This is it!

Eric Postles on 31^st May 1944:

“We were told we would be embarking next day and for the first time we had steak for the night meal.  That night my gunner, despite our dissuasion and the American Guards with orders to shoot anyone leaving camp, left us in the hope of reaching his home in Slough and hiding for the rest of the war.  We never heard from him again.  By then it was too late to replace him so my carrier went with 3 men.”  (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

*The armoured cars were meant to have four, not three men for Operation Overlord

 

Don Aiken remembers:

31^st May 1944 – After a few weeks of the total monotony of being incarcerated in the frugal surroundings of a tented camp, which had only briefly been relieved by separate 'pep-talk' visits by the King and Field Marshal Montgomery*, and by the occasional false alarm; it was good news to be told that "This is it!" (Republished from the BBC People's War website by kind permission of Don Aiken)

 *Monty devoted himself to visiting the troops would take part in the invasion and had a positive effect on morale (from ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition)

 

Every British serviceman involved in the invasion was given a pamphlet called “Soldiers’ Guide to France” with useful information and guidance on behaviour: “Remember that continental France has been directly occupied.  In consequence it has been stripped of everything by the Germans.... In the first months you will almost certainly find in France such shortage that it will be up to you not to try to buy anything, much less scrounge.”  (From ‘Instructions for British Servicemen in France 1944’ reproduced for the original by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford 2005.)

 

Eric Brewer, also of 'B' Squadron, wrote in his diary on 1st June 1944: “Gerry would like to know what we know”.  (From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Ron Howard, Brewin Books 2004)