A wartime report from SUPERA school magazine

This report was found in the Christmas to Summer edition, and dated 1943 - 1944. Does anyone know anything about its author, an old boy, L H Burgess. Any info by email please. We will publish appropriate information. We are not aware that this material is copyright but if we are wrong please tell us and we will acknowledge the fact.

 

ON ACTIVE SERVICE

D-DAY (SIGNALLERS')

Dear Madam Editor,

Many times have you asked me to write and tell you the tale —and for four years I have resisted the temptation. now the old urge has caught me again, and I must tell of France.

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D-Day is now, of course, a thing of the past, but some of us will never forget it. I have seen convoys of boats before, I have seen regattas, but never have I seen such a vast concentration of landing craft as gathered one night in French territorial waters. Little winking lights from the beach-master to the L.S.T.'s and L.S.I.'s, an answering flicker, and the individual boat ground its way ashore.

 

I was on a Yankee boat—and right good fellows they were. When our boys were out of cigarettes, and no hope of any for some time, the Yanks gave up their own ration on a barter system. I myself obtained 60 Lucky Strikes for one brass pip ; some did better—it was that old American craze for souvenirs again.

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The organisation of the beach was amazing—for security reasons I cannot say much about this. As we lay off shore a small naval picket-boat wove its way out to us and a British naval officer gave our Yankee skipper his landing orders. The word was passed round that we were going in. Each man blew up his Mae West and looked to his weapons. Everyone joked in the forced way that betokens tension : Exercise ! this is it, chaps, someone said to' me, and everyone laughed.

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We gently scraped ashore. Ramp down, vehicles away, and I found myself riding a Jeep, up the Summerfeld Track, across the beach, past notices grimly scrawled Achtung, Minen ! and we were on the coast road. One felt that the tension was over.

Now we had to find our harbour area. Strange maps, terrible roads, a sixth form French vocabulary that was the despair of M. Delacourcelle, and the noises off. We found our location.

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Now the job in hand : lines to be laid, communications to be established. We worked all night to make up for time lost in landing. By morning all comms. that were scheduled for the operation, for that time-stage, for our little section, were through. We slept. Then dinner. Each man had his 24 pack, one for each of the two days, and a Tommy-cooker. Everyone ate. We had done this kind of thing before, in England.

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Then lines, and more lines ; more vital links. We must have French-based air-support, and the lines to the air-strip must be through before the planes from Britain could land. 136Line Section got the line through. I take particular pride in having laid the line to the first air-strip in France.

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And so the days roll on. I pull up the jeep outside an old farm- house, and perpetrate my French on the aged woman standing outside. Have you any eggs to sell me ? I ask. (I always add to sell to me now, because if I don't she may think I want them free). Only a few days before, the Nazis used to walk in, demanding them—we must avoid such a reputation.

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I now know the meaning of the expression faux pas. The French have been very polite to the Invasion Army, throwing flowers at passing cars, bags of smiling —Jours, and a host of friendly salutes. We salute back and pass the time of day. The thought struck me a week ago, however, that maybe one French- man had not heard of our arrival. As I passed him on the dusty road, he gave me a smiling— Jour ! and the Nazi salute. Yes, I think I can call that a faux pas !

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It is a far cry from here to the cloistered form rooms of the old school, and still further to the school that I left in Summer —'40. Yet I suppose it is still the same. There are still rules, I guess, like . . . The pupils change. Madam Editor, but you your- self and the. staff -goes on for ever, and Supera even longer.

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Here I finish. Madam Editor, or the war will pass me by. Give my best wishes to the 61st and all who scout in her ! Cheerio.

Badger.

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Lieut. L. H. Burgess, R.C. Sigs., 136 Line Section, 1 Coy., 11 Air Formation Signals).

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