My uncle said that after landing on Sword Beach, he went on to an assembly area which was either Mayflower, Mayfield or Maisyfield (or something similar). Are there any records of the names of the assembly areas?
Welcome to the forum. Have a look at this map: Sword Beach Map D Day I can't see anything that starts with 'May'. Richard Edit: Just had a further look. What about 'Masefield'? http://ww2talk.com/index.php?attachments/m1-jpg.64990/ See: Assembly & Transit Maps - Overlord
Fantastic, thanks Richard! That’s the one! I’ve been wondering for years! I see that those assembly areas are named after literary figures. It also makes sense as he talked about Ranville which is nearby. I have a letter from him describing a mortar attack at the chateau at Ranville which damaged the fuel tank of his jeep and killed an officer sitting on a chair nearby. Masefield assembly area puts him by the town of Ranville. He spoke to me a lot about the landings, from joining and training, to the build up, landing and breakthrough. Mike
Thanks tmac, I can see what you mean. Ranville is the other side of the River Orne which he will have crossed much later on so it won’t be near the assembly areas. I know that on 7 July he was still in Hermanville, as he celebrated his 21st birthday there in a trench having received a cake that my grandmother sent over, so crossing the Orne will have happened after that. He was with 41 Line Section 1 Corps Signals, later attached to 6 Airborne following their loss of signals. If Masefield is the area he meant, it looks like he went West before the move to the East over Pegasus Bridge and on to Ranville, Merville, then Belgium (Limburg was mentioned) and other areas from there.
