World War II D-Day Accounts from the Cornelius Ryan Collection

COWLEY, Ernest John British Royal Navy

Box 20, #19

ACK 30/5/58

THE ASSAULT LANDINGS IN NORMANDY D DAY: MIDNIGHT JUNE 5 - MIDNIGHT JUNE 6

What is your full name? Ernest John Cowley.

What is your present address? 58 Northfield Rd, New Barnet. Herts.

Telephone number:

What was your unit, division, corps? Royal Navy.

Where did you land and at what time? [illegible] the american Sector. 8.30 A.M

What was your rank and age on June 6, 1944? Stoker XX 1st Class 20 yrs.

Were you married at that time? yes

What is your wife's name? Lily Elsie Cowley

Did you have any children at that time? No

When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion? 2nd June 1944 we hooded Tanks of the 7th [illegible] Division at Horwich.

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? The Trip across the channel was very quite except when we were 1 mile from the French coast, then we, ran into gunfire and dive bombing. I spoke to a sergent, and he said, he had been in the country only a Short time.

Were there any rumours a board the ship? (Some the Germans had poured gasoline on the water and planned to set it afire when the troops came in.) There were no rumors of any kind, everybody, only seemed concerned with the job in hand, and that was making a good Landing an getting a foothold on the beach.

Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? No

2. Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? There was 2 7th armoured Division men killed, there Tank never followed the leader and drove into a pothole, the Tank was covered with water & the 2 men inside the Tank were drowned.

Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? No

Were you wounded? No

How were you wounded?

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?

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? My Job during the landing was to let go the anchore, and I was standing on the gun platform aft of the bridge, overhead there appeard several planes, and the order was given to Fire, after several burst the planes dropped [*Flares?*] they was ours. 5 to 10 minuets Later another swarm of planes, there was no order to Fire, until a salvo of Bombs dropped across our bows

Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else? On board [?H.M.L.CT7045?] we had 45 members of the poineer corps, these men were aged between 45 and 55, the only weapons these men had were [?shot?] guns, there Job was to Fight there way to a clearing and make an airstrip for the gliders to Land, when we beached these men whent ashore clinging to the tanks, and the thought in my head at that moment, here were men who fought in the [illegible]

2. 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? H.M.L.C.T. 7045. They made this craft Flotilla header to be the exact the 6th Flotilla, she was 120 ft long, and the bridge was about 10 ft wide and 8 f Long, and standing on that bridge there was more gold Braid than they have on the bridge of Battleship at any one time, and I am ashamed to say It made tears come to my eyes with luaghter to see all these high ranking officers on such a small bridge & such a small Craft.

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 am sorry to say I lost contact with all the personel I served with aboard this craft.

What do you do now? I am a maintenance engineer. mechanical

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

E.J. Cowley. My Full Story of the D. Day Landing.

We loaded men of the 7th Armoured Division on the 2nd of june 1944 at Horwich. at first we thought this was just an excersice, until I spoke to a sargent and he said, that they had only been back in England a week, and they had no leave, but had been transported with there [crossed out][illegible][end crossed out] tanks to Horwich so I put 2 and 2 together and siad to him I lay odds that this is the real thing, and when all shore leave was stopped we knew, and on June the 4th the ships company was mustered, and we was told were we was going. D day should have been on June the 5th but owing to the weather was postponed for 24 hrs and only then if the weather was favourable so there we were tied to a bouy in wild river waiting for the balloon to go up. At2 am 6th off June we recieved orders start main engines, bouy wires were slipped and we were under way. we sailed along the coast for awhile, and the sight is one I shall never forget, the whole channel seemed to be filled with ships and the sky with planes. We aproached the French coast around 5 am, and slowly steamed towards our landing point but about 2 miles off we stopped engines and stayed put for nearly 2 1/2 hrs, the reason for this the frogmen had not cleared all the mines from the Landing strip and this held up the landing when eventuly we did land, we were beached in 6 ft of water, so the 11 tanks had to go

off in 6 ft of water this is were the 27th armored division men were killed apart from this all the tanks landed safety then our job was to get off the beach back to Britain + Load more troops and supplies - off this we did we loaded with american troops + supplies and landed again at the same sector this second time there was several dead troops floating in the water near the beach and the bodies were all puffed + bloated this had been done by the germans and on the bodies had been places small mines and several craft had been blown up by this method naval personel had tried to recover the bodies and when they had pulled them inboard they had set the mines off blowing up part of the craft and in most cases sinking fortunate for us we had recieved a signal to this effect and we steered clear of the bodies there also was several mines floating on the water and every now and then there was an explosion and another craft had had it several of these floated near us but never touched us we were very lucky in more ways than one with our success we carried troops and supplies accross the channel for 10 days non stop without a break and we did not even scratch out paint work please excuse spelling as I am writing this very quickly this is the most I can remember of the D day landing yours truly [?]

Extracts E 28MAY1958 QS 28/5/58

Mr. E. J. Cowley. 58 Southfield Rd. New Barnet Herts.

23-5-1958.

Dear Sir,

In reply to your adbert in the "Evening News" on the D day Landing, I served aboard H.M.L.C.T 7045, & sailed from Horwich & Landed at the american section at 8.30 A.M forenoon, If you like I can supply a complete story from the loading of tanks & landing [illegible]

Yours Faithfully E. J. Cowley.

10th July, 1950.

E.J. Cowley, Esq., 58, Northfield Road, New Barnet, Herts.

Dear Mr. Cowley,

I felt that I should personally write to thank you for the wonderful contribution which you have made in the preparation of the D-Day book which I an writing.

Your questionnaire was so complete that I did not think it would be necessary to ask you to cone to London for interview. The account which you gave was precisely the sort of thing that I was searching for and I feel confident that I will be able to use extracts from this as I am writing the book.

As you must well appreciate, we are dealing with several thousand people, and in the book's final edited form, we shall probably be lucky if we can do more than give each participant a few lines. It is the sum total, however, of all those accounts which I hope will give the book i.ts accuracy and unbiased presentation.

I have one more request to make of you. In order to extract some material from your questionnaire, I will need your signature to the attached release. A stamped and addressed envelope is attached for your use.

It may well be a year before the manuscript is published in The Reader’s Digest, but at that time we will duly send you a copy of the issue with the story "The Longest Day"

Yours sincerely,

(Cornelius J. Ryan)

Nothing

I hereby agree that Mr. Cornelius Ryan has all rights whatsoever in the questionnaire and letter from me regarding D-Day.

SIGNED E. J. Cowley DATE 12th - July - 1958

2.

Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? FIRST KILLED SERGT JOCK PATTERSON. LIKE MYSELF, HE WAS DRIVING AN ARMOURED-BULLDOZER, AND THE L.C.T. HE WAS ABOARD WAS NECK AND NECK WITH OURS.

Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? JOCK WAS MY FRIEND, HE WAS UPSET BECAUSE HE HAD LOST THE SIGNET RING HIS GIRL HAD GIVEN HIM. OUR RESPECTIVE BOATS WERE ABOUT 25yds APART ON LANDING AT HIGH TIDE. HE WAVED TO ME. IN HIS HAND WAS A FLAG WHICH HE HAD TO PLANT AT A PRE-ARRANGED SPOT THAT WAS JOB THAT KILLED HIM. ONCE HE DISMOUNTED TO RUN UP THE BEACH. HE STOPED ONE. THE NEXT TIME I SAW HIM WAS 2HRS LATER WITH A NOTE ON HIS CHEST SAYING HE HAD BEEN INJECTED WITH MORPHIA. ONLY THEN DID I FEEL THE IMPACT OF THIS FANTASTIC OPERATION.

Were you wounded?

How were you wounded?

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?

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? YES. A SMOKE SCREEN HAD BEEN LAYED ON TO PROTECT SOME BIG SHIPS JUST OFFSHORE. SOME OF OUR CHAPS WERE JUST COMING IN FROM ENGLAND. NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS SMOKE SCREEN AND ARRIVING AT DUSK ALL KEYED UP. SOMEBODY STARTED COUGHING. SOMEBODY, ELSE JOKINGLY SIAD "GAS" BIG PANIC LOOKING FOR MISLAID GASMASKS. BUT JOHNY WALKER UNIT COMEDIAN COULD NOT FIND HIS. WAS ADVISED TO MAKE WATER IN A BLANKET SEVERAL OF THE BOYS HAD TO HELP OUT POOR JOHNY [inserted] Walker - [illegible] smoke screen [end inserted] HAD THE UNPLEASANT TASK OF HOLDING THE BLANKET TO HIS FACE. BUT HE SURVIVED. ANOTHER BLOKE LOST HIS FALSE TEETH, AND HAD A HELL OF A JOB EATING THE "CONCRETE" BICUITS. HE GOT THE "M. M." HE DESERVED IT

Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, that struck you more than anything else?