'If we fell in, they were not stopping or coming back to save us' (From Gazette & Herald)

'If we fell in, they were not stopping or coming back to save us'

GEORGE Chapman was born and bred in Slingsby. "We never really left the village, apart from once a year when we would walk down to the train station in to go for our holidays to Scarborough," he said.

So when he landed on the beaches of German-occupied France as a young soldier with the 50th Northumbrian Division 231 brigade, during the Second World War, it was a life-changing experience.

He went into the Home Guard at 16 and was then conscripted to the army in Strensall aged 18; he was 20 when he was sent to France.

George is a genuine Normandy veteran - he went in on D-Day, June 6. "It was meant to be the 5th but it was put off because of bad weather," George recalls.

"We went in half an hour after the beginning to Asnelles. When we got going, an announcement came over to say we hadn't to go onto the catwalk on the landing craft because if we fell in they were not stopping and would not come back to save us. But I wasn't afraid then - it was later that I was frightened."

On their way in they could see Omaha beach, where the Americans were having a tough time under German fire.

"Seeing the Americans getting blasted got us thinking," he said.

Once they got onto the beach, George and his fellow soldiers were faced with propaganda leaflets littering the sand, dropped from German aircraft, to try and demoralise the troops. He has kept one, it reads: "You have landed on the continent to face the armed might of Germany - but not for the benefit of Britain!"

The conditions on the beach itself were obviously treacherous.

"There was a gun firing out of a field on the hillside and he was blasting shells onto the beach where we were and this ship came whizzing past us firing a gun into the field and he must have been an expert gunner because it never fired near us," said George. "We saw a lot of dead bodies and it makes my wife nearly turn over when I tell her about it."

George worked as a wireless operator and drove in the wireless truck. But even within the truck, there was fear.

"You were always wondering if there were snipers around," he explained.

"The Hampshires had landed by the time we got in, lots were killed, and I remember that the naval gunfire was so loud."

One image that sticks in his head is, towards the end of the day, seeing a young man being buried, and as was the custom, his gun was stuck in the ground as a headstone.

"I remember looking and realising the boy was just 18 and thinking, good gracious, that's someone's son, he is so young, which is strange to think now since I was only 20 myself. But that really stuck in my head."

But George has happier memories of army life as well. After the war he made friends with a regimental butcher, from Wakeflield, ensuring he always got food when it came to mealtimes. He was paid in francs while over in France, and was given a map and phrase book which he still has to this day.

He has taught his granddaughter Ellen to count to ten in French - a throwback from his time in France - and while in the army he enjoyed cricket, football, bowls and boxing.

George is not going back for this anniversary but he has been back twice before and seen the monuments to soldiers who fought to free France.

"Part of me wanted to go again this time," he said, "But it is so difficult since I had a stroke."

George is a member of the Normandy Veterans' Association, the local branch of which meets regularly in York, and he and his wife Freda will be invited to a special service at York Minster on the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

Although safely back in Slingsby, surrounded by family and friends, it's clear that George's experiences of the Normandy landings remain fresh in his mind. Even now, his experiences are gone but not forgotten.

See next week's Gazette & Herald for our D-Day anniversary special coverage.

Updated: 16:18 Thursday, June 03, 2004