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Things were going badly for the 225 Parachute Field Ambulance - (belonging to the 5th Para Brigade). They had lost a lot of men and equipment in the landing and were not able to cope with the rush of casualties while of the 224 Para Field Ambulance (with the 3rd Para Brigade) there was no news at all. I was then sent to try and organise the clearing of casualties from the D.Z. (Dropping Zone), there being no stretcher bearers or medical officers available. Using the 3 ton lorry and 3 German prisoners we cleared casualties for the rest of the day to the 225 Para Field Ambulance Dressing Station at Le Bas de Ranville. The whole D.Z. area was by this time under mortar and small arms fire and the lorry was hit several times but kept going. There was no plasma left at the 225 MDS after 4 p.m. and the fighting was not going too well. I had to leave and cross the river to meet the 195 Field Ambulance coming in by glider by 9 p.m. The Germans were by now within 100 yards or so of the bridge but I managed to dash across just as the first of the gliders appeared. It was a wonderful sight to see them come in by the hundred, and everybody felt terribly relieved. Our Field Ambulance landed with only 2 killed and by 10 p.m. they were in our MDS. By 11 p.m. we were filling up with casualties and the two operating tables were working at full pressure. We admitted 500 casualties in the first 24 hours and by the morning of D plus 2 were so cluttered up with wounded, in the cowsheds and everywhere, one did not know where to put the next one. In the Resuscitations Department we had to pile the dead up in a cupboard as it was not possible to carry them down the stairs because of the queue of stretchers waiting for plasma. My own department - "Reception" resembled a slaughterhouse. The operating theatre had received a mortar hit killing the patient and one orderly and had to be moved to the basement kitchen. In the middle of all this the jeep park in the back garden got a shell hit and we lost every vehicle. It was wonderful when news arrived that the 3rd British Division was up on the other side of the river and ready to evacuate our casualties to the beach. This went ahead according to plan and we were able to straighten our dressing station up a bit. Our next busy spell was during and after the battle of Breville, 11th and 12th June, which took place on our doorstep. the German infantry had got to the outskirts of Ranville the day previously. Unfortunately when our attack was put in things went wrong. The Corps Artillery on the other side of the River Orme had been called on to put down a barrage before the attack. Air burst shells were used and although the barrage lasted only 10 minutes great havoc was caused to our men as the range was incorrect.

For the next three months the Divisions held onto their small bridge head. Life became quite bearable except for the activities of the Luftwaffe at night. Our MDS was hit many times by shell and mortar and once by bomb and we had a number of casualties in the Field Ambulance from time to time but the building, although battered, still stood. At last Montgomery sent a Tank Division into our bridge from where they advanced to Falaise.

In August the 6th Airborne Division was given the task of pushing along the coast to Deauville and LeHavre. This was tremendously exhilarating, chasing a rapidly retreating enemy, after being cooped up in the bridge head for so long. Apart from a few minor scraps and the everlasting minefields, the going was good. When we reached the Seine the sadly deplete division was considered unfit to go any further so we stand down for a short rest before going back to England. It was originally intended that we would be in France about a week and I dropped my parachute with two pairs of spare socks. I had my first sleep on D plus 5 and first bath on D plus 14. Our Field Ambulance had admitted 2,500 casualties in the three months including enemy and other divisions, and had done a good job, so off we went back to England and slept in a bed for the first time since D Day. At this time the Arnheim operation had taken place and we were tentatively warned to be ready for the New Year 1945 to repeat the same operation.

It was a nightmare trip out, with the intense cold and the complete absence of information about where we were supposed to go. However, we drove on night and day and eventually arrived at Leinant on the Meuse. Here I took charge of a light section of the Field Ambulance and accompanied one of our battalions over the river. The main part of the Field Ambulance with Divsion H.Q. was to stay in Deinant until the situation became clear. The Germans had apparently got to within two miles of Deinant from the east the day before, but the fog cleared temporarily and the R.A.F. had gone in and knocked them about. It subsequently turned out also that the German thrust had expended itself on account of petrol shortage and supply difficulties over the icebound road. Next day we went on for about 50 miles and that night contacted the enemy in a little village called Bure in the hilly forest region of the Ardennes. The Btn. (13 Parachute Bn.) received a nasty blow from the well placed German defences but next day in the middle of a raging blizzard we dislodged them from the village. The enemy however with the help of a couple of Royal Tiger Tanks got back again. The weather by now was absolutely terrible. I had my dressing station back in the next village (Perrin). Half the village was burning from shell fire. Our ADS was established in the school and we had to use doors and floor boards to get a bit of warmth. There was not a piece of coal left. That night the Ambulance turned over in a snow drift about half a mile back. Our MDS was now about 10 miles back. There were casualties and a pneumonia case on board and what a job we had getting them back to the ADS. A lot of men were getting frostbite of the trigger finger until they learned to pull it by a piece of string like the Germans and several men died in their slit trenches from the cold. We were using sledges to evacuate wounded from the forward positions and "half track" to get them back to MDS. I think everybody began to realise what the Russians had to contend with in their winter warfare. Eventually the Germans slowly pulled backwards and we advanced very cautiously behind them. Bure was a sorry sight, with not a house standing and littered with frozen, unburied corpses. We found about 50 dying civilians in the cellar of a convent and got them all evacuated. I think our most trying time came at the next village - Grupont - through which a shallow river flows. Our patrols had a casualty collecting post on the far side of the river to which they could be brought back by jeep. No jeeps had yet crossed the river, but having got permission from the Battalion Commander, I tried to get two of my jeeps over, the bridge naturally having been blown up by the retreating enemy. It was so cold however, that the jeep wheels froze solid the moment they left the water. As it was night time and the Luftwaffe was overhead we could not light fires so i left my two jeeps on the other side. Next morning I discovered that we had been walking over a minefield all night and actually picked up an "R" mine (Long flat object) and used it as a lever on the jeep. The sheer wires on the mines and frozen solid and the mines could not go off. Our ADS in Grupont was the Railway Hotel (only building left standing). We had been there six days when one of my men found 20 civilians huddled in a tiny cellar. they were starving and did not know the Germans had left. There were several children and they all had scarlet fever. It was near here that one of the parachute batn. found a number of Belgian civilians that had been tortured and shot by the Gestapo. We were eventually relieved by the Americans. The Division made its way by slow stages to Holland where we were to take over a section of the Maas front at and around Venlo. We put our MDS in the ruined suburb of Venlo-Hout-Blerick and nothing much happened during the month (February 1945) that we were here - apart from a regular twice daily exchange of shell fire.

The broad and flooded river Maas gave everybody, including the Germans a sense of security. During the latter half of February I wen down to Maastricht in the south of Holland to attend a "River Crossing" school, but as the Maas was too high for boating we all had a holiday.