Writing on Saturday 1st April Dick recounted his ‘pretty cushy’ time in Scotland, visiting Glasgow at the weekend. He’d returned to Whittlesford on 29th March and managed to see his sister Diller on a trip to Leicester delivering vehicles.
Now it was time for 61st Recce to move south to their assembly area for Operation Overlord (D Day), near the south coast. Dick’s ‘B’ Squadron camped out for two months in Nightingale Wood near Romsey – part of D Day Marshalling Areas C16 and C17, inland from Southampton. Here Dick received a new member for his No 5 Troop – Sandy Handley, from the Royal West Kents, who was to stay with him throughout the war and become Anthony Rampling’s best friend from the army. Tony, hearing that the Assault troops were to be issued with bicycles, asked for a transfer (he didn’t much fancy carrying a Bren gun on a bicycle) and also joined Dick’s troop.
The camps were all carefully camouflaged to avoid detection by the Luftwaffe and all leave was cancelled to maintain secrecy, although Dick’s letter of 8th April shows he still had hopes of meeting Chotie before the invasion. Eric’s Postles’ troop was granted special permission to go on leave and, returning to Wigan, he first met his future wife, Gladys Dandy. Don Aiken managed to meet up with his brother who was with the Royal School of Signals putting up telephone lines to connect the camps and command centres.
The Allies' deceptions in Operation Fortitude kept the Germans guessing where and when the invasion would take place – Dick and other Lieutenants spent much of their time censoring letters, like the one from Eric Brewer mentioning white bread, apples and peaches (rare treats that might have hinted he was being given special treatment as part of the invasion force?). Dick was more interested in 61st Recce’s latest recruit:
Letter written on Thursday 13th April 1944
2/Lt RK Williams
61st Recce Regt
NB! A.P.O.
England
Thursday 13th April
Chotie Darling,
Just the few odd lines to let you know I’m still alive at any rate. Having quite a good time here, despite poor living accommodation and even worse food. Weather is excellent, pukka spring – including cuckoos, damn them.
As regards leave of any sort, I’m afraid it’s out of the question – however I will try to get down to your place sometime during your leave, and you should be able to get here, somehow. I’m afraid I can’t give you anything more definite as, for all I know, I may easily be out on a scheme throughout your leave.
I’m very tied up here as regards communications – no telephones or telegrams. Luckily I’m able to censor my own letters, but unfortunately have to censor some forty or fifty letters every evening, which takes time.
We’ll manage to meet somehow, never fear.
My neighbouring subaltern came across a fox cub the other day and we’ve kept it ever since. We procured a very wee kitten from the Quartermaster (they always have hundreds of kittens) and they live together very happy.
He, (the foxcub) is very small and covered in light down, with a very funny little face. He keeps on going “TWEEK!, TWEEK!”. ‘Formidable!’, as the French say.
“That’s all for now, Kiddies – The Zoo man will be back again, etc, etc”….
Have managed to do a little sun-bathing so far, but not eno’ to worry about.
I’ve just managed to get rid of a Sergeant from my troop, who’s been giving me a headache for months – a very poor type.
Must close here for dinner (?). (So called)
All my love, Chotie
Dicker
RKWilliams
*The fox became the Regiment’s mascot accompanying them as far as the Ardennes. Trooper Ernie Brobbin of ‘A’ squadron gives an account of finding the foxcub in ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Ron Howard (Brewin Books 2004):
“One particular morning as dawn was breaking, another chap and I were on motor transport guard when we heard a ‘baby’ crying and went to investigate. The ‘baby’ turned out to be an abandoned fox cub. The poor thing was crying after it had been left on its own.
Neither of us had come across a fox before, as we came from mining areas. We picked it up, took it back to camp, fed it on milk, and then made it a cage from saplings.
The cub prospered and eventually we decided to take it with us as a troop mascot.”
The cub was adopted by Lt. Compton Bishop who kept it in his armoured car and took it to France.
Painting by Sandy Handley of the fox on a lead with 61st Reconnaissance Regiment. The original painting is held by the Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset.
Dick did manage to get home to Pagham on Sunday 15th April, by cycling four hours each way. He wrote to Chotie the next day with the good news that there was now beer in the mess. On 21st April he sent her a ‘shocking photo’ of himself (see blog banner) and launched a plan to meet on Sunday 30th April at the Haunch of Venison (in Salisbury). This fell through when he had to cover as Squadron Leader. Major Frank Harding, ‘B’ Squadron’s future commander, wrote a poignant book of poetry about his war experience with 61st Reconnaissance regiment - ‘War echoes over thirty years’ - including their stay in Nightingale Wood. More prosaically, Philip Brownrigg, then commander of 61st Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron describes the role the Regiment was to play in Operation Overlord: about 40% were to go over with the ‘first wave’ on D day itself, with the rest arriving later in June.
All round the coast training exercises to prepare for the landings continued through the month, culminating in the tragedy of Exercise Tiger on 27th April when German schnell-boats came across troop boats and nearly a thousand US servicemen were killed near Slapton Ley in Devon. The Luftwaffe began attacking the concentrations of Allied ships at Plymouth and Portsmouth on 25th April while the British Navy and Bomber Command were already mining the English Channel approaches to protect the invasion fleet. On 3rd April the Fleet Air Arm had again attacked Germany’s mega-battleship, the Tirpitz, moored in a Norway fjord, causing substantial damage.
Long-range Allied bombers attacked Budapest and Bucharest, the respective capitals of Hungary and Romania. (The US Army Air Force also bombed the Swiss town of Schaffhausen by mistake, killing 40 neutral Swiss civilians.) In early April three prisoners successfully escaped from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, publishing their eyewitness accounts of the atrocities from Switzerland in June 1944. The Red Army was advancing in southern Ukraine, capturing Odessa on 10th April and Yalta on the 16th.
The Allies began new campaigns in Indonesia, attacking the Japanese on Western New Guinea and Sumatra. Ichi-gō, the Japanese major offensive in northern China (aimed at eliminating the USAAF airfields now bombing Japanese territory) began on 19th April 1944. Much of the Chinese Nationalist Army was then heavily engaged in south China with the Salween offensive on the Burmese border.
Operation U-gō, the Japanese 15th Army’s advance into India from Burma was held up by the heroic defences of the 15th Indian Parachute brigade and the famous stand of the Royal West Kents, with local Assam rifles, at the hill-station of Kohima. A memorial now stands there:
‘When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow, we gave our today.’
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