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[*Extract acknowledged 9-6-58*]
THE ASSAULT LANDINGS IN NORMANDY
D DAY: MIDNIGHT JUNE 5 -- MIDNIGHT JUNE 6
What is your full name? Percy Ward
What is your present address? 433 Ongar Road Brentwood Ex [*Brentwood Exchange Brent 125 or [illegible]*]
Telephone number: NIL
What was your unit, division, corps? 2/Essex Regt 161st Ind. BDE ATT. 50th Div. 21st Army Group
Where did you land and at what time? Le Hemel. Approx 11 to 12 Noon
What was your rank and age on June 6, 1944? Company Sgt Major. 36 yrs
Were you married at that time? Yes
What is your wife's name? May Josephine Ward
Did you have any children at that time? Yes one
When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion? Feb or Mar when stationed at Durham
What was the trip like during the crossing of the Channel? Do you remember, for example, any conversations you had or how you passed the time? [crossed out]QuiEt[end crossed out] Quiet but sea had heavy swell. Passed time playing card for matches.
Were there any rumours aboard ship? (Some people remember hearing that the Germans had poured gasoline on the water and planned to set it afire when the troops came in.) No rumours
Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? No
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11 AM Le Hamel 50th Div GOLD Rag or Bone -- Good Prices Paid
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Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? No member of my Coy was either killed or wounded on landing.
Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties?
Were you wounded? Yes
How were you wounded? Gunshot wound in left leg whilst sitting on an old captured Boche table in a orchard whilst I was issuing the days ration of cigarettes and sweets.
Do you remember what it was like — that is, do you remember whether you felt any pain or were you so surprised that you felt nothing? Like a very hard smack across the leg with a cane or stick very much surprised but felt no pain at the time pain felt later.
Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even though it may not have seemed amusing at the time? Or anything unexpected or out- of-place? Yes. Seeing two of our chaps driving down the road in a Boche wagon drawn by two horses shouting Rag or Bone good prices paid.
Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else? Sad thing was to see cattle grazing in the fields one moment and then killed or blown to pieces the next.
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In times of great crisis, people generally show either great ingenuity or self-reliance; others do incredibly strange or stupid things. Do you remember any examples of either? The soldier who ran after the flame thrower and put it out with a piet gun at Gilly (Wood) now named Essex Wood.
Do you know of anybody else who landed within the 24 hours (midnight 5 June to midnight 6 June) either as infantry, glider or airborne troops, whom we should write to?
What do you do now? Post Office Tech. Class I Telephone Engineer
Please let us have this questionnaire as soon as possible, so that we can include your experiences in the book. We hope that you will continue your story on separate sheets if we have not left sufficient room. Full acknowledgement will be given in a chapter called "Where They Are Now."
Cornelius Ryan Joan O. Isaacs The Reader's Digest