D-Day

Heroes Remember

D-Day

A terrific feeling really of confidence, and mind you the weather got bad and I believe I'm right. There was a thought for a little while that they might call it off and not go in as originally was planned I believe on the fifth with the delayed a day, we went on the sixth. And there was at one time, a thought that we should call it off until another moon and another tide. But, I think that, I think Eisenhower did the right thing. It would've been a mistake, because I don't think you could ever go ashore and take everybody off and a month down the road or three weeks down the road get them all back again, because everybody was hyped up everybody was gungho to go. And I think it was the right thing to go in although the weather was a bit rough. But... certainly I was not aware of anything but a, confidence on the part of the fella that I was dealing with. Interviewer: What do you remember, Mr. Thompson, about the instructions that you and your platoon received prior to D-Day? Well we had, we didn't get our maps issued I believe until we were aboard ship. So you didn't have the actual detailed map, understandably, they didn't want those maps around before hand. So we had, we had trained for landing when we got the, the maps issued and you got your platoon together and you looked. They issued the maps, you looked at the maps and so on. And... you're ready to go. Now we, we were not the advance wave on the beach. We came in behind the, we came in behind the Winnipeg Rifles, right behind them, on the, on the same beach that they come in on. Joined up with them. Interviewer: What beach was that? Sorry, Mr. Thompson. Juno Beach. And a... came in right behind them and then joined up with them just a short piece in. We went in from the Lamaship Tank which we loaded onto in Portsmouth. We went in on... what's called a rhino ferry, which is a, like a flat scow with a big outboard motor. And I remember the chap who was in charge of it. I believe he was Service Corp, not Navy. He was quite anxious to drop us off in fairly deep water and it took a little convincing to get him to go in because although we had added to the height of the Bren Gun carriers with a metal to make them more waterproof, we put an extension on the exhaust pipe up in the air and the vehicles were "waterproofed". If we, if we left when he wanted us to we would have, we would have just been there, in the water. So he finally agreed and we went ashore and a... so when we went in there.... Well, the beach was, was marked up with a... would have been shells fired and there were some casualties on the beach. And we went right up... the thing, we just kept moving right up the beach, right till we got ashore. We were directed off the beach, and then we went forward and a joined up with the Winnipegs. Actually when we came off the ship, because of the way we had loaded, we were not in the, in the proper, there was more then one platoon. So the two platoons were mixed and the other platoon was going up to the Reginas I was going to the Winnipegs. But, the a... Bren Gun carriers were mixed. We, we had to sort those out and as we went down the road there was a lot of hedges there normally. We looked and there was an open field. So I said to my platoon sergeant, George Cole, I said, we'll swing the vehicles in here and go around and, and pick out that is my, my Bren Gun carriers vehicle could follow me and the other fellas could follow him and we'd be side by side and it was just an automatic sorting out. Afterwards, the wiser person said that wasn't a very smart thing to do, because it might have been mined. It so happened it wasn't We got sorted out and went up and I remembered going up to where the Winnipegs were and there was this chap laying by the ditch. I was going up the road and a... this chap waved and I thought, that's friendly isn't it, and I waved back and I kept going and he jumped up and shouted, and he wasn't really being friendly, he was telling me stop, stop, because just a little ways up the road the Gerries were. So I got the message and we stopped and pulled in and set up to support the Winnipegs.

Mr. Thompson describes the atmosphere among his troops as D-Day arrived.

Donald Thompson

Mr. Thompson was born in West Saint John, New Brunswick on August 19, 1922. He was the middle child in a family of three boys. His father worked as a railway engineer and fireman with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Thompson was first introduced to military training at an early age becoming involved with the militia when he was roughly 12 years old. He received his Royal Canadian Rifles certificate as a qualified infantry machine gun sergeant in 1939 at the age of 17. He was chosen to go overseas with a company from the Saint John Fusiliers as reinforcements. He travelled overseas on a pleasure boat that was in the midst of being converted to a troop ship and arrived in Liverpool, England. From Liverpool he travelled by train to Aldershot and then on to Crookham Crossroads. There he joined the Cameron Highlanders and trained to support an infantry battalion. In 1943 - 44, while only 21 years old, he achieved the rank of captain and was in Inverary training for combined ops amphibious landings. They trained, in preparation for D-Day, in a camp that was surrounded by barb wire and no one was allowed leave. On June 6th 1944 he landed on Juno Beach as part of the second wave behind the Winnipeg Rifles. On the third day of fighting after landing on Juno Beach he was hit by shrapnel and subsequently sent back to England on a hospital ship. Although he tried to return to action his wounds proved to be too much and he was sent back to England a second time and then eventually back to Canada. After the war Mr. Thompson worked with the Canadian Legion (later to be the Royal Canadian Legion) in Saint John. He moved up the ranks with the Legion and ended up in Ottawa as the Dominion Secretary. In 1970 he was appointed Chairman of the War Veterans Allowance Board and held this position until he retired in 1987. Mr. Thompson was also named Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Cameron Highlanders.