The stories behind the story
Great, unpublished
history!
3 - D-Day - Two veterans' accounts - WW2 Podcast episode 3
Graphic accounts of the D-Day landings taken from two WW2 veteran memoirs
Startling accounts from two different perspectives - one from an infantryman, the other from a Royal Engineer, both landing on Gold Beach under heavy fire. This is the third episode in the podcast series Fighting Through from Dunkirk to Hamburg, based around the book of the same name which features Bill Cheall's World War 2 memoirs. WW2 podcast ...
Great unpublished history!
Useful WW2 Links
Websites:
Fighting Through web site - Companion web site to the published book. Many stories and photos.
Brian Moss, Sergeant, 233 Field Company, Royal Engineers / 5 East Yorks. Hear his absolutely gripping D-Day account in the podcast.
A letter from Brian's son, Mike.
My father, Brian Moss, was a platoon sergeant in 233 Field Company, Royal Engineers, attached mostly to 5 East Yorks but also at times to 6 & 7 Green Howards. I recognize many place names in your father’s account. My father first joined 50 Div after his arrival in North Africa in June 1942. His active involvement in the war ended in September 1944, when he was blown up by a butterfly bomb in Nijmegen. He spent most of the next year in hospital. My father’s war had started in bomb disposal during the London Blitz, and his experience with bombs and mines led to his being appointed to develop a desert mine school for infantry in 69 Brigade. If you are still in contact with any former comrades from Green Howards (or East Yorks), I’d be very interested to reach them. I have located a former tank commander of the Hermann Goering Abteiliung in Sicily (dad and two of his men snuck up and blew up three of his unit’s tanks when they were parked in a land south of Primasole Bridge on July 16, 1943). Another recent contact has been with the son of the Marine officer who I believe commanded the same landing craft in which dad travelled to Gold Beach!
Mike Moss, Canada
"A burst of automatic fire crackled in, just over our heads. No one was hit. With a yell, 2nd Loot White sprung to his feet and jumped out into the knee-deep water. To our surprise, he disappeared from sight! He had fallen into a shell hole, obscured by the water.
Brian Moss, Sergeant,
233 Field Company, Royal Engineers / 5 East Yorks
"Every second was vital; let’s get out of this coffin! Our landing craft was getting so near now and we felt so helpless, Enemy shells were now landing on the shoreline and machine gun bullets were raking the sand. Then, at the top of his voice, the helmsman shouted: ‘Hundred to go, seventy-five to go, all ready, fifty to go!
Bill Cheall, Lance Corporal, 6th Battalion, Green Howards
Fascinating photos of the road leading up from Gold Beach as it was in WW2 and now.
Bill Cheall in later years and in 1943 in Egypt. Hear his gripping D-Day account in the podcast.
Show transcript
Lance Sergeant William 'Rufty' Hill - Drowned under a landing craft on Gold Beach in the first wave of troops landing
6th Green Howards storm Gold Beach in the first wave on 6 June 1944, D-Day, WW2
A video I made on Gold Beach, Normandy, to tell just part of the story of the landings.
Bill Cheall's published memoirs, which depict his Dunkirk exploits and much more.
Normandy Gold Beach - a really excellent guide book whether you visit or not! Others in the series.