First D-Day Operation
Heroes Remember - D-Day
First D-Day Operation
Transcript
So we got up, of course, early the next
morning and we went down, it was dark.
I remember we took off in the dark.
And headed south and got,
as we came towards, got about three
quarters of the way across the channel,
we could see, we could see, oh ships,
merchant ships and battleships,
you never saw a battleship, you know,
well, that close to the shore.
It was just unbelievable to see them.
And they were firing at the shore.
Just a mass, mass of ships.
So we went up and down the beach,
along it, just under the clouds,
it was cloudy the whole
damn channel was cloudy.
But there was enough ceiling that we
could operate two thousand feet above
the reef or something.
And we, it was a, we thought there would
be hundreds of German aircraft and
there weren’t any and then suddenly four
of them appeared from over Normandy
heading towards the beach from south,
it would be over France,
towards the beach four 190’s and
we turned and ran after them and
they immediately, before they even got to,
just about as they reached the water’s edge,
they turned back and we chased them
back into Normandy for several miles and
then they pulled up into
the cloud and that was it.
And we didn’t know it but that was
about almost the only time anybody
saw any fighters on the Normandy Beach.
They were virtually absent.
Description
Mr. Smith describes seeing the Allied naval barrage at Normandy and chasing four ME-109's away from the combat zone.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 2:05
- Person Interviewed:
- Roderick Smith
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- France
- Battle/Campaign:
- D-Day
- Branch:
- Air Force
- Units/Ship:
- 401 Squadron
- Rank:
- Flight Lieutenant
- Occupation:
- Pilot
- Date modified: