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Ex Interview
THE ASSAULT LANDINGS IN NORMANDY
D DAY: MIDNIGHT JUNE 5 — MIDNIGHT JUNE 6
[illegible] acknowledged 9.6.58
What is your full name? Norman Scarfe
What is your present address? 2 Lancaster Road Leicester during university term. Shingle Street, Hollesley, Woodbridge, Suffolk in vacation
Telephone number: Leicester: [illegible] 2738 Shingle Street: Bawdsey (Suffolk) 224.
What was your unit, division, corps? 76th (Highland) Field Regt., R.A., 3 Br. Inf. Div., 1 Corps.
Where did you land and at what time? Queen [inserted] White [end inserted] Beach at about 8.30 am
What was your rank and age on June 6, 1944? Lieutenant, R.A. 21
Were you married at that time? No
What is your wife's name? -
Did you have any children at that time? -
When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion ? 1 September 1943
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? Uncomfortable. See Assault Division. Our guns were self-propelled i.e. mounted on [illegible] chassis, and gunners and tank - drivers alike were full of wry, good [?humour?] especially at the outset at midday on 5 June. They naturally grew quieter!
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.) I don't remember any. It was an LCT mark IV - holding only one troop.
Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? No, but I have a certain amount of correspondence e.g. from the skipper of the LCT that set my ashore: much censored!
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Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? I remember being met by Sgt. Sutton, one of our advance party who'd gone ashore early to reconnoitre the battery gun positions at the edge of the water. As our ramp went down there he was, waiting for us, exactly as on the exercises. I followed him along the beach with the guns. A few minutes (as it seemed) later he was hit by a shell + disintegrated. A gentle character of the greatest integrity and competence. He was unhappily married, and his death seemed to be the final injustice.
One of our Battery Captains, Jo Daniel, was killed before he got ashore, his body washed up so buried. Though he was wearing proper identity discs his body was wrongly identified from a pass in his pocket, as that of Dick Wishaw, another Battery captain, and the one who searched the beach cemetary for signs of Jo Daniel. Imagine his dismay at finding a small wooden cross bearing his own name + rank.
Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties?
Were you wounded? No How were you wounded? Not
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?
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? I have a vivid recollection of the sandhoppers that imfested that narrow beach, like burrowing shrimps. We were under heavy [illegible] flaking fire from Le Havre and made ourselves + our exact situation conspicuous from inland by hanging on to some barrage balloons - presumably designed to thwart enemy aircraft: they were about as useful and appropriate as children's toy balloons and I will remember seeing General Rennie himself ordering this attendant to cut them adrift
Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else?
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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?
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?
I should be inclined to write to the Depot of the 76th (Highland) Field Regt at Dundee and ask for the address of those officers who served with the Regt on D-Day
What do you do now?
Lecture in history at the University of Leicester. Very glad to see you here if I can be of any assistance. I have a number of documents inherited from
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."
the writing of Assault Division. They are properly duplicated in the Cabinet Offices, but you're welcome to see them.
Cornelius Ryan Joan 0. Isaacs The Reader's Digest
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2. Lancaster Road, Leicester. Granby 2738
[stamped] 16 May 1958
6 May 58
I am delighted to hear that D-day's at last getting a full account. I was a subaltern with 76th Field Regt. with 3 Div. and went ashore about 8.25 am. Some, but by no means all, of my impressions emerged at the beginning of my book Assault Division (Collins, 1947). I'd be pleased to help in any way I can.
Norman Scarfe.