D-Day stories from our Air Mail archive

6 June 1944, as remembered by Paul Lambermont, a Free French flier with the RAF who later joined the Association’s Paris Branch

“The 1am briefing: Operating in pairs, at 10-minute intervals, the Bostons of 88 Squadron were to lay a smoke screen between the vessels of the Royal Navy, the US Navy and the famous Atlantic Wall.

“Then came practical advice. To be effective the screen must start at the level of the waves. When you lay the screen turn your oxygen on full. It’s unwise to breathe in any of the smoke that might get forced back into the aircraft.

“At 3am I was completely ready. I went back to my Nissen hut, going over the points in the briefing. I didn’t sleep a wink.

“Twenty minutes after the 6am take-off we reached the sea. As far as the eye could see there were craft of every kind – an incredible criss-cross of funnels, masts and tiny balloons kissing the clouds.

“Suddenly we saw France, right ahead, standing out of the water. As we turned, every gun in every battery on the Atlantic Wall was firing all out. The American vessels facing them followed suit.

“Visibility – roughly eight miles – was better than our briefing had led us to expect. In a few minutes we’d have to get in between the two opposing sides. I adjusted my oxygen mask.

“The time had come. I pressed the bomb-release button and a miracle happened. An endless stream of thick whitish smoke belched out behind the Boston, now doing 260mph. The wireless operator shouted: ‘Bang on.’ For a few moments the screen, eight miles long, hid the American armada. When the four containers were empty, I gave the pilot the route back and let out a long ‘phew’ of content. At 7.30am, our Boston touched down at Hertford Bridge. By 8am all the others should have been back.”

“We were there too” – an anonymous WAAF’s story told to Air Mail in 1994

“So often I would like to say we also were there. True, not for everyone the glamour of operations rooms. Some had to do the mundane tasks, or were hidden away in signals sections below ground. None of the excitement of plotting for us, only hours of monitoring the dots and dashes. Nevertheless, we listened to them go, rejoiced at their return, mourned the losses. We counted the tugs and gliders leaving for D-Day – and before. We counted the tugs returning. When the last glider pilot returned safely we witnessed them stripping their lead officer, for ‘good luck tokens’ they said! That officer surely recalls the day he stood naked but for a severed tie, a fire extinguisher under each arm, spraying foam over his ‘attackers’.”

“The invasion started at Down Ampney” – Alan Hartley’s memories of Dakotas on D-Day and after, published in Air Mail in 2002

“At the end of May an order came confining us to camp. The phonebox was sealed, all letters left open for the censors and all leave cancelled. Then came the order on 4 June to paint black and white stripes round the fuselage and wings of all our Dakotas and Horsa gliders to help our antiaircraft gunners on D-Day. Our Dakotas had actually flown the night before to drop gliders and paras on crossroads, bridges and gun batteries, so, in effect, the invasion started at Down Ampney.

“Four days after the invasion our Dakotas made their first landings on French soil, taking vital supplies. Once emptied the Dakotas were then fitted with stretcher racks and we brought back our first casualties, who were cared for by a lone WAAF nursing orderly. The only WAAFs to fly operationally, they were given parachutes, however, once casualties were loaded, they were forbidden to use them, as their casualties did not have chutes. Our Dakotas were not permitted to display a Red Cross, so they were fair game for the German fighters. Nursing orderlies on our Dakotas brought back over 100,000 casualties. It was not unusual for a soldier wounded in France to be on the operating tables at Down Ampney in under three hours – a record we are justly proud of.”