Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 021, folder 18: Stanley Elton Hollis

gun post before attacking it He cold but not brutal in his ay of fighting He appeared to take chances but actually it was all finely calculated carefully worked out It was in a sense the perfect example of the hunter + the hunted Hollis was a supert hunter He was fighting "to prevent somebody stepping on his front + back lawn" when he landed back in Englad from Dunkirk (minus his pants-somebody had stolen them + he was wearing a blanket) and when he saw the roadblocks and hastily erected strongpoints along the coastal roads he was dumbfounded He had no idea of the size of the debacle He had thought that only his division had suffered It wasn't until much later that he realized the full scope of the defeat He had been at sea from ^1929-1933; + a torry driver from^ 1933 to 1939 He had two girl friends nurses who had attended him in a Denmark hospital and after the war began he wondered what had happened to them- Oreida Eingebourg Christiansen and Ylva Neilsen He was so worried about the that even resolved that if England was

could have cheerfully killed a member of his company for running away Although tough as a csar had to be he also was the type to look after the less experienced the young soldiers One of them as Pvt Youngs batman to Lt Kirkpatrick a platoon commander of D Company Somehow he knew Youngs was going to get it (no ex) Sergeant "Ruffy" Hill killed the moment the ramps went down "Ruffy" lived about 8 miles away He was frightened of nothing They had been through was together "when the war is over," Ruffy said "I'm going to come over and live in France" ---------------------------- -------- They tell me the French girls are really smashin" "I just want to come back home" Hollis told him Rufty always carried more ammo than anybody else "where did you get all the ammo" Hollis asked "Thats my business Stan- no questions us pack drill" Rufty answered "But I'll sort old Fritz when I get there Anyway they can afford the ammo- its a big from Stan You're not burying it so why worry" It was the ammo that killed

invaded he "might do away with his wife + daughter" He had never told them of this and he knew in his heart that he would never do such a thing but he kept saying to himself that he "might have to do it" He remembered in Lille during the retreat back to the French coast (he had been a despatch rider at the time) he had run into a cul de sack and suddenly horrified he saw hundreds of men women + children who had been machine gunned in a body "There were hundreds + hundreds of spent machine gun bullets all around" he said "They been headed into the cul-de-dack and brutally murdered that it was a clean war" It was this sight more than anything other single experience that made Hollis from that moment on a killer- a ruthless, calculating one at that From that moment on "I had no mercy no compassion " and "if I took a prisoner it was by coincidence" He knew he could never be a regular army peacetime sergeant because "I could never put a man on charge for not claiming his boots" Pn the other hand during the war he

him when they landed Rufty went into a shell hole The ammo pulled him down + before he could swim to the surface the landing craft --------------------- drifted over him Hit beach at 7:30 in first wave D Co + A Co were the two assaulting CO's for 50 Div There was about 108 in each company and they were LCA- about 16 in each craft About 10 craft in all In Hollis's craft was the company Co Major Ronald Lofthouse (got MC for D Day) His company's objective was the battery at Mont Fleury Their assault area was bout 200 yds on their left ---------- was 2 assaulting companies of the 5 East Yorkshire Regt and -- Hollis's right 2 CO's of the Dorsets + 2 CO's of the Hampshire Regts plus the 47 Commando Going in with Hollis's is two of his pals Pvt Paddy Mullally and Pvt Charlish a Bven Gunner Charlish sd: "There's no need to worry about- when its time you'll get it and you can't do wont about it" Rufty sd "Ah well lets get at them now + sort them out" Mullally: "By the

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