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THE ASSAULT LANDINGS IN NORMANDY
D DAY: MIDNIGHT JUNE 5 -- MIDNIGHT JUNE 6 ack 20/5/58
What is your full name? Cecil Avis
What is your present address? 50, Leicester Road, Lewes Sussex.
Telephone number:
What was your unit, division, corps? Royal Pioneer Corps (Beach Group)
Where did you land and at what time? Courseulles, 9-15. A.M 6th June 1944
What was your rank and age on June 6, 1944? Private, age 39 years
Were you married at that time? yes
What is your wife's name? Yoneda Nancy Avis
Did you nave any children at that time? yes
When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion? May 1944
What was the trip like during the crossing of the Channel? Do you remember, for example, any conversations you had or how you passed the time? Very rough crossing, mojority of comrades, were sea-sick, resting on buncks too uncomfortable to converse.
Were there any rumours aboard ship? (Some people remember hearing that the Germans had poured gasoline on the water and planned to set it afire when the troops came in.) We heard no rumours, our way was quite clear, as the Marine Commandos had done their job throughly with a lot of dead and wounded lying about.
Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? I kept no note of this at the time as this was quite (as we were busy unloading ammunition) impossible, (but compiled a list of places we went through, afterwards.)
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Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? killed One officer a Lieut: Haley and two privates, wounded by mortar fire.
Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? No
Were you wounded? No
How were you wounded? No
Do you remember what it was like -- that is, do you remember whether you felt any pain or were you so surprised that you felt nothing? No
Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even though it may not have seemed amusing at the time? Or anything unexpected or outof-place? Going Ashore We had to go back for a private named Price who was too short to wade to land, and I remember him holding my hand, on patrol same night as we landed, and suddenly disappearing, he had decided he was safer, in the middle of a field nearby.
Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else? One of my comrades was badly wounded by a butterfly bomb, and they brought a captured German army doctor [inserted] to him [end inserted] and [crossed out] the [end crossed out] the wonderful way this doctor fought to save his life.
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In times of great crisis, people generally show either great ingenuity or self-reliances; others do incredibly strange or stupid things. Do you remember any examples of either? We were all on the alert the night we landed, one fellow from Liverpool went [crossed out] beserk and fired at a German plane, trying to put out of action, a Bofor gun, firing red tracer shells at it. We all had to lie the rest of that night in ditches and hedges, bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes.
Do you know of anybody else who landed within the 24 hours (midnight 5 June to midnight 6 June) either as infantry, glider or airborne troops, whom we should write to? I m sorry I cannot remember
What do you do now? Landscape gardening. Brighton Corporation
Please let us have this questionnaire as soon as possible, so that we can include your experiences in the book. We hope that you will continue your story on separate sheets if we have not left sufficient room. Full acknowledgement will be given in a chapter called '’Where They Are Now.”
Cornelius Ryan Joan O. Isaacs The Reader’s Digest
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50 Leicester Road Lewes Sussex May 13th 1958
MAY1958 Q.S. 16 [?in?]
Extracts
Dear Sir Re yours advertisment in the "News of The World". I wish to state that I was in the actual landings as required, I am willing to provide you with any information you may wish to know. I have in my possesion invasion money, field card etc.
Yours faithfully
Cecil Avis