suppose all men have different reactions on these occasions. I went to sleep and slept soundly for the best part of an hour. I was woken up by a considerable bumping. We had run into a small local storm in the Channel. Major Billy Griffiths, the pilot, was having a ticklish time and the glider was all over the place. Between glider and tug there is an intercommunication line, so that the two pilots can talk to one another. In this bumping we received, the intercommunication line broke; the problem of cast off would have to be solved by judgement. Griffiths merely said, ‘The intercom has bust’. It was only a few minutes after that that he said, ‘We will be crossing the French coast shortly’. We were flying at about 5,000 feet and we soon knew the coast was under us, for we were met by a stream of flak. It was weird to see this roaring up in great golden chains past the windows of the glider, some of it apparently between us and the tug aircraft. Looking out, I could see the canal and the river through the clouds, for the moon was by now fairly well overcast and the clear crisp moonlight we had hoped for was not there. Nevertheless here we were. In a few moments, Griffiths said, ‘We are over the landing zone now and I will cast off at any moment’. Almost as he had said this, we were. The whistling sound and the roar of the engines suddenly died down: no longer were we bumping about, but gliding along on a gloriously steady course. Round we turned, circling lower and lower; soon the pilot turned round to tell us to link up as we were just about to land. We all linked up by putting our arms around the man next to us. We were also, as I have said, strapped in. In case of a crash this procedure would help us to take the shock. I shall never forget the sound as we rushed down in our final steep dive, then we suddenly flattened out, and soon with a bump, bump, bump, we landed on an extremely rough stubble field. Over the field we sped and then with a bang we hit a low embankment. The forward undercarriage wheel stove up through the floor, the glider spun round on its nose in a small circle and, as one wing hit one of those infernal stakes, we drew up to a standstill. We opened the door. Outside all was quiet. About us now the other gliders were coming in, crashing and screeching as they applied their brakes. It was a glorious moment. In the distance from the direction of the bridges, we could now hear bursts of machine gun fire. Except for the arrival of more and more gliders, all around us seemed to be still. It was eerie. Had Ranville been cleared of the enemy? Were the bridges taken, were they intact and safely in our hands? How was Terence Otway and his gallant Battalion faring at the Merville battery? We could still hear intermittent fire from the direction of the bridges. Whilst they were attempting to unload the glider, the passing moments seemed like hours. It was still dark and this unloading was proving to be more difficult than we had anticipated. The crash we had had, though not serious, resulted in the nose being really well dug into the ground and the problem of getting the Jeep out was defeating us. Eventually, we had to give up: and so on foot we set out to Ranville. Major General Richard Gale, 1948
To the 9th battalion had fallen the most dangerous mission of all, the destruction of the coastal battery near Merville. The battalion was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel T.B.H Otway, Royal Ulster Rifles. Otway received his orders on the April 2 and had therefore only two months to rehearse the operation for which he was allowed carte blanche. A spot in England at West Woodhay near Newbury, where conditions were very similar to those subsequently encountered in Normandy, was chosen. It was good agricultural land in full production, but Otway obtained the use of it in 48 hours, though to do so permission had to be obtained from no less than seven different ministries in Whitehall, a record which should surely stand to the credit of the Parachute Regiment. Here in a week the sappers built a scale model of the battery, its shape and dimensions being known to them from the air photographs available. Tubular scaffolding took the place of guns. Not only was the actual objective itself reproduced, so also were the approaches to it. Four mechanical excavators and six large bulldozers, brought on tank transporters from as far away as Liverpool and Plymouth, worked night and day ‘the hours of darkness illuminated by the headlights of vehicles’. Rehearsals by day and night were frequent. Most were conducted with live ammunition and continued until every one of the 35 officers and 600 other ranks composing the battalion knew exactly what his part was and how to play it. On May 31, the battalion was moved to Broadwell and briefed. The briefing lasted five days, and every man attending was required to submit to his immediate superior his own sketch, drawn from memory, of the position he was to occupy. In addition to the assault by the 9th battalion, three gliders carrying volunteers from the 9th battalion and 591st Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers, were to crash-land on the top of the battery, regarding which a large amount of information had been collected. Lieutenant-Colonel T. B H. Otway (as told to Lieutenant Hilary St George Saunders)
As I oriented myself, it appeared that I had been dropped with my stick bag, in the middle of the river Dives. However, what the Germans had done in anticipation was to flood the valley of the Dives. I had tea bags sewn into the top of my battledress trousers, so while I was trying to get out of this lake I was just making cold tea! The way we got out was that we had six-foot ropes with a wooden handle at each end for tie things up. As we met up with others, we linked up with these toggle ropes because if you went into a deep ditch and you weren’t tied to someone, you drowned and there were many drowned that night. After a four hour struggle, we got out, more or less on the edge of out D.Z. The Canadians reported that they had captured the D.Z and the German command post so, as far as I could tell, all was going well. I realised I had to get back to my brigade headquarters as soon as I could, but I thought the vital thing was to find out what success the 9th battalion had had with the battery . By now, I had collected 42 very wet stragglers, and we set off down a track. It was a very mixed party form different battalions, including two naval ratings and an Alsatian messenger dog. It was about twenty to seven in the morning, when all hell broke loose! Then suddenly I heard a noise and I shouted to the chaps to get down. Unfortunately, our little lane had high hedges on both sides and no ditches. I threw myself on top of Lieutenant Peters, and realised that we’d been caught in pattern bombing from low-flying aircraft, and it was horrible. When, thank God, they’d gone, I raised myself on my arms and looked around. This little lane was clouded with dust and dirt and stank of cordite and death. Then I saw a leg in the middle of the road. I knew I had been hit, but when I took another look I saw it had a brown boot on, and I knew it wasn’t mine. The only chap in the brigade who got away with wearing brown boots was the mortar officer of the 9th battalion, Lieutenant Peters, and he was lying right on top of him and he was dead. His leg had been severed from his body, yet I was alive. I had been saved because I had a towel and a spare pair of pants in the bottom of my jump smock, but my water bottle had shattered and I had lost most of my left backside. From that column the only two people who could get on their feet were my brigade defence platoon commander and I. I then had a problem as a commander. There I was surrounded by 30 or so dying or very badly wounded men. Should I stay with them or what? The answer was, of course, no. We were fighting a battle and that we had to get on. We gave jabs to all of them with their own morphia. Then we collected the morphia from the dead and distributed it amongst the living. As we moved off, those men, who were all to die, gave us a cheer. That moment will stay with me forever. Brigadier James Hill 1990
We rallied as many 8 Para Bn and 3 Para Sqn men as possible and kept them moving down to a track junction 123734. There I contacted Captain Juckes, and we reorganised. Our position was confirmed by a signpost at the crossroads at 121732. On taking stock, we appeared to have a recce boat, a MkII camouflet set, 4/500lb of plastic explosive and 45 General Wade charges besides an adequate number of accessories, beehives etc., and the link HQ link 68 set and one 18 set. We had only six trolleys, however, sufficient anyway to carry out some form of demolition on our three bridges. About 40 sappers and NCO’s were present. In the absence of many 8 Para Bn officers, it proved rather difficult to persuade the 8 Bn other ranks to take the lead even under sapper officers, so eventually the point section consisted of Captain Juckes, myself and a few stout-hearted sappers who were not hauling the trolleys. As we moved off to the accompaniment of mortar and MMG fire, a Jeep and trailer with medical stores joined the party. The time was about 0230 hours. The route followed was Herouvillette-Escoville-road junction 140703. The march, which was fortunately unopposed, was a feat of endurance by the sappers hauling the heavily-laden trolleys. Many were limping with DZ injuries, but they all pulled their weight on the trying gradient up to the road junction. On reaching the road junction around 0400 hours, we redistributed the stores amongst the transport available. All the medical stores were unloaded in the timber yard, and all General Wade charges were loaded on the Jeep and trailer. All plastic explosive and the camouflet set were loaded on the trolleys, and I ordered Captain Juckes to proceed at once with the main body of the sappers to attack his bridges; and I took Lieutenant Breese and seven NCO’s and sappers with me in the Jeep and trailer to attack the Troarn bridge. We set off down the road at a moderate pace with everybody ready with a Bren or one of our several Stens for any trouble. Just before the level crossing, we ran slap into a barbed wire knife rest road-block. One Boche fired a shot and then went off. It took 20 minutes hard work with wire cutters before the Jeep was freed. We then proceeded on, leaving behind, it transpired later. Sapper Moon. Major J.C.A. Roseveare, 1946
