D-DAY MEMORIES: FORMER Wiltshire shepherd boy Ephraim Spreadbury was among the tens of thousands of Allied troops who took part in the D Day landings on June 6 in 1944.

He was one of five brothers from an Everleigh family of nine children who went to war, three in the army, one in the Royal Air Force and one in the Royal Navy.

Ephraim, John (or Jack as his family called him) and Sam all joined the army. Benjamin served with the RAF and Philip (Pip) with the Navy.

Their father was born at east Chisenbury in the Vale of Pewsey but he died in his early 40's leaving their mother, who originated from Netheravon, to raise her huge brood.

Brother Ben Spreadbury who served with the RAF and visited nine countries guarding aircraft and supplies during World War 2, is the only one of the five still living.

Ben Spreadbury, 83, who was also a shepherd before the war but never returned to farming, was transferred from his squadron into the RAF Regiment, the tough fighting wing of the service.

However his duties throughout WW2 in a total of nine countries saw no clashes with the enemy and although he was battle trained he never fired his gun other than during target practice.

War had its lighter moments said Ben Spreadbury. He recalled being on a posting in Italy and when he heard his brother Pip's ship was in a nearby port they were able to spend a few hours together, thousands of miles away from their home and catch up on each other's news.

ENDS

Five of the six sons saw action but Eph, as he was known to his family and buddies in the Royal Engineers, was the only one to be hurt. He was shot in the stomach while fighting in Italy but made a full recovery and re-joined his unit in time for the D Day preparations.

He had joined up as a regular soldier in 1936 because as a shepherd in Everleigh in the Pewsey Vale his pay was only 32shillings (£1.60) a week.

He had left school at 14 and worked on the farm for the late Wilfred Cave for four years when the glamour of an army uniform and much better pay lured him to the recruiting office.

After initial training he was sent to China and was on his way home in 1939 when World War 2 started.

At Gibraltar his ship was ordered back to Egypt where he joined the Eighth army and became one of the legendary Desert Rats.

Mr Spreadbury who lives in Cirencester said the lack of detail of any real action in brother Ephraim's account of D Day was because like so many soldiers he tried to put behind him some of the things he saw and did.

Eph Spreadbury died about five years ago but left behind these written recollections of D-Day.

Preparations for the invasion

AFTER much training and exercises my unit was sent to Inverary in Scotland for one month's extensive training in invasion tactics, i.e. landing from small assault craft quickly as possible.

We were getting a little fed up with these exercises as nearly always we got wet through up to our waists and had to carry on as usual and sometimes it rained to add to our discomfort.

When our training ended we were sent to Fawley Camp near Southampton Docks and put aboard naval vessels and we made mock landings at Studland Point (which was almost a replica of the beaches in France).

The main object of these exercises (we did this about ten times) were that not one civilian or otherwise would know when the actual landings were to take place.

Landing preparation

AS a landing on an enemy coastline entails, everything we needed had to be carried with us.

This not only included weapons and ammunition but the necessary things like food and drink and of course cigarettes. The food was packed in cartons and included solid tablets of porridge which could be heated on a small stove with water, some corned beef, biscuits, and a few boiled sweets and seven cigarettes .this was enough to last a man for one day. Each man carried two packs of rations (i.e. enough for two days) by which time it was hoped that the cooks would be ashore and ready to carry on as usual.

Landing in Normandy

WE embarked onto our landing ships (ours was the Glen Roy), this ship carried the Devonshire Regiment and my company of engineers. The main assault was postponed from June 5 because of bad weather and we set sail from Southampton with dozens of other craft early on June 5.

We had a last good meal on board about midnight and managed to sleep a little, although the ship was very crowded with men and equipment.

At about 4.30am on June 6 we had to get ready and disembark from the Glen Roy into landing craft that were to take us ashore about four or five miles distant. Each carried about 30 men.

We had to land on the coast at low rides to enable the landing craft to pick their way through the heavily defended beaches. There were large girders welded together with mines attached to them and set in the sea which covered them at high tide.

We could see the beaches before we got there but as we were getting nearer we came under intense small arms fire and mortar bombs, also shelling from the German defences.

We hit the beach at 7.30am in daylight and after jumping into about 4ft of water we rushed ashore and took cover behind a sand bank until we were ready to go on.

There was a small town on our right, Le Hamel, and the Germans used the houses to fire along the beaches with machine guns which caused a lot of casualties.

We encountered a small minefield which we made safe, and slowly made our way into the town which was cleared of the enemy by about 12.30.

All the time the noise was terrific, with large naval guns firing offshore and the German gun emplacements returning their fire.

As the day wore on we were reinforced with many more troops, tanks and guns and made our way inland towards the town of Bayeux

One or two incidents stick out in my mind about the actual landing. Firstly it was a dreary misty day, made so because of the smoke and dust from falling shells. Although we had been briefed very well and knew roughly what to expect, this particular landing was much harder than any others.

"My wireless operator tried to contact our company headquarters, and then realised his wireless set has been immersed in sea water. So we took the valves out and dried them out with handkerchiefs which we had wrapped around our packets of cigarettes and placed in the top of our steel helmets to keep dry.

Having dried them out he tried his set again and we then heard loud and clear: 'This is the BBC London, Allied troops have landed on the continent.' It was the eight o'clock news.

Evening of June 6

AFTER quite a few experiences during the day we gradually settled down to our usual tasks. The Royal Engineers' main tasks were the lifting of enemy mines, both anti-tank and anti-personnel. At about 9pm our sergeant major came up to where we were to inquire how we had managed.

He decided to relieve himself and having no toilets in the front line it was customary to dig a small hole in the ground.

He had just settled down when he heard a noise behind him. Looking round he saw three German soldiers fully armed and laughing their heads off. He grabbed his Sten gun in one hand and, holding up his trousers with the other, he brought his three captives out to us.

Needless to say we had a great laugh."

See this week's 4 page 60th Anniversary of D-Day special in the Gazette & Herald