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[inserted] BR E Brit Juno[end of inserted]
Trooper David Jesse Sawyer nicknamed Sawbones member of the crew of
a flail tank. He was with the 22nd Dragoons of the 79th Armoured Div.
attached to the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. He went over in an LCT
which contained 2 flail tanks and two AVRE's - a fascine and a petard.
They left at 4.a.m. of Juhe 5 from Southampton and he looked back at the
receding coastline, he had a feeling he'd never see England again. That
was the start of 28 miserable hours which he will never forget. There
were 25 men on board and everybody was seasick - so seasick in fact that two
men tried to jump overboard. He had to hold one man down who was yelling
"I can't stand it, let me go!”

The journey was so rough[crossed out]t[end of crossed out that at one moment they could see the flotilla
and the next just great walls of water. Even the Navy Captain with 25 years
of experience behind him, was ill.

They landed easily enough on the beach and in the first 20 minutes
as his flail tank slashed the gournd ahead of them with its chains, he exploded
about twenty mines. Each time his chains hit a mine the tank would shudder
and the whole front would lift up. Also some of the chains would be blown
off and this he had to watch because if he waited until all of them were
destroyed he knew that the next thing that would happen would be a track blown
off. Eight time in that 20 minutes he was hit by high explosive shells.
He could feel the tank shudder undef the impact and the white enamel paint
on the tank's interior would splinter off in hard little pieces, flying into
his face.

The Commander of his tank was Sergeant Jock Stirling from Glasgow.

Suddenly Stanley said as they saw a tank passing with a man's head
outside of it through the open hatch "Look at that sill b...he's going
to get himself killed”. Sawyer looked through his periscope and just at
that moment he saw a flash along the top of the tank and the man's head
completely disappeared. Well, said Sterling he asked for it.

What Sawyer was afraid of was not the high explosive shells but armoured
piercing shells., which he knew could destroy him, the crew and the tank.

Suddenly he heard Stirling yell, "bail out”- a shot had hit the
flail in front. Sawyer climbed up and partly because he was still seasick
and slightly dazed through the explosion he sat on the tope of the tank fir
a few moments. Stirling grabbed him and pulled him to the ground as a machine
gun opened up and a hail of bullets rattled around the top of the tank.

With their tank knocked out they joined up with the Canadian infantry
and moved along with them as infantry. He remembers seeing a man and a woman
crying over a dead cow yet all around were British, Canadian, German and even
French civilians dead. Stirling was quite angry "How can they feel that way
about a cow when they're so many dead lying about”. Late that evening
Stirling went back to find out if their new tanks had come in. He returned
looking a little green. He said to Sawyer "What do you think the French
Canadians have done up around near the beqch?” They've strung up a woman
sniper from a telephone pole. The French say she was only 17 1/2."

(Sawyer says that others saw this too but he did not.)