There was a thread a while back about peoples reminiscences during the war. Cant find it at the moment, but this e-mail i received was too interesting to leave out. It was from a chap called Walt who was in the Home Guard until he was old enough to join up. This is what he remembers about D-Day.
Tim (too)
Looking Back to that era. is very fresh in my memory.
We knew days before hand that it was about to happen as the hundreds of trucks etc. lining the streets of
Yeovil for many weeks, started to move.
The Westland HG was mustered in full battle gear, such as we had.
I was nervous to say the least, but tried not to show it. As did the others.
As the convoys had to move to precise timing , it was expected that German Parachutists might
make an effort to disrupt the flow and we were told it was our job to prevent this, as the US troops
could not help.
Oh Great. !!! German Parachutists. Luckily we had such control of the air that the troop transports would have ended up in the channel.
Then as the next day dawned we had orders to prepare to go to France to either guard prisoners or be last ditch reserves if the landings went badly.
Our HG being mainly young and of military age, we had lots of training, and were obviously considered ready for the problems.
I had to face the fact, as did others that life may be short.
After three or four days , we were in the clear.
We were attached at times to the US forces for exercises etc.. I had a squad of bewildered GI's at one time.
They were artillery forces from Houndstone, not infantry.
I wish I had kept in touch with some of them. Would be great to see them again.
However I expect they would be so old, they would not recognize me. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spare a thought tomorrow for those, who did not make it back.