Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 021, folder 31: Peter Henry Jones

JONES, Peter Henry Royal Navy-- frogman, Gold Release Int. Release to P.G. BOX 21, #31

NAVY FROGMAN GOLD IX [?also?] Col Story

GOLD

JOB Royal Marine Commando Frogman

5 a.m. Left the Mother Ship. The seas were very rought; the wind was blowing behind them and the waves were mountainous. lca carried them in. Issued Kapok vests, which are supposed to protec the upper portion of the body from blast concussion in the water. Nobody in the outfit had used them before. "If you are in the water within 50 yds. of an explosive, it is nearly fatal every time, but the kapoks were excellent as pillow.'

Frogmen were upset because the LCAs carried a large red flag to indicate they were carrying explosives. Jones thought this was carrying things a little too far. One man said (indicated flag) "What the hell should we do with this thing/" Another answered: "Well, why don't we ring them up before we get there and tell them we are coming." Flags miraculously disappeared as soon as the actual runin began.

RUNIN They could hear the shells from the naval ships whistling overhead; then they came under heavy machine gun fire which rattled on the ramp. "What the hell is that?" a man asked, jokingly, and a crew member answered "Oh, just the rain." Ahead, they could see obstacles. On pap[crossed out]g[end crossed out]er they had about 20 minutes to cut a 30-yard gap in the obstacles before the infantry moved in. They saw about a dozen lines of obstacles. The first ones, Jones remembers, were bulging gates, then came ramps, after those tetrehedrolls, then hedgehogs, than a triangular type and finally concrete cones. All were covered with clusters of mine; some had shells attaching pointing seawards so that a landing barge would be instally blown apart. The obstacles were serried lines with about 10 yards between each. In Jones' 30-yd. gap, he figured there were about a dozen or so major obstacles he [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] had to blow. They had hoped to blow in blocks, but had to blow each one singly.

The tide was coming in rapidly; the swells were high. The frogmen left their LCA outside the chosen area; five men swam ashore from obstacle to obstacle lying white tape-- 1 1/2"wide and fastened small green and red marker buoys about 6" in diameter along the tapes. They began blowing the obstacles. They had blown about four major ones -- two Belgium gates and two ramps and were working on the line of tetra hedrolls when the assault troops were all around them. Because the obstacles were rapidly being covered by water, the L.C.A.s hoped to pass over the first and then hegotitate between the others

By 7:30 they had a 30-yd. part blown. In came the LCAs, all about them. As one frogman came out of the water, he was shot right through the head. The rest ran up the beach to a crater. Pinned down, the infantry passed them and cracked: "Where did you ballet dancers come from?" and [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] "Where did you get those bullet-proof suits?"

A sniper opened up on Jones; the bullet struck his helmet, blacked him out for a few minutes. He got up and ran. A second bulet hit his 45 revolver on the hammer and knocked it out of his hand; a third shot ripped ohe rubber sleeve of his suit from wrist to shoulder without touching him but all his cigarettes--almost 200--fell out into the water.

INTERVIEW WITH ROYAL MARINE SEGT. PETER HENRY JONES Navy Frog

He was aged 25 at D.Day. He was married, his wife's name being Margaret, he calls her 'Peggy', they had one daughter named Brenda, aged one year, a second was due "A baby boy born in November". He was with the Royal Marine Commandos, and his unit was No. 4. He was on Gold Beach, and in actual fact it was an engineering outfit.

There were actually sixty Royal Marine Commando Frogmen and sixty Royal Navy types, in all 120 frogmen for all the beaches. Jones' beach was Gold and he was on the extreme right at La Hamer, Capt. Jackson, a called Jacko was in charge, but Jones was the N.C.O. in charge of his section.

Jones was briefed on May 31st about the operation and he was the only N.C.O. present at this briefing. They left the Mother Ship at about 5 a.m. The seas were very rough, the wind was blowing behind them and the waves were quite mountainous. They would have rather worked in deep water because there would have been more cover, and the decision to land dry or wet was left to the individual unit. The L.C.A. which carried them in, carried the usual ten men plus three crew and half a ton of gummed cotton and plastic explosives. They were issued with Kapok vests which is supposed to protect the upper portion of the body from blast concussion in the water. Nobody in his outfit had ever used them. It is interesting to note that he says that if you are in the water within 50 yds of an explosive it is nearly fatal every time. However, he points out that Kapok jackets were "excellent as pillows."

One of the things which upset many of these frogmen as they went in, in these L.C.As and we should remember that they were the first people to go in, was that each L.C.A. carried a large red flag to indicate they were carrying explosives. Jones thinks that this was carrying it just a little bit too far because here they were trying to

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creep up on the shore, the first of the invading force, each one of them carried a perfect market for the Germans to fire on, because they must have known too possibly what was in the boats. On the way in one of the men said to Jones, "what the hell should we do with this thing" and one of the men said to him "well why don't we ring them up before we get there and tell them we are coming." The flags miraculously disappeared as soon as the run in began.

They could hear the shells from the Naval vessels whistling overhead, then they came under heavy machine gun fire which rattled on the ramp, "what the hell is that" asked one of them joking, and one of the crew answered "oh just rain". They could see the obstacles ahead, Jones knew that they had on paper about 20 minutes to cut a 30 yard gap in the obstacles before the infantry started to move in. Now there were about a dozen lines of obstacles. The first ones as he remembers them, were bulging gates, or sea type obstacles, next after that came ramps, next after that came tetre hedrolls, after that came hedgehogs then came a triangular type and finally came the concrete cones. All of these were covered with clusters of mines, some even had shells attached to them pointing seawards so that a langing barge if it ran into it would instantly be shelled by this stationary shell. These obstacles were serried lines and there was about 10 yards between each one, and in the thirty yard gap that he had to blow he figured that there was about a dozen or so major obstacles, some of them up to ten or fourteen feet long, and some five or eight feet, so it was not an easy job to tackle for just ten men. But they got to it and began to blow them, first they thought they could do it in blocks but then they began to blow them singly.

The tide was coming in rapidly, the swells were high, it was not deep for underwater work, one needs about 15 ft. for safe underwater work so Jones was sorry to go on dry, there was a six to eight ft. rise in the tide and they knew that they could never have done it underwater anyway in the time allotted to them.

Their proceedure was much like that of the other frogmen interviewed. They left the L.C.A. outside the chosen area, five men swam ashore from obstacle to obstacle laying white tape, the tape by the way is 1 1/2" wide, and then they put small green and red marker bouys about six inches in diameter, along the tapes. They then returned and began blowing the obstacles individually. They had blown about four major obstacles, about two Belgium gates and two ramp and were working on the line of tetra hedrolls, when the assault troops were all around them. Because the obstacles were rapidly being covered by water the L.C.As. hoped to pass over the first and then negotiate between the others, but because of the

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swell this was touch and go.

They got a thirty yard part blown by about 7.30. They had to get out of the water then because the L.C.As. were coming in all about them, as the frogmen came out of the water, one of his men was shot right through the head. The remainder ran up the beach up to a crater. They were pinned down among the very infantry who cracked at them as they passed by "where did you ballet dancers come from" and also "where did you get those bullet proof suits".

The frogmen incidentally felt a little silly in one respect that over their rubber suits they had tin helmets on and they did not like it too well.

When Jones was moving up the beach a sniper opened up on him, and he thought that he had had it, because the first bullet struck the edge of his helmet and it blacked him out for a couple of moments. Then he got up and ran again and instinctively after being shot the first time and luckily escaping, he grabbed for his 45 colt. revolver. Just then the second bullet was fired at him and it hit the revolver actually on the hammer and knocked it out of his hand, but even more he was fired on again as he continued on running and the third shot ripped the rubber sleeve of his frogman suit from wrist to shoulder without even touching him, but what it did do was in opening up his sleeve in this fashion all his cigarettes which he had put in there fell out into the water, almost a couple of hundred.

From there on that day they helped the unit who was working on Jones' left flank, also the Royal Engineers to remove obstacles. They also helped the soldiers who were hit and struggling in the water to the beach, and time and again they dived in and brought out badly wounded men who were sitting in a few feet of water. He remembers seeing a couple of the Dorsets, and the Corporal of the Dorsets, hit in the throat in three feet of water and pulling him out. This man was unable to speak but he thanked Jones with a smile and a wave of his hand to his helmet. Later he saw two D.D. tanks knocked out by the battery over at Longues. He saw both of them burning and he knows that the crew did not get out, Jones knew because of the smell. Also this smell of human flesh burning was mixed in with that of the burning diesel oil. He says this is the smell he will never forget until his dying day.

At about 10.30 that morning an L.C.I. came in and on the swell turned broadside to the beach. He could see the troops standing up almost as if they were at attention, jammed together ready to come down the ramps. Apparently the L.C.I. in swinging broadside came right down on top of two Belgium gates and also the L.C.I. must have been carrying a quantity of explosives for in one shattering second it went up and to Jones who watched it, it looked like slow motion cartoon because "the men went up

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as though standing to attention, as though they were going up inside a fountain and at the top of this fountain the bodies and parts of bodies spread out like drops of water". As he puts it "it went up and just wasn't". Jones just looked on in amazement. He had seen so much death that morning that he was beyond feeling sick, even when he saw this.

As he walked along the shore that morning he said it was like looking at a "wrecked car part, running a full half mile with wrecked and burning landing craft, some on top of each other, and one or two standing crazily up on their noses." By four o'clock that afternoon the water's edge was thick with floating bodies, crates of soup, cans of pineapple juice, cans which contained stew, and ham, there were rolls of matting, crates, shell containers, soldiers packs, broken weapons, a great jumble of equipment all mixed in with the bodies and parts of bodies of men.

At nine that morning a shell from a battery landed nearby, about ten yards away from him, and he will never forget that there was a colonel walking along the beach with his stick under his arm, apparently directing troops up the beach, the explosion cleaved him straight down the centre from helmet to crutch, and the two halves fell apart perfectly flat.

Something else happened round nine o'clock that morning, about two or three hundred yards away he suddenly saw what he thought was a tank coming down the beach but as he looked he saw that it was one of these miniature tanks with explosives. This baby tank was radio controlled and it came slowly towards them and then it stopped. For a moment he thought it was coming for them, all of his men stood and looked at this, they were terribly surprised that it stopped and nothing happened and so they did not bother about it they just left it there, it was not in their area anyway.

As it got dark that night Jones began wondering where he would sleep. They had been working all day and nobody had even thought about quarters for the night. Everything about them was shattered, but about midnight he found a place in the shattered and wrecked debris of a hotel, he found that there was one place still standing, which looked as if it might protect them during the night, and that was the mens urinal. He and Lieut. Carter and the other men moved into the urinal and they lay down and tried to get some sleep. He remembers Carter wakening him up a few minutes later, tapping him on the shoulder and beckoning him to come out. They went out of the urinal, Carter had found a carpet. They brought it back in and the pair of them wrapped themselves up in it and fell asleep. About the colonel whom he saw split in half, he was a colonel of the old school, and as Jones put it, "it was the only time, and I hope the only time that I will ever see anybody split in half." Jones is now a building contractor.