Path Taken in Preparation for D-Day

And then we went up into Scotland and we trained, assault training over all kinds of assault courses and that was in the fall of 1943. And then, of course, in the spring we were sent down to a place called Botley Crossroads. It was a staging camp. Once you were in there the whole area was sealed off, you couldn’t get out, nobody could come in, you couldn’t phone, you couldn’t write, anything, we were just staging there. This Botley Crossroads is north of South Hampton and then I think on the 3rd of June, 1944 we embarked on our landing craft. Now, at that time they selected people to stay behind and if you were recently married they didn’t want you to be killed, you know, and other older men and whatnot they didn’t want them undergoing the rigors of rushing ashore and so on. Most of them were going to be for residue party coming in after the invasion when they brought in the residue. And then they also split us up into various groups, into various landing craft because we only had a unit of 250. And a portion was comprised of the service corps who were drivers, drive the stretcher ambulance jeeps and the big ambulances and, of course, the staff cars and so on for the officers. And so we boarded and then, of course, we were on the boat about three days. Sometime we pulled out and then we had to pull back, you know, the invasion would sort of… they’d let you get out so far and then they called it off and back you came. And then finally we took off on the night of the 5th and sailed to France.