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- Capt Ewart Clay, GSO3, 50th Division (en)
- Capt Stephan Perry, FOO 86th Field Rgt R.A. (en)
- Capt. E Clay GSO3 50th Division (en)
- Col. Watson 6th D.L.I. (en)
- Lt E H Moss, 50th Division Intelligence Officer (en)
- Lt G Picot, 1st Hampshires. (en)
- Pte Jackson Browne, 8th D.L.I. (en)
- Sgt Max Hearst, 5th East Yorkshires (en)
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- 75.0 (dbd:second)
- ...that many veterans are running out of courage. Most men have a finite amount of this commodity and it can get used up. The Germans had no such problem. All deserters are shot. Thus everybody stayed in the firing line. The average infantryman has fought in six major attacks without being hit, he knows that he won't last another six. ... Not nice to think that the best that can happen is to be wounded – get a 'Blighty'. (en)
- 'The time is at hand to strike − to break the Western Wall and into the Continent of Europe. To you, officers and men of the 50th Division, has been given the great honour of being in the vanguard of this mighty blow for freedom.' (en)
- On the way home we was told to remove all our insignia as no one was to know we was coming, the first thing we saw when we entered Liverpool Docks was a big banner proclaiming 'Welcome Home 50th Division'. (en)
- The enemy in the bridgeheads were Italian stiffened by a few German gunners. They were very much taken by surprise. It was late at night before they realised that a whole division was passing straight through their lines. Some vehicles went up on mines, others were shot-up, but on the whole we had very few casualties and both attacking battalions did their jobs successfully. The infantry went in with the bayonet and the Italians departed, often leaving all their arms and equipment lying about in the trenches. (en)
- Along the beaches and on their fringes was strewn the wreckage of the German defences and our landing craft and tanks, rusting memorials to the first encounters of the Normandy campaign. On the roads between the beaches and the British front lines, there crawled and stopped and started again, endless streams of lorries, tanks, armoured cars and jeeps. The sea was rough, the sun shone. The little roads disintegrated into dust. Every journey a nightmare of traffic jams, dust, heat and engine fumes. (en)
- I was sat in a trench having a drink when a plane came over, I said "look the poor buggers on fire!" That was my first sight of a jet fighter. (en)
- It was well organized. On each flank – on the battalion flanks – they had Bofors guns firing tracer every two or three minutes so that you could keep on line. The barrage was going for about two minutes then they'd drop two or three smoke bombs – they were a bloody nuisance... But when they dropped you knew the barrage was lifting. You just moved in. (en)
- The whole night to the east was broken by hundreds of gun flashes stabbing into the darkness. The shells whistled overhead to burst with a deafening crash in the target area, and from then, until the barrage closed about three hours later, the frightful shattering noise went on continually... Every twelve yards there was a shell hole. (en)
- By evening a bloody and desperate battle was being fought out west of the Wadi Zigzaou, and slowly but surely the infantry were being driven back to the Wadi edge, until by midnight except for the East Yorkshire Regiment holding out in [a fortified position on the bank of the Wadi] there was no depth whatever in the bridgehead. Though tremendous casualties had been inflicted by the supporting artillery ... they had failed to stop the enemy attack. Later even this support flagged as wireless sets with the forward troops were gradually knocked out or failed due to exhausted batteries. The men of the 6th, 8th and 9th DLI were inextricably mixed up, many without commanders, all hungry, tired and desperately short of ammunition. The whole area was lit up by the twenty seven derelict burning Valentine tanks of the 50th RTR fought to a standstill by superior enemy armour. (en)
- We crossed the bridge and took over from the Yanks... When we approached the bridge there were a lot of dead American paras laid out. Here we met the German storm-troopers, you know the death or glory boys... We dug in both sides and held the position for a number of days. Frogmen came up the river to blow the bridge but they were spotted in time and shot on the water. (en)
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