I was born in Ystradglynais 1923 ... eventually at the age of 19½ I had a letter from the British Government inviting me to join the Army because they were short of soldiers, so I was called up.

I then went to Prestatyn, I did six weeks preliminary training and after the training I was transferred to a unit down in Kent and that was the part of the Third British Infantry Division. I did an aptitude test and several other tests and they put me in the Royal Corps of Signals.

I went into the Royal Corps of Signals and I went into J Section which was the section designated to the (Eighth) British Infantry Brigade and I met up with about 30/35 of the boys and they were all tradesmen in the Royal Signals such as wireless operators, linesmen, drivers, etc, so we lived together, well we were about 35 for about six months perhaps and then they started bringing more into the section, so we finished up with a section of about 60 people.

We were then transported up to Scotland and we were doing intensive training up around the Fort William and all those places with the Royal Navy preparing for the invasion of Normandy. After we completed our training up there, we were transported again down Easter time in 1944 to the New Forest, just outside Portsmouth and we were put in camps there and, of course, it was very secretive of what was going to happen, but we knew ourselves that we were preparing for something.

So within the Brigade, they had three divisions, the South Lancashire Regiment, the East Yorks Regiment and the Suffolk Regiment. Out of our little company of Royal Signals, there were three men designated to the South Lancs Regiment, there were three men designated to the East Yorks and three to the Suffolk Regiment. Those three were, although we were all trained as wireless operators, but one of them had to go on to be trained as a driver/mechanic because we were out with the battalions and he had to be responsible for charging batteries and keeping the radio communication going, so that was my job, so we did all our training, but the day or two before we were ready to land, we were briefed quite secretly of what to expect and what we were going to do.

On the way to the beach to land I was driving this half-track with two wireless operators inside and we were all waterproofed up because, you know, we were taken over by small little ships with the Navy called Landing Craft Tanks and, of course, they used to drop us out sometimes up to your bottom in water and when we waterproofed the vehicles, the exhaust had to be up very, very high so that there was no fear of any water getting into the exhaust and crippling us.

And on the way to the beach our vehicle broke down and I should have landed with the Suffolk Regiment and there was a right, there was a small REME ....... department on the beach, you know, expecting some sort of problem with vehicles going down there and they repaired my vehicle for me and put it in working order so I was able to go over and I landed on the beach in Normandy after the assault troops, about half-past-eight in the morning, and the Military Police were on the beaches directing us where to go. So I was a bit of a loner at that time with all this radio equipment in the thing and the two operators, so they directed us to the battalion.

Our objective for that particular day was to go into Caen and take Caen, but although the Infantry, the Third British Infantry Division, got into Caen, it wasn't very long before they were driven back because the German's 21st Panzer Division were re-mustering outside Caen and they were Hitler's crack division. So they drove us back from Caen, so we were within a couple of miles from Caen. So there was a lot of bloodshed there, as you can imagine, and anyway, after we were there a few days the East Yorkshire should have gone on to link up with the paratroopers that landed by Pegasus Bridge. But of course they had difficulty in getting there, but with the help of the commandos and one thing and another eventually got over there, they linked up with them. So, our job was virtually complete after that and there were other divisions coming in and taking over and going right through.

When we got to Normandy, there was one thing. The Germans had a headquarters in a chateau called (Dilondere) and one thing I can quite remember and it is very vivid in my mind today, the South Lancs Regiment went in there to try to capture this headquarters and they had great difficulty, so the Suffolk Regiment, which I was with, had to go in to help them out. And I can distinctly remember carrying a chap on my shoulder out from there, he'd been badly wounded, and I remember them shouting to me, 'Get down, get down, get down,' because the firing was so severe there. And, anyway, I survived that, so little incidents like that that, you know, crops up in your mind now and again and you sort of can't forget them.

Now our job was then supposed to have come back to England, had a bit leave, and for the invasion eventually of Japan. But anyway, as the other troops broke through, they went through the Gap and they made their way up to Belgium, up into the, Arnhem, and of course they dropped the paratroopers up there and I think everyone on television has seen the problems that there were up there with the, you know, the man-to-man fighting up there, so we were shipped, or transported up to Arnhem and there was bloodshed up there as well. I think, Arnhem could have been a little bit worse than what Normandy was.

After Arnhem, the Third British Infantry Division should have been taken back to England and then transported out to America for about a month's intensive training and then we were supposed to invade Japan. But we sent the advance party onto the aerodrome in Brussels and whilst they were on the aerodrome, they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, so they didn't want us anymore to invade Japan and that was that.

So we were then transported from Brussels and, of course, all the boys that were there now getting on a bit, they were put to one side and a new set come in of younger boys, because they were due now to go out on de-mob, the older boys. Then, when we re-mustered and we got our troops altogether, they shipped us down to Toulon in the south of France and then they put us on the Ile de France which was the French ship equivalent to the Queen Mary in those days and they shipped us out to Egypt, to Alexandria in Egypt, and we finished up in Ismailia. And we were commuting then between Ismailia in Egypt and Palestine because there quite some problems out in Palestine at that time which is still going on today of course.

So, anyway, we did that until 1947 and then my time come for being de-mobbed...