Crossing the English Channel to Normandy
Heroes Remember - D-Day
Crossing the English Channel to Normandy
Transcript
I relaxed, I tried to doze off a little bit and so on, but not
really. I wrote a letter earlier in the evening to mom and dad.
Interviewer: Did you acknowledge to them the chance
that there was sixty percent expected casualties?
No, we couldn’t, we couldn’t do that, because all our letters
were given to the officer and they were censored.
So, we just said what we had to say.
Interviewer: And you remember that as an emotional letter for you
to write? (Yeah.) As the evening wore on...
coming on to day break...
Well, we were probably aroused by 4 o’clock in the morning,
you know, cuz we had breakfast and so on and the navy served
us a little shot of rum to brighten up our day, you know and then
we start loading up, oh, probably about 6 in the morning and our
ship, we were lucky, because we are able to walk off the deck and
onto the landing craft at the deck level and then they lowered us
down to the water by winch. The fellas from “A” and “B” Company,
they had to go down in scramble nets into their nets so,
you know, they were more precarious, you know, but they were
the “A” and “B” Company were the, the leading companies to,
to hit the beach first, and then our company “C” went in behind
“A” and “D” Company went in behind “B” as the reinforcement. Then
the idea is if we didn’t make it, the Chaudières were supposed
to come behind us and then the North Nova Scotia Highlanders
were coming in behind them and that was the pattern to give
continuity of the attack. Plus the landing craft tank and
transport, see, the tanks were, had floating devices, big canvas
bags that are built around them to enable them to float and they
had a dual drive propeller to propel them in the water and to get
them up onto the beach and the, the water was quite rough that
morning and some of them launched too early and were swamped and
they were lost. Our first two companies, they were delayed their
approach to the beach waiting for the tank support, the tank
support were supposed to come up and get out and silence the
positions before the infantry arrived, but in our case, the tank
support was late and then the “A” and “B” Company were given
the orders to go in, period.
Interviewer: What do you remember, Mr. Ross about the
reaction of the enemy on the beach? Were they alerted
to the fact that the invasion was coming?
Well, they, they couldn’t help be alerted because, you know,
the tremendous fire power that was hitting them from out in the
water, you know, with the naval ships and then we had flat decks
of rockets. Maybe a thousand rockets aboard one of the flat decks
that they sent up in volleys and they were supposed to clean up
the beach and help knock out a lot of the mines that might be on
the beach and maybe take care of the beach defences. But a lot of
the defences were still secure, as our first two companies went
in, and the first two companies did a tremendous job.
Interviewer: What are thinking about when you think of those
two companies going ashore?
They a, there’s a question that they were selected for it and it
might have been us, but they were selected for it and they were
well trained for it and they did a, an awful good job.
Description
Mr. Ross describes his activities during the night crossing toward the beaches of Normandy, as thousands of Allied vessels moved forward.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 04:59
- Person Interviewed:
- Joseph William Ross
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Europe
- Battle/Campaign:
- D-Day
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Queen's Own Rifles of Canada
- Occupation:
- Rifleman
- Date modified: