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I was drafted into the RAF from making Spitfires and Blenheims in Bristol. I was 28 years old when I was drafted into the RAF.My first real memory of the DDay period was waiting for embarkation at Shoreham cheered by the first experience of a hot meal from a US tin with a ring pull which magically heated the contents!I landed on the 12th August, the last official day of the Invasion with a 4 foot drop on my 1000cc Harley Davidson into the water on the Normandy beaches- Arromanches on Gold .I had to leave my 15shot Bren gun behind because I couldn't handle the heavy bike as well as the gun. I shot up the beach along a type of steel floor laid down, but no one reminded me that I should drive on the right hand side of the road. As I got to the top of the beach I was faced with a big tank and learnt a very quick lesson not expected in the height of war!
I ended up firstly in Caen, billeted in a heatwave in a house full of wasps.We slept on the floor.We couldn't wash.I found the house- or rather the space where it had been, 10 years ago when revisiting for the first time since the war.My wife Mavis was amazed at finding the place with no real address to remember. The house is now a little park.The stream which was our toilet was still there. An old lady came out of the house next to the garden when I visited with my family,and hugged me saying 'Merci Monsieur, merci, merci'- she was a little girl when the soldiers were billeted next door to her.After Caen I went to Brussels and ended up a clerk in HQ until my Paris posting. I remember lying in a field watching the sky go black with our airplanes as the airbourne invasion began. I was determined to have my photo taken with my unit on the place Hitler had so recently been stood under the Eiffel tower. I was in France 3 years and did over 4000 miles on my Harley delivering dispatches.I was one of the lucky ones in the war.The Germans would have obliterated London if we hadn't gone into France that first week in June. They were building big quarries for the V2 rocket sites.
Written by Kim Adams, dictated by her Dad.

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