D-Day - 75 years on
Operation Overlord was the biggest amphibious and airborne invasion the world had ever seen and it changed the course of the Second World War.
Seventy-five years ago today the landings on the Normandy beaches proved pivotal and within a year the war in Europe would be over.
By the beginning of June 1944, Britain had been at war with Germany for nearly five years and most of Europe was under Nazi occupation. The plan for the secret invasion of the French coast was the brainchild of US Field Marshall Dwight D Eisenhower and had two key elements – airborne troops from the British and American armies would parachute into Normandy the night before the amphibious landings to secure vital bridges and roads inside France.
This would allow a route into Europe for the advancing allied troops as they came ashore on beaches – codenamed Omaha, Utah, Sword, Juno and Gold.
The coast, known as Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, had been heavily fortified it was still widely believed by the Germans that the attack would come from the much shorter crossing at Calais.
West Berkshire and Wiltshire played a huge part in the preparations that preceded the vast allied armada crossing the English Channel, with General Eisenhower giving his troops a rousing speech at Greenham Common on the eve of the battle.
Here we look back at how the district played a pivotal role in that decisive battle that was to be the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Europe.
Making of the Mulberry harbours
The Newbury Weekly News' John Herring interviewed the town’s last surviving Normandy veteran, Gordon Smith, five years ago for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Mr Smith served in 1051 Port Company, Royal Engineers during the Second World War and helped build the portable temporary Mulberry harbours to assist with the offloading of cargo onto the beaches.
Speaking to the Newbury Weekly News in 2014, Mr Smith explained how he boarded a barge in England at 4pm on the day after D-Day and landed on Juno beach at around 6pm the following day. He said: “I was very, very seasick. I jumped in a shell hole because I was so weak on my legs.”
Mr Smith said that he had to explain his condition to a soldier who had asked where his wound was and was told to crawl up the beach as German machine gunners were still entrenched. He added: “One thing I was ashamed of was that I was hiding behind dead bodies on the beach; but you had to survive. The biggest thing I can remember about Normandy was the noise. Days of bombers coming across to bomb the Germans. It was like a gigantic firework display and I lost my hearing in one ear because of that.”
After regrouping with his unit, Mr Smith progressed through Belgium and The Netherlands where he was told that the war was going so well in Normandy that his unit was regrouped to Scotland. From there he was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant and sent to India for jungle training in preparation to fight the Japanese.
However, when he landed on a beach in Malaya a huge cheer erupted from servicemen as the Japanese had surrendered following the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Mr Smith ended up in Singapore ranked as Staff Sergeant in General Miles Dempsey’s personal staff.
He returned to Britain in 1946 and joked that he “did a very silly thing” and married Sylvia Nash in 1947. Mr Smith who celebrated his 95th birthday on May 1, 2019 was one of six brothers and five sisters, and was the first in his family to become a nonagenarian.
Newbury’s last D-Day veteran travelled to a special ceremony on the beaches that shaped history to mark the 70th anniversary of the landings in 2014, and his face graced many national newspapers at the time.
Speaking to the Newbury Weekly News at the time, Mr Smith said that he nearly cancelled his trip to the commemorative event, owing to broken fingers and a damaged leg; but his partner, Wendy Plant, helped to change his mind. In a tearful reunion with mates and memories, Mr Smith stood on the Normandy sands and reflected on his part in the largest seaborne invasion in history.
He said: “You could see some of your mates fall, but we were told to leave them. We wear the medals for our mates who are still there. They’re the real heroes. That’s what gets you. When you see all those gravestones with the names of kiddies aged 18 and 19 who didn’t get up the beach. I’m very pleased I went over there. It brought back tremendous memories and there were mixed emotions for all of us. You see old men crying but you can understand it. Anywhere that I go where there’s a beach brings back memories. You try to cancel out the memories, but you can’t.”
Mr Smith, who was born in Kings Road, Newbury, was one of hundreds of Allied veterans who made the pilgrimage to France; and were met with cheers and applause from the population of villages that were liberated 70 years ago. Mr Smith added: “The welcome we had from the French people was absolutely marvelous. It was very, very sentimental. Everywhere we went the French people wanted their photographs taken with us. Even the children were asking for our pictures.
"It was so overwhelming. I shook hands with French people more times than the Queen. I’ve never seen such crowds. People were shouting out ‘thank you for our freedom’. I was part of the largest seaborne invasion in history and I hope it never happens again.”
The Screaming Eagles
Their emotions are mixed when they return and as they remember. Nearly 60 years earlier the two, now elderly, men had spent 11 months in the tiny Wiltshire village of Aldbourne, preparing to take part in Operation Overlord.
Flying in again from their homes in south Philadelphia, Staff Sgt William ‘Wild Bill’ Guarnere and Sgt Edward ‘Babe’ Heffron, who served with the 101st Airborne during the Second World War, were there to remember the good times and then the devastation that followed.
The American servicemen of Easy Company were immoratlised by historian Stephen Ambrose, in his book Band of Brothers, where he wrote: “Half the people of Aldbourne, and nearly all the unmarried girls, were there to wave goodbye. There were many tears. The baggage left behind gave some hope that the boys would be back.”
And back the boys have come. Sarah Bosley had the pleasure of joining them.
That was 13 years ago and I had the pleasure of accompanying the war veterans from the legendary Easy Company as they returned to Littlecote House.
As we sat in one of the oldest rooms in the Tudor mansion of Littlecote House, Mr Heffron, who was the first allied soldier to enter liberated Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and Mr Guarnere, confined to a wheelchair after losing his leg during the Battle of the Bulge at Foy, shared their earliest memories of Aldbourne with me.
“I remember our last few days in the village. We got word that we were going to move out to a marshalling area and we had to leave," Mr Heffron said. “We always thought that the people of Aldbourne didn’t care much for our antics, but we found out the morning we were leaving that that wasn’t true.
“The village people lined up in the street and cried and cried. I guess mothers were thinking about their own boys and seeing us go they thought bad thoughts – that you’re not going to come back. Many didn’t, either.”
“It [Aldbourne] has got a special place in our hearts,” Mr Guarnere added. “Something draws you here. What that is, I have no idea, but it’s something. I have come back here to remember the people who served here. My mind goes to the mend that served in Aldbourne and got killed, and those that are alive today and the local people too.”
Mr Heffron, who has been back to the village and Littlecote House on five occasions since the war, added: “The first time I came back to the village I got out of the cab and I started to walk up to St Michael’s Church and the cemetery and it all came back to me. I heard voices, I heard singing, I heard bolts being pulled back on weapons.
“About a year later I got Bill to go to Aldbourne and he heard the same thing; I felt really good then. I was in Easy Company, but kid, it wasn’t easy.”
New neighbours
One of the area’s most famous wartime inhabitants was General Dwight D Eisenhower, who lived at Woodstock House, on Burys Bank Road, in Greenham in the run up to D-Day. But many other country houses across the district were also requisitioned for military use.
Basildon Park became home to the 81st Airborne Anti-Aircraft Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division on September 17, 1943. Enlisted men were billeted in Nissen huts in the grounds, while the officers lived on the top floor of the house.
The Georgian Mansion at Benham Valence, which had been a Red Cross Hospital during the First World War, became home to American paratroopers, while Standen House, in Hungerford, Hamstead Park, and the Norland College buildings were all given over to US airborne units.
Aldermaston Court was requisitioned from the Congreve family in May 1942 and became the headquarters of the 9th Airforce’s Air Support Command.
Local lads go into battle
Men from the 5th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment were part of No8 Beach Group and assigned to Juno beach on D-Day.
Landing in the first wave at Bernieres-sur-Mer, the men were tasked with unloading the landing crafts and setting up radio stations, food and fuel depots, ammunition dumps and a field hospital.
General's final resting place
The quiet country churchyard at Yattendon is the final resting place of one of the top generals in Operation Overlord.
Lt General Miles Dempsey enjoyed a glittering military career and took part in both the First and Second World Wars. As a captain in the Berkshires he won a Military Cross for bravery in 1918, while serving in the trenches.
He became commanding officer of the 1st battalion, Royal Berkshires at the start of the Second World War and was evacuated at Dunkirk.
In December 1942 he became one of Field Marshall Mongomery's right hand men with the Eighth Army in North Africa, before leading the assault on Sicily in 1943 and the advance through Italy.
He was then called upon again by his friend Field Marshall Montgomery, in January 1944, to command the majority of British troops on D-Day.
He retired from the army in 1947 and held ceremonial posts such as Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire and Colonel-in-Chief of the SAS. He died in 1969 and is buried in Yattendon.
Elliotts factory
Around 600 workers at the Newbury factory - many of them women evacuees from London - swapped making oak furniture for assembling the wooden Horsa gliders that would carry the paratroopers to Normandy.
By the end of the war, Elliotts would produce more than any other factory in the south. After the war, staff were collectively appointed MBE for their services to the war effort.
Back in 2004, the Newbury Weekly News joined the country in commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Many residents reminisced about the part they played in the war and shared their memories with our reporters. Geoff Jacobs (right) was one of them.
As he left another 12-hour shift at the Elliotts factory in 1944, Geoff saw the sky turn black and realised something was up. Hundreds of carrier planes were soaring across the skies, towing the Horsa gliders he and his 600 co-workers had spent months assembling.
“It was quite obvious there was a major airlift on,” the 84-year-old remembered. “All these bombers were going over, and then the skies suddenly went black with gliders. We knew something dramatic was taking place.”
Geoff was a supervisor at the factory during the war and had been making the large drop-down door that allowed vehicles to be loaded on the gliders.
“They were made up from a tremendous number of small parts, and some of the tiny ribs for the carriage were no thicker than a match,” he said. “The women were using circular saws and it was tremendous. They did a wonderful job.”
Assault on the Merville Battery
Described as one of the most daring and costliest of the whole operation, the assault on the Merville Battery was planned and rehearsed on the hillside at Inkpen.
The allies believed that the gun battery was made up of heavy-calibre guns that would threaten the British troops landing on nearby Sword Beach, so before dawn on June 6, 1944 the 9th Parachute Battalion was sent in to destroy it.
As was the case with so many of the men parachuted in to Normandy that day, the paratroopers landed over a large area and only a fraction of the battalion made it to the rendezvous point, but they were able to successfully capture the battery, ensuring a safer path for the men who would later land on Sword Beach.
Troop carriers
The planes that would take the paratroopers and tow the gliders to Normandy were also based at Greenham, Membury and Welford airfields.
'It was sheer hell' - Eddie Jones' D-Day, in his own words
As an 81-year-old in 2004, Eddie Jones recalled his experience of D-Day for the Newbury Weekly News.
Mr Jones, who worked for the paper from 1960 until his retirement in January 1988, was conscripted in 1941 and joined the Royal Navy.
He served aboard Motor Gun Boat 317, leaving from Southampton, and landed in France on June 6, 1944 - D-Day.
This is his account, in his own words, of that day.
"An eerie silence hanging over the Solent was suddenly shattered by a cacophony of hooters and sirens heralding that the beginning of the invasion of France was to proceed.
“Having waited an extra day because of bad weather in the English Channel, it was no thought that the conditions – though not perfect – would never get any better.
“The armada of small ships, landing craft, frigates, destroyers and many others provided a magnificent spectacle as we all moved slowly away. Our captain, on opening sealed orders, revealed that our job on Motor Gun Boat 317 was to stay with the landing craft, each carrying roughly 80 soldiers and shepherd them in when reaching the Normandy beaches at Arromanches.
“We had not moved far before a Royal Marine band on board one of the ships struck up with the hymn ‘Jerusalem’, and in no time at all you could hear from all the boats around voices singing to the tune. It was a glorious moment.
“Everyone was tense as we progressed through the night, until a noise like a hundred thunderstorms going off at once brought the whole crew bolt upright.
“The big guns of the battleships had begun blasting away at the distant coastline, with all the shells screaming overhead.
“We now knew that this was the real beginning. After a terrific pounding the funs ceased and then came the biggest air display ever to be seen anywhere.
“Over 300 planes, each towing a glider, blackened the sky as they passed overhead. The sound was unbelievable. They crossed the coast, released the gliders carrying the airborne troops, and veered off to fly back to base. Most of the gliders – Horsas – were built in Newbury, at Elliotts.
“Now, closed up tight to the landing craft, we were not far off the beach at Arromanches, and my thoughts went out to all those soldiers who were now preparing themselves for the big moment, knowing that they had to alight some way out from the beach and wade in the water with all their equipment.
“As the beach was stormed, the Germans opened up their fire power, with many of our soldiers never even making it out of the water. Those that did were lucky to get off the beach; there were literally bodies everywhere. It was sheer hell, a real nightmare.
“When our initial job was completed, we returned to port in Southampton. My fun boat had been one of a flotilla of six; only two made it safely through the operation and returned to England. The two on either side of us hit mines off the French coast and went straight down, but most of the ratings were picked up.
“We went back to the beaches three days later, again on escort duty.
“The whole operation was a gigantic endeavour, a bigger event the whole world will never see again. If I had not been part of it I could never have imagined what it would be like to witness what transpired in those few hours, with such tragic loss of young lives.
“I can honestly say it was the worst day of my life. I’m not a hero. I was only doing a job and was lucky to come back and tell the tale. I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what we went through.”
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them
From 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon. His ashes are scattered at St Mary's Church, Aldworth