Box 025, folder 19: Joseph Somerville

Somerville, Joseph

Int. CAN Army Juno No Release

BOX 25, #19

E THE READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION [CANADA] LIMITED, 1015 BEAVER HALL HILL, MONTREAL, UN. 6-4393 JUNO EGGS STORY

Editorial Department

Name: Joseph Sommerville Unit and Division: Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders 3rd Canadian Division

Arrived in Normandy at Beny-sur-Mer, at daybreak on June 6th

Rank: private, - and company piper Age: 29 (in 1944)

Was married at that time with one child

Is now a paper counter at Howard Smith Paper Company Cornwall, Ontario

Home Address: 455 Fourth Street West Cornwall, Ontario

First knew they were going to be a part of the invasion about two months previous to June 6th. Rumors were flying, of course, and then they were issued extra equipment, things like high boots.

About five days prior to the invasion they were put in a compound, for security reasons, and kept barracaded there, just like a jail. Then about 7 p.m. on the evening of June 5th they paraded down from the compound to the embarkation depot, (Somerville playing his pipes) and then boarded the LCI's. They were about 70' long and 30' wide and carried about 125 men each. Powered by an outboard motor and run by navy men. The channel was a mass of boats of all sizes. You could practically walk from [crossed out] one [end crossed out] England to France without getting your feet wet - they had no regular lights, but just little blinkers to warn each other and prevent collisions. They milled around all during the night. Nobody seemed outwardly scared - after such a long time they were just eager to get going. Some played poker and there were singsongs.

They had gone down below deck, so as not to be such a good target for any planes that might be around, and were given orders to clean their rifles and load them. One young lad had cleaned and loaded his gun and it went off by mistake and [inserted]the bullet[end inserted] ricocheted around off the walls of the craft. Then (perhaps it happened when the gun first went off?) the bullet hit him on the arm - he was a casualty and went back to England.

There weren't too many rumors. Eisenhower's visit had heightened morale and they were quite sure they were going to win. Ike had told them they had nothing to fear in the air.

They landed about 5 in the morning. There was great excitement. About an hour beforehand the [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] MTB had laid down a smokescreen about 4 or 5 miles offshore.

The Engineers went first to detonate the mines - a dangerous job, but very few were hurt in this way in Somerville's area (Beny-Sur-Mer).

The LCI's let them off about 150-120 yards from shore, in quite a surf. Somerville was lucky, being tall (he is 6'4") [crossed out] but [end crossed out] because he was able to touch bottom just about all the way in, but his shorter friends had quite a struggle getting in to the beach from the water, particularly as they had so much equipment, including folding bicycles. These bicycles were supposed to be used by their group to travel 18 (check this) miles inland and capture Carpiquet Airport on the first day. However, it turned out that the Germans had retreated and firmly entrenched themselves at this base, so this plan was abandoned. It wasn't taken finally until two months later.

He didn't play his pipes at the landing, because they were on some other landing barge and he didn't get them until about 8 days later. There was no piping on the beaches.

He kept no diary of the day's events. They couldn't have such things, for security reasons. In fact, they had to take off all identification except dog-tags.

Albert Box, the first "Glen" to be killed, was a friend of Somerville's. They were standing, a group of them, behind a truck, having something to eat. Somerville moved away to do something else and a couple of minutes later heard an explosion and found that Box had been killed.

Other "Glens" mention this incident

There was a sniper [crossed out] a [end crossed out] up in a church steeple, and they shot the steeple right off the church to get him down.

At one point, they were digging themselves trenches in a field where there were [crossed out] 2 [end crossed out] 35 or 40 cows. Cpl. Harry Froates (sp?) of A Company was digging away [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] with his little short shovel, and told the others that he was going to make sure his was deep enough that he didn't come to any harm. It was lucky he did, because a cow fell into the trench on top of him and got wedged in there, and if the trench hadn't been good and deep, he would have been kicked or smothered to death. All the others had to go to work with ropes to pull the cow out and save poor Harry, who was screaming blue murder down underneath.

The people in this area had been well fed and clothed by the Germans, and after about 4 years of fairly uneventful occupation, many of them were quite fond of the Germans; some had married them. They camped for a couple of days (this is post D-day actually) on the grounds of what had once been a lovely estate - it had stables in the back with 25 or 30 race horses, each stall had ribbons on the door and lists of all the races and cups each horse had [crossed out] on [end crossed out] won.

THE READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION [CANADA] LIMITED, 1015 BEAVER HALL HILL, MONTREAL, UN. 6-4393

Editorial Department

Joe Somerville - 2

That first day was the first time he had had fresh eggs in four [crossed out] yearq [end crossed out] years. He was going through a house and found a big pan of fresh eggs on the kitchen table which the people had left when they fled. Although it was taking a chance, as there might have been a booby trap in it, he called a couple of his pals and they got out their cooking utensils and had a meal right on the spot. It was well worth the risk!

A few prisoners were taken the first day, but most Germans would rather have died than give up. Three soldiers were fanatics, some of them very young, and refused to believe that they were being defeated. They were sure that Hitler would still produce some miracle and save them all.

Nobody had any ideas about getting killed that first day - the action was too exciting - although tanks would get hit, and they would hear the screams of men being burned inside, unable to use the escape doors, everything happened too fast for most men to be concerned about their own welfare or whether they would live through it. A couple of days later, when they were spending days on end in tiny slit trenches, it was another story - then they thought a lot, there was nothing else to do. They would try and make tea in the trenches (each man had a water bottle and tiny stove (Sterno?); the water would be just about to come to a boil and a shell would explode nearby, sending everything flying, and they'd have to start all over again, with lots of cursing for the Germans who wouldn't even give them time for a cup of tea.

There was something of a shortage of water, and they couldn't take any from the natives for fear of poisoning.

At midnight on June 5th, 1944, he was in an LCI, on the water just off Southampton

At midnight on June 6th, 1944, he was about three miles inland at Bernieres-sur-Mer. The men were in slit trenches, or anywhere else they could find cover.