Recollections of D-Day

“Wave upon wave of heavy aircraft, have been flying over the house. Something important must be happening.”

So wrote my mother on the morning of June 6, 1944. She was in London with my two grandmothers, uncle and family dog. My father was on a troop-ship bound for Egypt. Neither of them knew his destination.

Family Wartime History

My mother’s daily wartime letters are now family history. Earlier this month the era came alive for me when I was in Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Like thousands of others have done, I stood on the grassy dunes above the beaches. I looked at the broad expanse of wet sand and pastel blue sea dotted with pieces of surviving Mulberry Harbour.  I walked the endless rows of white crosses, stopped at memorials and glimpsed the chateaux where allied leaders established headquarters after the invasion.

For the anniversary the roads hummed with military vehicles of every ilk. Flags flew, bands played, heads of state and royalty were there. So too were some of the veterans. Once again the Vets were making the journey back to Normandy.

Pegasus Bridge

I went to Benouville, a village by the Pegasus Bridge where a memorial service was held to honor British horsa glider pilots. These pilots accomplished a particularly daring operation in the early hours of D-Day. The service was attended by Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as well as some of the vets.

Benouville Bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge, after the 6th Airborne’s flying horse badge emblem. It spanned the Caen Canal and in the years of planning leading up to D-Day Benouville/Pegasus bridge and the adjacent Ranville bridge over the River Orne, were considered vital for the success of the invasion. If they were held the enemy could be prevented from counter-attacking allied forces at Sword Beach.

Code Message: Ham and Jam

To accomplish the safe capture of the bridges Operation Deadstick was devised. It was led by Major John Howard. 181 men were towed in horsa gliders over the English Channel and released. Using stopwatch and compass, pilots had to land precisely and silently. Howard’s glider came down 47 yards from Pegasus Bridge.

Both bridges were held until reinforcements arrived from 7th Parachute Battalion.  The coded message “Ham and Jam” indicated that both bridges had been captured. The battle was brief – over in 10 minutes- with loss of only two. This action favorably determined the events of D-Day and proved decisive in the liberation of France. Pegasus Bridge is now legendary.

The Memorial Service for the pilots was held in a meadow by the canal. Prince Charles laid a wreath on the memorial. Then he and Camilla walked across the Pegasus Bridge. They spoke with many in the crowd and I was honoured when Prince Charles spoke briefly with me.

Photographs, gliders and Oral History

The bridge has now been replaced with a more modern one. The old one is restored and on a grassy mound close to the Pegasus Bridge Museum.

The Museum houses much memorabilia including oral history of that night by participants, uniforms, individual stories and masses of photographs.

I walked over to the Museum. As the Vets walked around it, their medals gleamed as they talked with and about their old friends and the old days.

There was a model of a glider outside, completely restored. Most of them had shattered on impact. There was a long queue to look inside at the cramped conditions.

Anniversary Ranville Parachute Drop

It was time for lunch – and after all in France this is taken seriously.  Nothing would happen now for another couple of hours.

This gave me time to get to Ranville.  Scheduled there at 3:00 was a reenactment of the D-Day parachute drop. I sat by the side of a wheat field in the sun with so many other nationalities including, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Canadian as well as British and Americans.

Some joked Prince Charles was taking a long time for his lunch – but our patience was rewarded when two spitfires with D-Day stripes zoomed over the field. Markers and hang-gliders were dropped – one carrying a Union Flag.

Then with a roar they came. DC3 Dakotas – the war horse of WW2 – as someone explained to me.  They flew low over the trees – as they must have done in the early hours of June 6.

“It may look graceful but it is easy to break a leg.”

Then right on target, sticks of parachutes were dropped. They opened and the paratroopers descended gracefully.

“It may look graceful but it is easy to break a leg.” someone commented wryly.   One of the original June 6, 1944 paratroopers was in the drop. He made it to ground as safely the second time, 70 years after the first D-Day drop.

Reflections on D-Day

I thought again of my mother in London. Spending nights in the family air-raid shelter in the garden. The days spent trying to stretch meagre wartime rations to feed the household.

There was a story of a cornucopia of vegetables they found one morning, blown over the garden wall in the night when a bomb hit a nearby vegetable garden. There was the worry of my father as he sailed further and further away.  My emotions inevitably welled up.

But D-Day 2014 belongs to the veterans of the allied campaigns.  In 1944 many were still in their teens. Members of Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation.  It is best summed up, not by me but with this poem I saw placed below the remains of the old Pegasus Bridge.