Spread from MY STORY: D-Day
by Bryan Perret
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“C’MON, MOVE YOURSELVES! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! D’YOU THINK WE’VE BROUGHT YOU TO THE SEASIDE SO YOU COULD MUCK AROUND IN THE SAND?”
I found the going hard, and for those who were worse affected by seasickness it must have been torture. I reahed the sea wall panting and estimated that I had run approximately 350 yards. To my left a Crab had finished flailing its lane and was moving to one side as a bridge AVRE [Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers] approached. The wall itself was covered in barbed wire and would have been impossible to limb without the ladders. Gasping, the Platoon arrived. In their wake I could see two or three of them sprawled on the sand, and two more helping a third towards the wall.
I ran up the first of the ladders to be placed and jumped over the promenade railings. The whole area beyond was pitted with craters fro the naval bombardment.
“Head for the anti-tank ditch!” I shouted as more of the men joined me. “Use the craters for cover and move in short rushes.”
We were still too far to the right of the three houses, from which the flashes of machine-gun fire had commenced as soon as we appeared. I was shocked to see Corporal Gray flung backwards by a burst just as he reached the top of the ladder. Then we were alternately running and crawling towards the anti-tank ditch, into which we dropped to recover our breath.
“The Mayor’s calling, sir,” said Private Helsby-Frodsham, my signaler.
I took the headset from him but all I could hear was mush, broken now and then by an intelligible word in Duncan Flint’s voice.
“Unreadable, out,” I said, returning the headset. “What’s wrong with this thing? It was working perfectly when we left the ship.”
“I got drenched a couple of times in the landing craft,” replied Helsby-Frodsham. “There must be salt water in the connecters — I’ll dry them off as soon as I get a chance, sir.”
Things began to happen very quickly indeed. An AVRE carrying a huge fascine clambered over the ramp placed by the bridgeslayer and began crawling towards the anti-tank ditch. From low down in the right-hand house there was a flash and a blast cloud of dust.
“Anti-tank gun in the cellar!” shouted Sergeant Warriner. “Look — you can see the concrete reinforcement above the window!”
The German gunner could never have seen anything like the AVRE and its fascine in his life, and his shot passed harmlessly through the fascine itself. Getting the fascine into the ditch was critical if the DDs were to support our attack on the houses, so I ran along the ditch, telling each section to concentrate its fire on the anti-tank gun’s fire slit. The AVRE continued to waddle forwad, halted with a jerk, and the fascine tumbled neatly into the ditch. Our fire must have been having some effect, as the anti-tank gun’s second shot was off-line and simply grazed the side of the AVRE’s turret. The AVRE crossed its fascine, trundled forward a for a few yards, then fired its mortar. I could see the bomb for most of its flight and realized why it was called a flying dustbin. The tremendous explosion caused the front of the building to collapse like a house of cards. I saw two machine gunners who had been firing from an upper window go down with it to be buried under a mound of brickwork and beams that also covered the anti-tank gun’s fire slit. My men cheered lustily.
From My Story: D-Day. Copyright © 2004 by Bryan Perrett. All rights reserved.
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