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one of your fellows just sold it to me for 2,000 cigarettes." Delacy
said, "Give me the bloody thing, and get the hell out of here." He
told the Company Sergeant Major about it and the Company Sergeant Major
said, "Paddy, what do you think of the fellow who sold this to him. What
the hell is the army coming to?"

He remembers a certain Sgt. McKay, who was simply called Mac,
wading out three times to get lorries off an L.S.T. "Paddy", McKay said
to him, "I must get them off. They have all our petrol on board." The
L.S.T. was burning at one end and he saw McKay go out three times to
drive off the lorries, but as he climbed into the fourth lorry to drive
it off, the L.S.T. blew up.

That morning at about 11 o'clock one of his section came down and
reported that his mine detector had indicated that there was a large,
very large, mine in an area just back off the beach. The sapper told
Delacy about it and Delacy knew immediately that from the description
that this could not be a mine. He went up to the area and ran his
fingers round the so called 'mine'. He realised immediately that it was
the steel flap of a hole or bunker actually in the ground, he knew what
it was. He called several of the section, including his little Cockney
who followed him around all the time, and he said, "Now, the moment I
lift up this lid, throw in a grenade and stand back." He then picked
up a bren gun, he told the Cockney to lift up the lid. The Cockney
lifted the lid, the grenade was thrown in, and Delacy emptied the
magazine of the bren gun into the hole. When the dust and dirt had
subsided they saw a sniper who had been riddled. Delacy's own comment
was, "Ah, the poor fellow. Well, all's fair in love and war."

He had been led to believe that there might be as much as 75%
casualties. That night Paddy checked up and found that although
several of the section had been wounded, nobody had been killed.
Paddy always carried a Rosary with him and he said it that night.