Roamer: Eight Ulstermen’s memories of D-Day in their own words

Sadly, all eight have passed away, but the book - remembering them and their part in history’s greatest military operation – is published, very fittingly, next Thursday.

There are startling new revelations (more here next Saturday) and Mark refocuses on the unique role of The Royal Ulster Rifles - the only British regiment with two regular battalions in Normandy that historic day.

Gliders landed the Regiment’s 1st (Airborne) Battalion just north of Ranville village, near the Orne Canal’s notorious Pegasus Bridge.

Their role, along with the 6th Airborne Division, was capturing and holding local bridges. The 2nd Battalion, The Royal Ulster Rifles, landed on ‘Sword Beach’ at Lion-sur-Mer, to advance on Caen. Seven of the eight veterans were with the Rifles - the eighth arrived some hours before the others.

Belfast-born Jimmy Bowden from Whiteabbey, of the 591 (Antrim) Parachute Squadron of the Royal Engineers, parachuted in to remove treacherous anti-glider poles topped with explosives, nicknamed ‘Rommel’s asparagus’. (They also helped take the critical Merville Gun Battery).

During ten days’ intense preparations the men were told that the whole operation might entail 25,000 causalities. Jimmy wrote to his mother admitting he’d “a good chance of being killed.”

Departing Fairford Airfield, Gloucestershire, at 23.00hrs on June 5, Jimmy lost vital kit on his parachute descent near Ranville. He landed with only a fighting-knife and ammunition - “I had no rifle, no nothing.”

Jimmy searched the field and “found another kit bag with a rifle.” Carrying grenades and explosives “around my neck”, by 2.15am he’d helped clear two glider landing strips of ‘Rommel’s asparagus’. The gliders came in after 3.00am - many crashed, but with remarkably few casualties.

Belfast-men Stanley Burrows, Hamilton ‘Hammy’ Lawrence and Lurgan-man Richard Keegan were with the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Ulster Rifles. They’d trained intensively for the Sword Beach landing and had written letters home before boarding the ships. “We were able to take our equipment off and lie down,” Keegan recalled, “some of us slept. I slept well that night.”

When dawn broke on D-Day Hammy Lawrence wanted onto the beach “more than anything else.” Stanley Burrows recalled: “The whole sea was a sort of black with ships and the air was just covered with aircraft of every description, bombers, gliders, the airborne going over, the parachutists going over, and it was a tremendous feeling that you had such support…but yet you knew that one shell from that beach could put you up in the air for life…the next thing we heard was this terrific blast of fire and it was from the H.M.S. Belfast.”

After beaching under enemy gunfire “but not much” Hammy recalled, the Riflemen advanced inland to Périers-sur-le-Dan.

Belfast men Marty Vance and Bill McConnell, with Sam Lowry from Carrickfergus and Robert Loughlin from Ballyclare, were in Horsa gliders with the 1st (Airborne) Battalion of The Royal Ulster Rifles. Sam recalled “the sea convoys underneath... the gliders either side...it looked impressive” - from the air.

Jeep-driver Bill McConnell’s glider was “made of plywood and the portholes are cellophane…no safety belts, no parachute, no nothing. We had to get our head between our knees before landing and that was all we had.” The glider didn’t land, it ‘crashed’.

“We were all thrown from the back up to the front,” Bill recalled, where his jeep and trailer were “hanging over the top of us.”

Jimmy Bowden watched through the night as “the Germans opened up with their mortars, you couldn’t see the gliders hardly for the explosions and all, and out of all this mess came these men running, shouting, we knew they were Ulster Rifles all right, and they were going into action.”

As D-Day came to an end both battalions of The Royal Ulster Rifles had successfully gained a foothold in occupied France. Their total fatalities amounted to two men, both recorded missing in action and both lost in circumstances that would linger in scarred memories for decades to come.

More here next week from Mark’s book, which is available from Colourpoint/Blackstaff press and bookshops.