[Again I have no idea why he has given the date as July as he is writing about events in May]
The weather in May has been consistently hot and we have been lucky to be able to go swimming in the pond close by the lower billet. It is a glorious feeling to go straight from work and dive right into the cool water.
Everyone is reasonably happy despite the long hours of work and other disturbances, although underneath we are all very patiently waiting for the “invasion”. These Germans are so fond of telling us that when we do invade we will be pushed into the sea in 3 days. I continue to tell them that if the British Government etc have decided on an invasion all the Germans and the rest of the world put together won’t push us out. Meanwhile we continued our trips to the sand pit daily and shovelled “Sand fur der Vaterland” [Sand for the Fatherland] which has become our signature tune. Towards the end of May and beginning of June the air raids had ceased. This made us conjecture that perhaps at last the invasion was going to happen. But still the days rolled on.
A big push had evidently started in Italy and on the 5th of June Rene Coureux a Belgian who works with us wanted to bet me cigarettes that Rome had fallen. “If Rome has fallen to us” I said, “I’ll give you 10 cigarettes”. He thereupon told me that it was announced on radio and we commenced a little quiet celebration. The following afternoon Herr Puff the works chef strolled to the Sandpit and calmly told me that my comrades had landed in France and that the invasion was definitely on.
The other fellows were not quite certain what he had said so we carried on with the job controlling our feelings as l think only a Britisher can. As soon as Puff left us I was inundated with questions. We felt really bucked, at the same time we didn’t forget what must be happening to our comrades at the front. Some days later I remember reading President Roosevelt’s Invasion Prayer in a French newspaper in which he said “Our sons have undertaken a terrific task in order to preserve our religion, our freedom, and our civilization. Many of them will never return”. [This speech was made on D-Day, June 6 1944]. I am sure that we all felt exactly the same sentiments. I don’t think it is humanly possible for our people who have not seen Germany, especially war-time Germany to realise what a very narrow escape we have had from total extinction. The Germans consider themselves to be the super race whilst all other nations should be their serfs. It is patently obvious to anyone who has the misfortune to be a POW in Germany exactly what victory for Germany would mean. Almost the whole of her industry today is carried on by forced labour of POWs and others from occupied countries. Whilst I must say I have met some good Germans, and whilst as a race they have many redeeming features such as cleanliness and hard workability, it appears to me that they are ruled by an innate jealousy of the British nation and are deluded into thinking that if they work sufficiently energetically for a few years, they will become masters of the world and live in luxury and elegance for centuries, with all other nations as their slaves and hand maidens.
And so we heard of the Invasion at about 3pm June 6th. Alec Holmes in a fit of enthusiasm printed up on the wall of the sandpit for the benefit of the Frenchmen ‘Le sixieme Juin Le Jour de gloire est arrive Vive L’ Angleterre’. [On June 6 the Day of Glory arrived Vive L’England]
Even the Germans themselves seem to be almost relieved that the invasion has occurred whilst the majority of them give varying times from 3 days to 3 weeks before we are pushed into the sea. They try to “spook” us with little bits of news such as “two whole battalions have been killed or captured”. They are unaware that we have an almost constant supply of German and French newspapers where we have read that the Allies already have 16 complete divisions in France and that Cherbourg is already ours.
After the temporary lull the air raids have been resumed on an even bigger and better scale and their objectives have become much closer to our domicile; until early in July about 9am the very familiar wail of the siren burst forth and was shortly followed by the tremendous roar of hundreds of battle planes. This did not excite very much comment from us, as the sight of the U.S. Air Fleet of a thousand or more huge planes sailing in majestic formation in the clear blue sky and almost invariably entirely unmolested, is no uncommon sight. Straight overhead they came and then with a sharp whistle and crack down came the first smoke-bomb marker, almost directly over us. It was in fact immediately above Wittenburg 2 Kilo’s away. Now this seemed to be getting interesting, and so it was. Down came about ten bombs and blew the RLY [Railway] goods yard to glory. Good shooting from about 30,000. A few kilometres further on at the aircraft factory and airdrome down came another instalment and up went a good half of the factory and airdrome. After this performance which was actually the first attack on Wittenburg feelings ran a wee bit high but reason prevailed.
Some of our chaps marching through the streets were mildly spat upon by civilians, whereupon the guard unslung his rifle and menaced the populace and chastised them in no uncertain terms. There were three warnings on this occasion and the stolid Germans were in a very advanced state of panic at the sight of a single “Recky” blazing his trail across the sky. Men ran leaving their women-folk and women ran leaving their children in perambulators. [Prams] This latter fact is hard to believe but I have it from an eye witness whom I have no reason to doubt.
Our working hours have been increased these past 3 months until now we arise at 4.30am, leave the billet at 5a.m. and commence work at 5.45a.m. Without overtime, which occurs fairly frequently, we finish at 4.30pm and arrive in billet about 6pm, making our average day one of 13 hours. These Germans are working harder and harder, but I don’t think it is by choice, in fact my opinion is that the war had long since lost its appeal to them and the very large majority now realise that the game is up (20th August 1944).
I think it is interesting to know exactly how we feed here. Firstly thanks to the Red Cross Food Parcels which we have received steadily each week for the last 8 months, we are not only able to live but to thrive, and taken far and wide we live at a considerably higher standard than the Germans themselves. Our system of barter with guards and workmen, to a disinterested observer must leave Gilbert & Sullivan miles behind. [It is unclear what is being referred to here.] Every single item in our parcel is “floggable” (has an exchange value with German). The three main items being coffee, cigarettes and chocolate. For a 6oz packet of coffee one can get as many as 16 new laid eggs, or two to four kilos of white bread, for 5oz chocolate, 10 eggs or two kilos of white bread, and almost anything for various quantities of cigarettes. Eggs at about 5 cigarettes each, 12 to 15 tomatoes for 5 cigarettes, vegetables and fruit such as cauliflower, cucumber, cherries, plums, apples etc.
It is not unusual to see our fellows sitting down in the evening to 2 or 3 fried eggs with 1/4lb bacon and fried bread following with cherries and custard and white bread, butter and jam. Incidentally the civilian cigarette ration has been cut to 1 cigarette per day. We often remark that 20 cigarettes and the right personality would get one to the channel coast.