Читать книгу Remembering D-day: Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes - Martin Bowman - Страница 33

Duty Petty Officer.

‘I was Duty Petty Officer on the night of 5 June. It was remarkably quiet and after the previous night’s cancellation because of adverse weather conditions, the operation was under way. For once the operators had time to chat amongst themselves, wondering if their boyfriends had sailed off to France too? Would we get any leave beforehand? Would the invasion succeed? How bad would the casualties be? All of these thoughts were bandied about, helping to pass the time – it was a very long night. Because of the use of scramblers we could only anticipate what was happening, but a call from General Omar Bradley at about 02:00 gave us cause to hope that everything was going to plan. The RAF had bombed the coastal batteries between Le Havre and Cherbourg and gliders had landed Airborne Divisions behind the coastline of Normandy. By the end of the Middle Watch we received news that everything was going well and at 06:30 the first seaborne troops were landing on the beaches. I finally went off duty at 08:00 and then came the BBC announcement of the landings. The Mess echoed to an almighty cheer. After all the planning the beginning of the end was in sight. Our lads were in France and we had been part of it! I walked down the tree-lined drive at Southwick House very tired but very happy.’