Description
Len was born in 1925 and volunteered to be a dispatch rider in the Royal Army Service Corps.
Len was nineteen when he went over on a Liberty ship on D-Day. He landed near Arromanches on Gold Beach. It was about 6.00 pm and he was still being shelled by German artillery. Len saw a German helmet land on the sand and he nearly tripped over it. When Len looked down it still had a head in it! Len realised what war was about, seeing a man’s head in a helmet – that really shook him up.
Len got to the crossroads at Tilly-sur-Seulles, south of Bayeux, when the Germans opened up their 88s. Len was injured and was put on to a hospital ship and ended up in a hospital in Maidstone where they took shrapnel out of his spine. He was promoted to Sergeant and made the push into Germany when he was told the war was over.
After the war, Len married and had two girls and a boy. He got work as a lorry driver for Unilever and took early retirement because his back got sore due to his war wounds.
