Bernard Weston’s (1922 – 2018) D-Day Memories 

I was called up in 1941 when I was 19 and joined the Royal Armoured Corps for training.  Then I was rather fortunate. I had a cousin who was in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry and he saw his squadron leader who was Colonel Stockdale of Mears Ashby and he got me drafted into the A squadron in Northamptonshire Yeomanry as a tank wireless operator.

A month before D-Day we were based in Bury St Edmunds and were issued with Sherman tanks so we got an idea that something was going to happen.  I was sent up to Barnard Castle for quite a while to learn the ins and outs of the Sherman wireless sets as they were American.  When I came back to Bury, we formed the 33rd Armoured Independent Brigade along with 1st East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry and the 144 Regiment RAC.

From Bury we went to Aldershot where we waterproofed the tanks using Bostick and had armour and ammunition boxes welded to the tank to carry extra kit if we wanted it.

From there we took the tanks by low loaders down to a big transit camp at Waterlooville near Portsmouth.  

When it came through that troops had landed in Normandy we were moved down to Gosport where we loaded the tanks on to American tank landing ship.  When we got out into the Solent, we were stuck there for about three days because of the terrible storms in the channel, however as we were on an American ship we had lovely rations. 

We finally landed at D plus six at Le Hamel (Gold Beach) just east of Asnelles and travelled to a place just outside Bayeux were we then had to de waterproof the tanks. 

As we were independent and not attached to a division, where ever they wanted tanks poor old 33rd were called up to take them. 

I finally returned home in 1946.