ryan_box023-tld_f47_02

BLACKADER WAS MOST INSISTENT ABOUT NOT BEING QUOTED OR MENTIONED
IN ANY WAY, EXCEPT AS BACK-0F-THE-BOOK CREDIT. SO, PLEASE DO NOT
QUOTE.
Brig. K. G. Blackader,[inserted]CBE, DSO, MC. [end inserted][crossed out]Public[end crossed out] [inserted]Chartered[end inserted] Accountant
McDonald, Currie and Co.
507 Place D'Armes [inserted]Montreal [end inserted] VI -98311
Age 46 at D-Day, not married, not wounded.
Commanded the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade -- 3 battalions, 4-5000 men.
His Divisional Commander was Maj. Gen. R. F. L. Keller.
Trained for a year in the South of England and Scotland. Knew in
July '43 he was training men for D-Day. Felt thrilled and con-
fident.
He had conversations with other commanders every day, and knew as
soon as they did it was to be on June 5th. And they knew, he
guesses, 2 or 3 weeks before. The date wasn't told in a group,
he thinks, but individually.
Before noon on June 4th they knew it had been postponed by Eisenhower.
At 4 p.m. on June 5th, he went aboard the headquarters ship, a [crossed out] [illegible]xxxx[end crossed out]
Royal Navy Frigate, H.M.S. Waveney. He had a cabin to himself.
He slept "very well, thank you." He wasn't worried, nervous,
or keyed up. (I'll bet.)
When the sun came up, and it was early at that time of year (I think
he's read all the books on D-Day) he was up on the bridge,
watching and listening to the wireless as to what was going
on. The first of his troops went in right after 8 a.m. --
around 8:20. They were late in getting over, and as a result
the tide was too far in and that's why they pitched[inserted] [end inserted]on the under-
water obstacles. They[inserted] [end inserted]went in to Berniere-sur-Mer.
Around 9 or 9:30 he went in -- right after his troops. Three
regular landing craft were scheduled to take him ashore, and
none of them made it to his ship. So he got worried, and
yelled to an LCM floating around with a man in the Royal
Navy running it. Blackader doesn't know to this day what
on earth the man was doing, or thought he was doing, where
he was going or where he was supposed to be going. (Whatever
it was, I'll bet Blackader scared him out of it.) But this
craft took 7 of them ashore -- his liason officer, his signaler,
his batman, Lt. Col. of the Artillery H.S. Griffin, Lt. Pare,
an information officer, and Pare's signaler. The batman, signaler
and liason officer were with him constantly. When they landed,
they went in over their heads. It was about 10 a.m. by now.
[crossed out]The H.M.S. Prince David was sunk during that day.[end crossed out]
When they got ashore, they ran about a fourth of a mile to the church,
ducking all the way. Most of the houses in the town were burning,
wires were down, and burning bits[inserted] [end inserted]were falling into the street.
Germans were still around shooting,
Around noon he got a vehicle -- a jeep driven by Rifleman Rooney --
at the church. Then he went to the orchard on the far side of
town (north) and was there until late afternoon. Beyond the