On June 6 this year, I was in Valletta, capital of Malta, and felt surprised that there was no commemoration, considering the involvement of Malta during the Second World War.
I met Eric Sykes a couple of times.
He fought after D-Day, which he said was a baptism of war, and he did not want to speak directly to me about it.
In his autobiography, he says he landed in France a week after D-Day.
He was in a Landing Craft Vehicle and said that everyone onboard suffered from seasickness once out of sight of land.
Lads leaning over the rail were not studying marine life.
Cooks prepared two dixies (cooking pots) of soup simmering nicely but only one or two tried it, the rest was emptied into the sea.
Sykes was stationed in Bayeux and from the very first day a pattern was set for his time during the war.
During the day there was a ‘catastrophe of bombing’ which no training could prepare raw recruits for.
This stopped at first light, in time for sounds of aeroplane engines warmed up for their first sortie of the day.
There were continual barrages at night and the unending sound of Spitfire engines during the day.
Lord Peter Carrington, when foreign secretary (1979-1982), told me he served as a tank commander after D-Day.
Despite the fact his tank had black and white invasion stripes, Typhoon pilots insisted on shooting at him, much to his disgust.
A ‘fake army’ stationed near Dover during the Second World War was part of Operation Fortitude South.
This was a massive Allied deception campaign, designed to convince the Germans that a huge invasion force was preparing to cross the English Channel from Dover to the Pas-de-Calais, drawing enemy attention away from Normandy.
One less known story is that of General Hans Cramer, who had been seriously wounded in North Africa.
On his repatriation journey, he was allowed to see barges of Montgomery’s Army preparing for the invasion of Europe but was told he was in Kent.
It is quite possible he believed this and when back in Germany passed on this information.
At Fairlop, all flying had stopped earlier in the year in preparation for the invasion of Normandy.
Of the 16 squadrons based at Fairlop, only five were not included in that conflict.
The remaining squadrons were involved in offering various attack modes to support soldiers on the ground, named as ground attacks, low-level attacks, rocket attacks, attacks on radar sites, defensive attacks, and similar.
A day surely worthy of remembrance.
- David Martin is co-founder of the Fairlop Heritage Group (fairlopplaintimes.com).
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