Today is
the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings that led to the
liberation of France, Belgium and Holland and the ending of the World Wars of
the 20th Century.
My dad,
Eric Rayner, didn’t hit the beaches on the first day. He put his boots on
French soil (or rather sand) at Gold or Sword beach (I’m not certain which one)
on D+a-day-or-so (again I’m not sure).
I should
have talked more to my dad about his war, but mostly he was never particularly
forthcoming. I have a job on my to-do list to properly research his war record
but have not yet got around to it, so these are my memories of his memories. I
wasn’t taking notes, so some of this needs to be verified.
The best
time to get dad to talk was after a shared event. We watched the film The
Longest Day with John Wayne and that gave some opportunity to ask questions (my
dad didn’t think the film gave a particularly accurate account of D-Day). The
best talk we had was when we visited him after we’d had a family holiday to
Normandy. I wish I’d made a quick return trip with dad. The trouble is you
think you’re all going to live forever and there will be time next year – not
so!
I know my
dad served in the Northumberland Fusiliers initially and was then transferred
to the Middlesex Regiment (I don’t know if this was before or after D-Day). He
was in a heavy machine gun (Vickers) and mortar group and drove universal
carriers. He took a lot of interest in my Airfix models of Bren Carriers
(another opportunity for a small boy to ask questions).
My dad and
his comrades had been embarked on troop carrier some time ahead of D-Day, which
was then postponed for a day due to bad weather. Of course, they didn’t know
where they were going or when. His memory of this time was of seasickness. Lots
of people were seasick. He said they’d been sitting out in the Bay of Biscay
getting tossed around in the storm, they had to stay below decks and they were
constantly frightened of being torpedoed by a U-boat.
I never got
a Saving Private Ryan gritty reality of fighting from my dad, but he did talk
about all the dead horses and cows, their bodies bloated by decomposition, that
lay scattered among the fields of Normandy. I think he thought it particularly
unjust that they were dragged into the conflict.
The only
time I remember him talking about human bodies was when we came back from
France. I had a large-scale map of where we’d been and he wanted to try to
locate Hill 112, a fierce battle in the push to take Caen that had cost many
lives. He said Hill 112 was a fortified strongpoint dominating a strategic
crossroad. His group had been involved and they had moved through the
battlefield the following day before the bodies had been removed. I think that
brought home to them what might happen. We never did find Hill 112, but the
battle is well documented and it’s one of those tasks I need to get around to.
Land mines
were a constant fear and must have been an enormous stress. He did have a lot
of respect for the Germans, including their landmines. There was one that they
called a jumping jack, which flew up in the air before exploding, so it caused
a number of non-fatal shrapnel wounds to a larger number of people (the thinking
being that you can leave a dead man, but you have to look after a wounded man).
There was also a mine placed in the road that wouldn’t go off when the first
vehicle ran over it; it might take five or six. For drivers of lightly armoured
universal carriers (like my dad) this would have been a constant fear. You
didn’t only have to worry if you were the lead vehicle …
Dad was
massively impressed by the scale of German fortifications. He couldn’t believe
how they’d done so much in such a short time and what a waste it all was. If
only all that effort had gone into a peaceful purpose.
The allied ‘weapon’
he was most impressed with was the self-heating soup. Troops were given tins of
soup with a pull-string at the bottom. You pulled the string, which must have
released a chemical into a compartment and heated up the soup above. He
couldn’t understand why they weren’t made in the present day. I suppose that
working on building sites after the war, he’d have seen a good use for that.
He spent
some time after the invasion on the outskirts of Caen, which the Germans were
determined to hold onto. Dad said there were huge warships in the Channel
firing their 15in guns into the city. He said you’d see the flashes at night
and then hear the sound of the guns – like lightning and thunder – you’d then
hear the shell making an oscillating whistle as it passed overhead. In the
daylight, he said it was fairly easy to see the shells in the air. The navy and
air force were two areas where we had the edge on the Germans and rocket-firing
ground attack aircraft like the Typhoon were a welcome sight.
He also
witnessed the bombing of Caen by the RAF, raids which reduced this mediaeval
city to ruins and, ironically, made it harder for the attacking troops trying
to negotiate the rubble.
He’d spent
some time outside Bayeux and was interested when we gave him an account of
seeing the tapestry.
Being in a
machine-gun company, he was interested in the pros and cons between the German Spandau
and the British Vickers. The Spandau had a more rapid rate of fire, but was
air-cooled. The barrel soon became white hot and would warp and jam if it
wasn’t allowed to cool. The Germans would get around the problem by changing
the barrel (which took just a few seconds) while the British Vickers had its
barrel encased in a water jacket and could fire for extended periods, an hour
or more when they wanted to lay down supressing fire. The water would be
circulated into a separate reservoir in a can and the water would boil if they
were firing for an hour or more. Dad’s mortars were single tubes and fairly small
bombs. The Germans had a six-barrel Nebelwerfer mortar, which fired
rocket-assisted bombs and which the allies called Moaning Minnies because of
the wail they made. They were notable weapons for their theatrical noise, but I
don’t think dad feared them like he did mines, regular mortars or 88mm guns.
He told me
one story about a day they had just arrived in an orchard when they came under
mortar fire. There had not been time to dig trenches so they hit the deck. Dad
said that it was very scary because the bombs were exploding when they hit the
tree branches and shrapnel was being blasted more widely as a result.
When the
barrage finished, one man didn’t get up. Dad said there wasn’t a mark on his
body, but a piece of shrapnel had gone up him bum and killed him. I don’t know
if that is true.
Earlier in
the war, dad had volunteered as a glider pilot, but hadn’t been accepted. I
found it hard to think that my dad would have done such a crazy, dangerous
thing. He said lots of his mates had volunteered. I’m quite glad he wasn’t
chosen. There were heavy casualties among glider crews and they would have been
among the first troops to land on D-Day.
The winter
of 1944-45 was bitter cold and dad spent part of it in Belgium billeted with a
family. They had a young daughter, whose company he enjoyed (I guess she was a
similar age to his sister Joan). He said they were very grateful and although
they didn’t have much food themselves (half Europe was starving) they insisted
on giving their meat ration to the soldiers. Dad said he thought the meat was
horse, it was as tough as old boots, but because of their sacrifice they had to
eat it with gusto. I hope they were able to leave them some army rations.
Dad crossed
the Rhine from Holland into Germany. It was very wide, he said, but he had no
sense of what was happening. The allies had laid down smoke for days before and
it was like a think smog when they went across. This memory was sparked by
another Airfix model – the Buffalo amphibious troop carrier. He’d crossed the
Rhine in a Buffalo.
As they got
into Germany, they met more Germans. Once when entering a farm to make sure it
was clear, they saw a trapdoor in the barn floor. They thought there might be
troops inside and prized it open with bayonets with hand grenades ready. It was
the farmer and his family who’d gone down there seeking safety. They were
convinced the British would shoot them, that was the German propaganda.
Dad
finished the war in Hamburg, a city where his grandfather had come from.
Hamburg was a ruin, everything was rubble, but there was still a Woolworth’s
sign clinging on to one of the shops.
