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Ack 20/5/58
THE ASSAULT LANDINGS IN NORMANDY D DAY: MIDNIGHT JUNE 5 -- MIDNIGHT JUNE 6
What is your full name? Eric Francis James Bowley
What is your present address? 8. PENLEA AVENUE BRIDGWATER SOMERSET.
Telephone number: NONE
What was your unit, division, corps? 1st HAMPSHIRE REGT, 50th NORTHUMBRIAN DIVISION 30, CORPS.
Where did you land and at what time? ASNELLES - SUR - MER 7-30
What was your rank and age on June 6, 1944? PRIVATE, 19 YEARS
Were you married at that time? YES
What is your wife's name? VALERIE.
Did you nave any children at that time? ONE.
When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion? EARLY 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? Quit comfortable on the [?liberty?] ship, rough in the landing craft. Playing cards, singing, robbing our rations to brew tea.
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.) None I remember
Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? NO
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Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? YES
Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? NO
Were you wounded? Yes
How were you wounded? Bullet wound across my back, machine gun, while passing a pill box I didn't know was there.
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? I was struck forcibly to the ground, my pack had been hit or five other bullets in its burst. The pain wasn't intense, more as though I had been hit by a heavy stone.
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 out- of-place? A Churchill tank that dropped its [?'fasci'?] tried to move forward, got one track on its bundle of sticks and turned on its side. It looked rather like a large beetle. I also remember sniping at an enemy me gun position on the sea wall where we should have landed, the company commander was spotting for me and remarked that I had [inserted] got fifteen Germans or it was the same b... bobbing up again [end inserted]
Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else? The company (A) was badly disorganized and suffered severe casualties. We left the beach about 18 strong, two of us were wounded [crossed out] at [end crossed out][inserted] before [end inserted]that time. The idea was to make a circuitous route and attain our objective from the rear. On reaching the road we passed through a large number of dead Marine Commando's who had been shelled, sitting up, leaning against SEE BACK
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a corpse was a marine, both legs blown off close to his body. He was smoking a [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] cigarette, and he WAVED TO US AND SMILED A WE PASSED.
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In times of great crisis, people generally show either great ingenuity or self-reliance; others do incredibly strange or stupid things. Do you remember any examples of either? One man nicknamed 'Burton' after the brew, [?not?] his birthplace whittled away at the fuse on his Bangalore torpedo all the time we were on thes ship. He wouldn't give his [?reasons?], but they became quite clear, when he stuck it through the slit of a pillbox like posting a letter. I'm not sure whether that was ingenious or stupid. I landed with only five rounds of rifle ammunition having left my bandoler on the landing craft, that was stupid.
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? No sorry
What do you do now? INSPECTOR, AIRCRAFT COMPONENTS Wilmot Breedem Ltd Bridgewater
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