Issue No.14, July 2004

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Operation Overlord

John Frost

To mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, newspaper collector and long-standing London Press Club member, John Frost, shares his personal memories of 6 June 1944.

For days, long convoys of troops, tank-carriers and lorries moved along the capital's arterial roads, all heading in one direction - London's Docks.

As an army driver I recall that first week in June 1944 so well. There were flags all the way, with cheering crowds yelling 'Good luck, boys!' and handing out cups of tea. Once at the docks we were sealed off from the outside world. No letters, no phoning and, sadly for me, no newspapers. Work consisted of waterproofing vehicles and checking guns and equipment.

Aboard our huge tank-landing craft we rendezvoused with a naval escort and put our vomit bags to good use. I wrote to my mother: 'Here I am en route to France by courtesy of the Royal Navy - not a Jerry plane in sight. The RAF rule the skies.'

Luckily, our landing was dry - the tide was out. I clearly remember driving across the beach between white ribbons - the sign that it had been cleared of mines. I recall, too, a group of sullen-looking German prisoners sitting in the sand. I thought: 'For you the war is over - for me it's just beginning.'

The few houses were just ruins. British bombers had gone in before us, the Germans had retreated and the fighting was going on way ahead. We headed a mile or so inland to a deserted farmhouse. Our first task was to unload the camouflage nets and remove sticky waterproofing from our hot engines and then dig in. It was a noisy night!

The most memorable thing about that first day was the smell: the stench of death. Not human flesh but cattle. Scores were all lying on their sides, pot-bellied and dead. The sun didn't help much.

It wasn't until we reached Bayeux that we saw French people. As far as the fighting went on our front, reaching towards Caen, there was little advancing. Let it not be forgotten that the battle for Normandy was a close-run thing. We of the 11th Armoured Division suffered many casualties and in one day alone lost 110 tanks - ours were no match for the massive German Tigers.

The organisation and planning of the Normandy campaign was brilliant - absolutely nothing was forgotten. Aboard ship, every man received a printed message from the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, wishing 'Good luck on the great crusade.' Later we each received a pre-printed field postcard on which to write home. It consisted of sentences such as 'I am well' or 'I have been wounded.'

We all had tin rations plus a portable 'Tommy cooker' with tiny solid-fuel tablets. I can still recall the delicious steak-and-kidney puddings! It was many weeks before we had bread and so biscuits were the order of the day, supplemented by the compulsory daily vitamin pill. Special praise, too, went to the army laundry unit - dirty shirts and underwear were exchanged for clean ones, and if they fitted you were lucky!

Every day was an uncertain one, but the comradeship and spirit has never been equalled. We were the British Liberation Army and we knew we were going to win.

By mid-August we had closed the Falaise Gap but many Germans escaped the net so, in hot pursuit, we crossed the Seine at Vernon, heading for Belgium.

Across the frontier it was cheers every mile of the way to Antwerp, which our Division liberated on 4 September. Despite not having washed or shaved for seven days we were hugged and kissed - it was a great day to be British.

Throughout my six years of army service I still pursued my schoolboy hobby of collecting newspapers reporting momentous events. In France I acquired many 'underground' papers but my best was a German newspaper, dated 6 June 1944, with its heading 'DIE INVASION IST EINGELEITET' (The Invasion Has Started). However, my true prize was yet to come. On 3 May 1945 we captured Lübeck and for a packet of cigarettes I bought a one-page emergency edition of the Lübecker Zeitung recording the death of Hitler a few days earlier.

For me, the most dramatic days were during the last few months of the war. I found the Rhine crossing over a rickety pontoon bridge more hazardous than that of the Channel crossing. Before we liberated Belsen, where cholera was raging, we were all inoculated. Along the autobahns streamed thousands of German POWs with white flags and most pathetic were the countless refugees fleeing the Russians - how ironic it seemed that they looked upon us as liberators! The cities of Lüneburg and Osnabruck, through which I drove, were reduced to rubble. After Lübeck it was a dash to the Baltic to stem any Russian advance towards Denmark. Historic days of unforgettable horror.

Following my 'demob' in June 1946 it took many months to sift and sort my vast hoard of wartime papers. Today my 1938-45 collection of international newspapers exceeds 15,000 editions. So when anyone asks: 'What did you do in the war?', I reply - 'I survived to read all about it!'

Two views of the D-Day landings from LPC member John Frost's unique private collection of historic newspapers. Shown above is a German report published in Nazi-occupied Metz in France. The headline in the Metzer Zeitung am Abend (an evening paper) says the invasion has started and refers to landings by Allied troops along the French coast between Le Havre and Cherbourg.

Above is the Allied perspective on the same story as seen by one of MZ am Abend's British equivalents, the London Evening Standard.

Photos courtesy of John Frost Newspapers