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 The Invasion
Interactive feature of the most complex attack ever conceived
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E-mail your letter to the editor
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John Kite, British Army special forces |
IN HIS OWN WORDS: JOHN KITE
Posted Sunday, May 23, 2004
Kite, 23, a special-forces sergeant in the British army, took part in the assault on Juno Beach
Our destination five or six miles inland was Douvres-la-Délivrande; our primary objective was the radar station, then the school, which had to be cleared for an HQ. The night before, I handed the men cards to write out their last will and testament, and a little note that could be sent to their parents without being censored (we would be away by the time they got them). I also gave the men 40 francs each. We studied everything thoroughly, over and over again. I told them that if anyone was hit, you don't pick him up, there were others detailed to do that; the assault could not be held up. All told we carried a load of 78 lbs. on our backs. And we had a silly rubber ring—it was supposed to keep us afloat. We used it afterward as a pillow.
When we were due to land, we were told to get down in the hull of the ship. I had my last words with the men and said, "Make peace with your Maker; good luck." I was so scared, all the bones in my body were shaking. I said to myself, Pull yourself together, you're in charge and supposed to show an example. When the ramp went down dead on 0600 [hours], I looked around, and there were pools of water by my men. It wasn't seawater. The Canadians revved the tanks up before we left the ship; the noise was huge, and it helped.
We went into the water and luckily were able to touch bottom. We could see an 8 ft. wall on which the engineers had put up wire mesh for us to climb. We waded through the water, avoiding mines, and my platoon eventually got to the beach. Jim, my other sergeant, took the men up the sand dunes and over the wall, whilst I reported to the beach master the number of troops I had brought ashore and my code number. He said thank you, get off this beach ... quickly.
In a field opposite, we saw the most terrible carnage. There were gliders upended on the posts and tree stumps left for that purpose by the Germans. There were dead men, and dead cattle and horses everywhere. The men [in our unit] had shot a couple of Germans, and we rolled them off the road into a ditch so that they wouldn't be run over. We walked single file up the road, as the verges could have been mined. There was sniping. I gave instructions that the section leader should give a burst of fire at any thick foliage or any windows that were open. The windows soon shut. We stopped to have a cup of tea; we stayed in the ditch, and one of the men who could speak fluent French brought back a pail of boiling water.
At Douvres-la-Délivrande we checked out a school and ensured it was free of booby traps so it could be used as a brigade HQ. My next job was to go to the radar station—a concrete blockhouse, a huge hexagon with apertures all round. The Germans were inside, but the Royal Marine Commandos were outside. We went on to Hermanville, which was on the main road to Caen. When we arrived it was 5 p.m. We had been up since 3 a.m. We dug a trench at the corner of a field and slept.
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