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"A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE WAR THAT NIGHT".

Now comes our moment of glory. !!! (The night of the 5th of June 1944).
After being cooped up in guarded camps with no exit for a week or so gambling away the French currency that had been provided, we hit the road for the airfield to embark on what was going to be for some the "biggest gamble "of their lives.
We embarked in sticks of eighteen men into four engined Stirling bombers just before ten o'clock on that balmy June evening.
I remember with nostalgia the ladies of the "Women's Royal Air Force", (our parachute packers), standing around the embarkation area with tears in their eyes handing out mugs of hot sweet tea.
I don't know what was in that tea, but it sure got me through the night.
I talked to the members of the crew of the Stirling just before take off.
When I questioned them about the drop zone, they assured me that they had flown over the area in Normandy several times in the preceding weeks and "KNEW THE EXACT FIELD" on which we were to be dropped.
(More about this later.

The take-off and journey across the English Channel was quiet and uneventful until we reached the French Coast, then all hell broke loose.
The parachute exit door in the floor at the rear end of the aircraft was now open and the inside of the fuselage was continuously illuminated by the explosion of far too close for comfort anti-aircraft shells which were peppering the outside of our aircraft with shrapnel.
Not a pleasant experience. !!!

Once free of the aircraft, I found myself drifting across a moonlit road into an apple orchard.
Landings, by relatively small round parachutes can be hazardous to ones health at the best of times and especially so if you are trying to guide an unguidable chute to a landing between a row of trees, even under moonlit conditions.
By the way I forgot to tell you, in addition to all the accouterments of war located upon my person, I had an eighteen-man rubber dinghy strapped to my right leg.

My particular job that night was, (if the bridges over the river and canal at Benouville, near Caen, were blown), to ferry my group across the water.
As a rubber dinghy is not much of a protective device against the large hob-nailed boots of my companions it certainly was not much of a protection against bullets or grenades especially if they were being fired in my particular direction.
I was not looking forward to this task. !!!

Getting back to the landing. Remember the crew of the Stirling who "KNEW THE EXACT FIELD". Well--They may have known the exact field but they sure as hell didn't know the right river.
But there again, give them the benefit of the doubt. The airspace on the coast of France was blanketed with aircraft of all shapes and sizes, thousands of them, and so perhaps we can forgive them the small error in navigation of a mere twenty miles or so.
It was pretty obvious after the shortest period of time, even to a dumb kid like me, that the fighting was going on a long way from where we had landed and therefore "WE MUST BE IN THE WRONG PLACE". !!!
I was later to realize that we were well behind the German lines.

My major worries at that time were the two grenades that I was carrying, and, where was everyone else. !!!
The first thing I did, after disentangling myself from the nylon parachute, was to discard the rubber dingy as it was pretty obvious that we were up the creek without a paddle.
I didn't fear much, but after seeing the devastating effects that grenades can have on the person I was scared to death of the vague possibility that one of the pins securing either one of the grenades that I carried in my pouches may somehow get detached and cause my instant demise.
Before take off from England I'd hammered those pins in so tight that it would have taken a hacksaw to get them out.
Funny the little things that worry you at a time like this. !!!

For recognition purposes we had been given a little tin gadget known as a "cricket" which when pressed emitted a clicking sound.
The drill was to click once and receive a couple of clicks in return, or vice-versa, or whatever. Now was the time for me to locate my partners in crime, (The Friendlies),
I clicked my cricket - nothing - I clicked again - nothing, one more try and a voice which I assumed to be the voice of the Platoon Sergeant, (a man of few words, mostly four letter words), boomed across the aisle between the apple trees, "If that person who is doing that f---ing clicking, doesn't shut up right now, I'm going to come over there and blow his bloody head off". And that's a friendly!!!