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Thread: On this Day |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 7th June 1944
----------------------------------------Those zebra-striped planes were on the way to Normandy to provide air cover for the D-day landings. 194 Field Ambulance will be taking some part in the landings, but not the first wave. We do not know where and when we are going. Meanwhile the sergeant conducts a Quiz Night to relieve the boredom. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 7, 2007 10:58:31 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 7th June 1944
----------------------------------------Tomorrow would be pay day, but British money is not going to be much use to us from now on, so we receive little orange coloured vouchers, each worth a multiple of one French franc, nominally worth sixpence. [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 9, 2007 9:06:42 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 8th June 1944
----------------------------------------194 FA men are issued with two new items of equipment - a "Mae West" each and a trenching tool between two men; also string to tie the back packs, as the straps will no longer reach the buckles. Each company has a three tonner and a 15 cwt truck for the march from camp to an anonymous railway station (probably Pulborough, but there are no place signs these days, in case of enemy invasion). The drivers bid us goodbye and take away the vehicles. Thus begins our journey to another anonymous railway station (is it Eastleigh? Alternatively, could it be Brockenhurst?). From there we march to a forest (the New Forest?), where we camp for the night. There are many stops en route, and every train we see is full of troops. So, they tell us, is every train on the Southern Railway. Friday, 8th June 1945 Bundy works on those statistics then takes a walk to the boathouse and has a row on the Schweriner See. On the way, he notices that the Schwerin Opera House is now the 15th Scottish Div. Opera House. The stalls, he discovers later, are strictly for the troops, but the gallery is available to civilians. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 9, 2007 8:40:55 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 9th June 1944
----------------------------------------Up at dawn; footslog to Southampton and camp for the day and night in Central Park Saturday, 9th June 1945 Bundy liberates a radio set, an AC/DC mains superhet. Unfortunately, it mainly receives German stations, as the previous German government has not allowed civilians to buy sets suitable for receiving foreign broadcasts. It does, however, receive the B.B.C. forces programme sometimes, but weakly. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 13, 2007 1:16:09 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 10th June 1944
----------------------------------------We rise with the lark. No church bells - they have been silent for 3 years. Shave in cold water, with a sheet of polished metal for a mirror. It is odd how the memory latches on to minor differences like having brushless shaving cream and an Ever Ready razor. All the others try to whip up lather for their Gillette razors. Hot field breakfast, an issue of military francs and a field can opener, and then off we go marching down Bugle Street to the Royal Pier, throwing away our British currency as we go. Once on board the LSI (Landing Ship, Infantry), we stow our kit and come up on deck to pose for a news camera operator on the pier. Soon we sail down the Test into Southampton Water and the Solent and across a rather choppy English Channel. At midday, those of us who have managed to keep our breakfast down treat ourselves to self-heated cans of soup. This is where that field can opener comes in useful. In the middle of the lid is a second lid, which one can lift off with the handle of the opener to reveal a strip of metallic magnesium, which we can light with a lighted cigarette. This in turn lights a stick of thermite, which heats the soup. If you shake the can and pierce it before it boils, it makes a satisfying meal; otherwise, it becomes a fair substitute for a hand grenade. When darkness falls, we bunk down for the night wherever we can. There is nothing else to do, nothing to see - not that there was much to do or see by daylight. Some had played cards or dice, while others had grabbed bunks while they were available. Sunday, 10th June 1945 Bundy and Will Farmer go motor boating at 15th Scottish Div. Boating Club on the Beutel, a smaller lake connected to the Schweriner See. The boat is a dinghy with an inboard Ford engine (and gearbox!), cooled by filtered lake water. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 10, 2007 11:29:37 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 11th June 1944
I cannot remember what, if anything, we had for breakfast. I know at least some of us had none and others might as well not have bothered. However, Sergeant Bull has a good supply of self heating cans of soup, which make a satisfying meal for most of us. Information is now forthcoming. We are heading for Sword Beach, which is, or has been, a seaside resort called "Lion-sur-mer". Soon it comes in sight and the two ruined, last remaining, buildings are clear to us. Between these is our target, a ramp. The ship will strike ground on the next ingoing tide. As we wade ashore and the tide rises, it will become ungrounded, so we must complete the landing as quickly as possible and our backpacks are lined up in the bows for quick pick-up. All goes well - just one hitch as far as Bundy is concerned. His pack has disappeared. After some frantic body language signals from the beach, he picks up the last remaining pack and wades ashore to exchange packs with “Tommy” Atkins. Now we take off our Mae Wests and put on our large packs, squelch across the wide beach to the ramp and up it to the coast road where we turn left towards Hermanville, passing a field full of what appear to be hefty toy tanks on wires, then a pit with a notice "Throw your Mae Wests in here". Bundy is not yet adapted to dry land and the road seems to be rolling, but this sensation soon passes off as we continue marching to Ouistreham. Here we dig in for the night. Again, I cannot remember what meal or meals we had, but we must have prepared them ourselves from our 24-hour ration packs, using Tommy cookers, as we had no field kitchen. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 12th June 1944
No reveille, no bugle, no breakfast canteen. No water except what we have in our water bottles, and many of us have used that en route. The rest of use water wastefully, washing and shaving, then go off in small groups, looking for more. After a breakfast of dehydrated porridge, tea (made from a sloppy packet of mixed tea leaves, sugar and condensed milk) and hard biscuits, Bundy joins one of these groups. Another group, returning for breakfast, directs us to the mobile reservoir, which the army has set up in the street below the permanent reservoir. Soon, our bottles are full and Bundy can chat with the locals. A nondescript, collarless, dog runs into the road and dies under the wheels of an army truck. Bundy remarks, “Ah, le pauvre chien”. His civilian companion replies, “C’est la guerre!” with a shrug of the shoulders. Tuesday, 13th June 1944 There is no sign of transport. A popular wartime song starts "We don't know where we're going until we're there". A more appropriate start would now be "We don't know how we're going or when or where". Soon it will be even more appropriate to sing, "We don't know where we are, but we are here". We take advantage of the lull to write letters home. They have censored our letters for some time. We have to head them with number, rank and name, company, unit, "somewhere in England" and dated. We might not give any other hint to our location, but now we may not keep diaries either, so from now on dates will be approximate, unless confirmed by history. However, we can now substitute "France" for "England" in our letters. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 14th June 1944
The next day, transport arrives, but it is not our three-tonner. The driver and co-driver are strangers, wearing the "Crusader" shoulder flashes of First Army, while ours wear the rampant red lion of Scotland. There is no equipment aboard, so there is room there for all of us - officers, N.C.O.s and O.R.s - standing, but it still better than yomping. Our destination proves to be an isolated farmhouse and barn, just outside St. Gabriel. Water is, or should be, supplied by a pump in the farmyard, but the pump handle is booby trapped with a German hand grenade. Bundy, who trained with hand grenades as a tank trooper, volunteers to defuse the grenade, but the O.C. turns him down. While waiting for someone to defuse the pump, we march down to the village in search of drinking matter, Bundy in charge, being the only French speaker. They offer tots of what the men take to be cider, but one sniff tells Bundy this is something much stronger. Later, with hindsight, we come to recognise this as Calvados, and meanwhile it is going to cause a few casualties. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 15th June 1944
The pump is now safe, but gives no water; until one man declares that it needs to be primed and donates some water for the purpose. The question now is "Is the water safe"? The men take no chances. We have received extra 24-hour packs to tide us over until our water tanker arrives, but what good are dehydrated rations without water? The WD has foreseen that situation. In those packs are what one wag calls "dehydrated water" - tablets of calcium chloro-hypochlorite. One of these in a water bottle for 24 hours, then neutralised with a tablet of sodium thiosulphate provides safe, if not exactly tasty, water. The old "Halt! Who goes there?" and the standard answers have become obsolete. Now password and reply replace them and for tonight these are "fish" and "chips". |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 16th June 1944
Turns out St.Gabriel is an outpost of 21 Army Group main HQ, in fact the main concentration area, hence the special passwords. Rear HQ is in St. Paul’’s School in London and 21 Army Group shoulder flashes are based on the school badge. Weather is chilly for June, wet and stormy and the rest of the unit is still holding back somewhere. Assuming, conveniently, that we are too far from the front for Gerry's artillery, we stop digging in and huddle in the barn. Someone has found some used cartridges, some of copper and some of mild steel. An hour later, we convert these to "red" and white chessmen. Now we have a pastime, in addition to our seminars in field cooking. |
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