THE DESPATCH RIDER

Jack Mortimer, 95 Private, 12th Ordnance Beach Detachment (part of the No 6 Beach Group), Royal Army Ordnance Corps

I’D BEEN IN TRAINING for the invasion for several months by the time D-day arrived. We first knew something was up in May, when we were sent down from training in Scotland to Petworth in Sussex. A lot of soldiers were gathering along the south coast, then we were taken down to Southampton and loaded on a ship but told nothing, just: ‘You are going to France.’

We were on-board a ship for about three days before we sailed. There were thousands of men, and about 50 vehicles including tanks – to get the vehicles on to the ship we used a long raft nicknamed ‘the alligator’.

Once we’d set sail, we were very apprehensive. If anybody tells you different they are not telling the truth. We were told we were going to land on Sword Beach and we arrived in half-light, I suspect around 8am. It took quite a while to transfer all the vehicles on to the raft, and getting off the boat was very tricky with the waves whipped up by the bad weather while the battleships behind us were firing hundreds of rockets over our heads.

Once we landed my role was to get off the beach as quickly as possible and establish ammunition and supply dumps (which, in turn, would allow us to drive further into France). I was driving a Jeep with a trailer and there were marshals on the beach showing us the way to get out of there.

As I drove all I could see was a lot of smoke, rifle fire, shells being fired all over the place, noise, and thousands of soldiers on either side. It was chaos – but organised chaos. There were people on stretchers and a field hospital had been built on the beach already, as well as a prisoner-of-war cage.

I made it through the melee and on to a country road where I found all my pals – we all made it apart from one sergeant. We think he drowned. Our duty was to prepare the ground and set up a store for the dangerous ammunition, and there were also thousands of jerrycans of petrol that had to be stacked and kept safe.

Everybody was doing their bit – all those bits put together created the success of Operation Overlord and the rescue of Europe.

Life after the war Left the armed forces: 1947 (retired as corporal) / Lives in: Leeds / Family: married in 1945 / Career: general manager of a clothes-manufacturing company

‘All I could see was smoke, rifle fire, shells being fired all over the place, noise, and thousands of soldiers on either side. It was chaos – but organised chaos’

Right Jack Mortimer today, at home in Leeds. Below During his Army days. On D-day, Mortimer established ammunition stores to facilitate Allied progress into France