ENPages That Need Review
Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 021, folder 45: John Thomas Manners Mason
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2.
Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? Many
Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? [crossed out] My troop leader was convinced he would be killed and [end crossed out]
Were you wounded? Not until D + 2 or 3
How were you wounded? Shrapnel - head (not too serious) i.e I'm normal
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 being hit on the back of the head with a sledge hammer.
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? The way men who were hit bowled over like shot rabbits. I've never shot at or destroyed an animal since that day.
Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else? As we were embarking on the landing craft from Parent Ship, I saw the little winking lights in the dawn light. They were the lights on the life jackets of sailors whose ship had hit a mine. Nobody seemed to bother but I thought of the tragedy that was being [enacted?]
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3.
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? A friend who had a nasty wound - a bullet through his shoulder, saluting his troop leader who was sheltering from mortar fire, with his H.O. around him, and asking for permission to fall out to get his wound dressed.
This friend is an ex public school boy and very [pulha?]. I've given his address below.
We are still very good friends
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?
Eric Bates Briggs Wimborne Stoughton Drive North Leichter
The Secretary Army Commando Old Comrades Association
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2
If you wish to telephone me it is best to do so in the evenings.
I myself was not an officer, but may I suggest that you get in touch with the secretary of the Commando Old Commander Association. He would have the addresses of most officers. He also has, I believe, some excellent photographs.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if I can help you further
Yours Faithfully John. T. M. Mason
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Mason and other men of that unit that day moved on down to relieve the airborne troops which had captred the bridges over the Orne River and Caene Canal. Then they swung north , relieved the 9th Battalian of the Airborn in the village of Plein. That night as they tried to get some sleep Mason the schoolmaster wanted to weep. Everything he had seen that day "seemed so useless, so unwise and so horrible."
A word about Mason: he is very sensitive, a tall rather handsome man with wavy hair, quiet and an introvert.
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PVT Thomas Manners Mason, 24, ISS Bdg ([?Lovatt's?] Commando's) remembers seeing survivors of the "Svenner" [swimming?] about in water. He didn't know at the time it was "Svenner." All he could see was survivors red lights blinking in water - about 20 or 30. A Sgt beside him sd "Listening to this on the news will mean absolutely nothing - yet to each one of them this is a personal tragedy."
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Landed on LCA about 6:30 at the center of Ouistreham. He remembers the piles of dead of the E. [Torks?] - apparently they didn't get off beach. About 100 dead & wounded [arrow to continued]
He saw young coxswain flinched, sat back when he saw these crowds of dead bodies on beach. Then he sat up again.
[continued] One man lifted the stump of his left arm out of the water & said "Help me - please help me." Mason pulled him out of water.
"This ain't no exercise" he said to his Corporal James Harris as they sheltered in a wrecked villa and had a smoke while waiting for E troop to assemble.
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BR E Sword
Private John Thomas Manners Mason, age 24 years old, attached to No. 4 Commando of Lord Lovat's Special Service Brigade. Landed at about 8 o ’clock on SWORD beach near the Casino almost in the centre of Ouistreham. As they were embarking into the landinc craft from the parent ship which had carried the troops over, he saw in the water little red lights winking. At that time he did not know what they were, but as they began their journey into the beach he saw that they were survivors in life jackets from a sunken ship. He did not know then but these were survivors from the Norwegian destroyer Svenner. One man in the water as they passed called for help but they could not pick him up as their instructions were to continue at full speed towards the beach. As they came towards the beach he saw clumps of dead and wounded lying on the sand and he was immediately conscious of the whistle and explosions of mortar shells and machine gun bullets. He remembers the sergeant beside him whose attention seemed to be riveted on the Svenner's survivors in the water, saying "When they hear on the radio back home about all this it will mean alsolutely nothing to them."
He had no time to philosophise as he was thoroughly scared like everybody else. He remembers machine gun bullets rattling on the ramp of his landing craft as they headed in. The young Coxswain sitting up at the wheel unable to take cover like everybody else flinched and sat back for a moment, then he sat up again and to Mason this was very courageous. He wondered how he could sit up there so calmly with people shooting at him. He got in to the beach all right in his landing craft and they dashed off the ramp into about three feet of water. Heavily laden as he was it was hard going to get through the water. To his left as he made his way he saw a man almost submerged who had apparently been wounded. Suddenly this man said "Help me, please help me," and to Mason’s horror he lifted the stump of his left arm into the air. Mason pulled him out of the water and then continued on up the beach. All around him now there was the sound of firing, and as he moved up he remembers seeing what he described as "piles of dead infantry of the East Yorks. In the few minutes that it took him to negotiate that beach he estimated that he passed through at least 100 dead and wounded. How did it happen, he asked himself, and subconsciously he blamed their NCOs and officers because he saw that these piles of dead had not spread out as they attempted to get up the beach, but had fallen in xx great bodies "like nine pins." To a Marine, a perfectionist in infantry attack , the groups of dead told their own story. He reached the shelter of a wrecked villa , threw himself down beside Corporal James Harris, lit a cigarette and said "This ain't no exercise."
After the section had assembled, they moved off on either side of the road and headed towards the battery that they were supposed to capture. As they moved along, they were heavily mortared, and suffered quite a few casualties.
At one point as they took shelter from the mortars , he remembers seeing one of his officers standing at a gate to a little villa talking to a Frenchman, presumably the owner. He remembers how odd it all seemed, in fact it looked like a Sunday afternoon conversation over the gate. Yet while the officer , talked standing up there by the gate, his men were all sheltering by the side of the road and there was the constant crash and detonations of shells. Suddenly a shell hit the edge of the roof of the house and in a sort of a slow-motion way the Frenchman and the officer were both on the ground, the Frenchman lying flat on his back dead on his side of the gate, the officer in a sitting position wounded. It had all taken only a moment.
They had practiced the plan for assaulting the battery against a replica for months previous to the attack, in essence the plan was a classical one which first called for artillery fire - in this case from naval ships lying off the coast , and then an infantry attack. It wasn't necessary to get supporting fire when they made this attack because although there was some skirmishing between the Commandos and the Germans in slit trenches protectin[g] the battery, the position itself was found to have no guns and, indeed, there was scaffolding around the battery indicating that they were still building i[t] as the time of the attack. However, it was during this skirmishing that a Sergeant Major got shot in the rear end, and he said to Mason, rather pensively, "When they take me back, how will I tell them this?"
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8 May 1958 Telephone Richmond 7012 Interview Q.S.
48 Priory Road Kew Richmond Surrey 6th May 1958 9 9/5.
Dear Sir,
I have read with intent your advertisement which appeared in todays 'Times'.
I served through the greater part of the war with No 4. Commando and I was fortunate enough to be in the first landings in Normandy.
I shall be pleased to help you in any way.
