THE NORMANDY LANDINGS
Described at Castleford
CAPTAIN PETER CATTLE
Speaking from the pulpit of Castleford Parish Church after Evensong
on Sunday on the invitation of the Rector the Rev J Butterworth, Captain
Peter Cattle, who was one of the first troops to land by glider in
Normandy in the early hours of D Day, gave a vivid description of the
first days of the invasion.
He described the formation of the Sixth Airborne Division out of the
infantry battalions and said there was a grand lot of Yorkshire men
amongst them. One morning they were told they were going to be
paratroops.
For three years they had been waiting for the Germans to invade this
country and now they were to be an invasion force. The vast
majority had volunteered to be paratroops. The River Orne and a
canal ran parallel for seven or eight miles from Caen to the sea with
only two bridges at the village of Ranville. Three months before
their General was told their job would be to protect the left flank of
the 70 mile long allied invasion front and see there was no
interference. They were to land near Ranville, seize the high
ground, hold it at all costs, and hold the two bridges across the river
and canal, preventing the Germans blowing them up.
A second objective was a battery of four guns, heavily concreted at
the mouth of the Orne and capable of firing along the coast. That
battery had to be put out of action before daylight on D Day. Two
particular fields had been selected for the landings on either side of
the river and the canal.
The plan worked smoothly - gliders crash-landed in the fields and the
first bridge was secured before the Germans knew what was happening in
the darkness. The second bridge was theirs within an hour.
The taking of the battery was expected to be a big problem but some of
the R.A.F. bombs blew up the mines laid by the Germans and cleared gaps
in the wire around it. Paratroops landed two miles away and the 'welcoming
committee' did not last long.
Using the craters made by the R.A.F. bombs, 200 men got through to
the guns and put demolition charges in, and by the time the invasion
force arrived at the beaches not one of those guns could fire. It
was a wonderful piece of work.
It was a 'Good Party' they had at Ranville. They landed two
full brigades of paratroops at 1.30 am. The field on which they
landed was all poles and trenches but within an hour and half these were
blown up, sawn down or filled in and a long landing strip
prepared, Going over the sea it was a marvellous and very
comforting sight to see the sea covered with ships of every
description. The Gliders took over and brought cycles, jeeps, and
food as well as men. Our lads fought magnificently.
Express July 7th 1944
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