From cadet to commander: One teen's personal journey through D-Day and beyond

5 June 2024, 12:37 | Updated: 6 June 2024, 12:31

• Major Ronald Robert Horton (21st June 1924 - 16th June 2019) retired from the regular army as a Regimental Sergeant Major and served for 37 years in the British Army

By Major R R Horton

In the early months of 1944 I find myself in a "Bofors 40mm” Light Air Defence gun detachment, serving in 393 Battery of 120th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Royal Artillery.

Incredible though it may seem, we did not have a permanent base, barracks, home, call it what you may.

Instead, we roamed the length and breadth of England, staying in requisitioned accommodation, practice camps, or simply living with our vehicles and guns.

The 120th LAA Regiment Commanded by Lt Col J.B. Allan consisted of no less than 54 "Bofors 40mm LAA guns" with 18 guns in each Battery, 393, 394 and 395. I do not know the total number of vehicles we had, something of the order of 100 plus I guess, so when the Regiment moved it was quite a sizeable convoy.

Movement at night in convoy would mean no lights on the vehicle, except for the so-called "Convoy light" a light directed at the rear of the vehicle's differential, which was painted white, and could only seen by the vehicle following - usually at a distance of 10 yards. This system was very effective, and with no lights showing the convoy could travel undetected.

I joined the Regiment in January 1943 in the rank of Gunner, having spent the previous three months learning to be a driver with 227 Driver Training Regiment in Blackpool.

Three months to learn how to drive sounds a bit much, however the course covered all aspects of driving which included gun towing, winching guns and vehicles to and from difficult terrain, maintenance (the Army's daily 16 task system) map reading and convoy work, and as a fully qualified driver i/c (entitled me to wear a steering wheel badge on my right arm) I was able to drive any vehicle used in the Army from light utilities through to heavy gun towing vehicles.

My age was a problem with the Regiment, I was eighteen when I joined and the system was concerned that I was too young to go overseas. I was told that the minimum age was nineteen, so I would have to wait until my birthday (21st June 1943) before I was allocated to a gun detachment. So instead of joining one of the three gun troops I joined HQ Troop of 393 Bty as a driver.

I soon found myself as the "fall guy" always available to be sent on courses, and in the next six months I was sent on a three weeks course at the Southend General Hospital and became a medical orderly, a further three weeks were spent at Aldershot where I became a "Unit PT Instructor". I also had spells as a “Batman”, “officers mess waiter”, and “dogsbody in the BQMS store” plus the usual fatigues, guards duties etc.

In August 1943 I was called to the Battery Office (a Nissen hut in Oulton Park, now a race track) where I was interviewed by the Battery Commander, and was told that I would now be joining a Gun Troop as a driver. I was delighted to find myself as a member of a gun detachment, driving a gun-towing vehicle.

This was the most enjoyable part of my Army life so far, I was a member of a team of seven, the detachment Commander was Sergeant Jimmy Willing and as a team, we stayed together right through the training periods until the invasion in June 1944 and the advance into France and Germany.

The training as I remember it was a period of fairly constant movement around the country, we stayed fairly regularly in requisitioned houses in Bournemouth (to practise loading and landing from landing craft in Poole), in Clacton on Sea (to practice firing our 40mm Bofor's guns), in Whitehaven in Cumbria (to practise waterproofing our vehicles and driving in the water), in Tarporley and the surrounding area in Cheshire including Oulton Park, which became one of our training area for the deployment of the Guns (winching, gun pits, etc).

This was the hardest part of our training and we could be roughing it for days on end. Then usually back to Southend on Sea to regroup(the regiment was mainly TA from the Essex area).

I cannot remember going on leave again after Christmas 1943, and my life was centred around our gun detachment and the Regiment training for war, speculation ranged from going to the beleaguered Garrison in Malta, or to North Africa and the desert, this despite the type of training we were doing with waterproofing our vehicles and practising driving on and off landing craft in Poole bay.

I had become quite proficient with handling a Bofor as well as being the detachment driver and found myself promoted to Lance Bombardier in the early months of 1944.

Aircraft recognition was a very important part of our training, (the essential ingredient for the LAA gunner, it was the No. 1s decision to engage a target) and I found that as the third in command after the Sergeant and Bombardier, I could find myself facing the decision on whether to open fire or not.

Fortunately I had spent two years as a cadet with Air Defence Cadet Corp prior to joining the Army and was pretty well versed with aircraft types.

In March 1944 we joined forces with the American and Canadian forces in the south of England, not too far from Southampton which led to further speculation.

We just could not believe our luck living in an American or Canadian camp. It was a three-course meal for breakfast, dinner and tea, (all into one mess tin if we were not careful) Sweets, cigarettes, and magazines seemed plentiful, the joy of joys however was the constant supply of hot water for individual showers, and being allowed to sleep in bunk beds. What a change from queueing up at public baths every week or so, and the indifferent meals when on field training.

We all thought well "France here we come" it was not to be however and we were sent off on further training, this time to Whitehaven in Cumbria for further firing of our new self-propelled Bofor, this was the Bofor gun mounted on Morris Carrier.

This gun was the Mark 5 and was fitted with power controls. The gun was operated by means of a tiny joystick and after the manual controls that we used to it became quite an art to control the gun. The gun could be fired on the chassis in an emergency, the normal drill was the use of jacks, which were large and were known as elephant feet.

The speculation came to an end in May 1944 when we were placed in a camp in Canning Town, London. Quite close to the docks, training had come to a halt, and we had been reissued with the mobile Bofor Mk 1, so we were pretty sure that we would not destined as Home Defence. The final truth came towards the end of May when we were issued with specially printed French currency, so we were on our way.

We sailed from Canning Town on 3rd June on "SS Samos" an American-made Liberty Ship, we passed masses of ships of all shapes and sizes on our way down the Thames estuary, we remained off Southend on Sea until 0700hrs on June 6th when we sailed into the channels.

My most vivid memory of that journey occurred later that afternoon when I was on deck with other members of the Regiment and the liberty ship sailing astern of our ship suddenly erupted into smoke and flames and fell behind.

I do not know if she sank because the Royal Navy put up a smoke screen. It made us wonder about the accuracy of the German coastal gunners who had targeted this ship at a range of some twenty miles or so and had been devastatingly successful with the first salvo.

394 and 395 batteries had landed on D-Day, and my artillery unit - 393 battery - was a day later.

We saw the French coast at 0730 (June 7th) and we anchored off Ver-sur-Mer” to offload our guns and vehicles onto a landing craft, our waterproofing was successful because we all landed on “Jig Green Beach” (part of Gold beach) at 1900 without any mishaps, and moved to a transit area.

We were finally deployed at “Saint-Côme-de-Fresné” at 0600 on 9th June. We spent the rest of the day digging in and sandbagging the gun pits, ready to man our guns that evening.

The RAF had full command of the skies during the day, and the guns came into their own at night, so we had time to spare during the day after sleep and maintenance of equipment.

My first encounter with a German came the following afternoon when two of us decided to visit "Port en Bessin" which was quite close, to look for water, the first thing we saw were two dead Germans left floating face down in the harbour, close to a sunken E Boat.

I have to admit that we raided the E Boat and came away with some tins of food, sausage which tasted like sawdust, and some tins of butter which were rancid.

The second in command of our gun team was wounded on the second night when he was out laying telephone lines (our primary means of communication) and was evacuated to the UK.

I was made second in command in his place and my two-stripe promotion came through within days, we also had a replacement driver.

I now find out that I shared duties with the Sgt in charge and was frequently in charge of the gun, and when we were active (in the absence of RAF cover) the decision to engage a target was entirely mine.

The rules of engagement were straightforward enough, "engage aircraft which are clearly recognised as hostile, or have committed a hostile act".

My first puzzle with identifying an aircraft came one night soon after we landed when I had to report an identified aircraft with its tail on fire (we were not active at the time, so I did not have to make the decision to engage or not).

The Command Post later confirmed that it was a flying bomb heading for the UK.

Mulberry harbour had been completed by this time, roads and airfields had been built and the whole area was a hive of activity with reinforcements going forward day and night.

We moved forward as well and were kept busy during the hours of darkness, taking on a number of targets, the Regiment was credited with having destroyed three enemy aircraft in the first month.

We were allowed rest periods and I remember being allowed to visit the town of Bayeux for an afternoon, we told to get a haircut at the same time because we did not have a barber.

The price for a shave was 4 francs, and a haircut 9 francs.

The Regiment had landed as part of 21st Army Group, however, because the RAF were in command of the skies, certainly during daylight hours, a number of anti-aircraft units were stood down for other tasks, a number of our own Bofors detachments were stood down to await the push.

I then found myself back at the Battery HQ as the Battery Commander’s driver with a captured Volkswagon, still in German Camouflage colours but with a big white star painted on the roof and sides.

I drove this Volkswagon for many miles throughout Normandy, and I found that it was much admired by the Canadians in particular. I am not sure how we acquired it, or indeed whatever happened to it.

I do remember, however, the very first live Germans that I saw, which was some months later when the big push was on. The BC wanted to recce gun positions in the area of Amiens, and I well remember him saying to me that he was not sure how far advanced the Canadians were.

We came on to the outskirts of Amiens without seeing any sign of fighting or any other activity, suddenly going down a street a German motorcycle patrol passed us, the German in the sidecar had his weapon ready and I often wonder if the German Volkswagon saved the day, we were so surprised by this encounter that we did nothing either…

On reaching Northern France I found myself back as 2 i/c of the detachment, we had a gun position near the port of Calais. I was on duty close to midnight one evening, the skies were patchy with a little light from the moon when I clearly identified a Heinkel 111 - it was impossible to make a mistake with those rounded farings at the wing roots - I hastily alerted my Command Post, only to be told that I must be wrong because no enemy aircraft were reported as being in the area.

The following morning mines were discovered in the approaches to Calais, which could only have been dropped by an aircraft, I was exonerated.

When the RAF were absent, as a 19-year-old two striper I was allowed to open fire in any target which I considered to be hostile, which I did on several occasions - and yes we did score, but with more than one gun firing it was difficult, if not impossible, to claim a hit.

In November 1944 continuing l the advance with the Canadian Army the Regiment found itself deployed on the islands South Beveland and Walcheren in Holland, and our Bofor was dug in on the dyke overlooking the Scheldt estuary. We were in South Beveland and the nearest village was "Driewegen".

We stayed in this position for some months guarding the shipping now using the port of Antwerp.

The Regiment engaged a number of aircraft during this period and on the 1st January 1945 the day that the "Luftwaffe" came out in force was credited with a further five aircraft destroyed. The Regiment was also officially credited with destroying three German midget submarines trying to harass shipping.

Another task undertaken was plotting the launching of German V-2 rockets from North Holland, they were clearly visible in good weather and by obtaining a fix on the launching sites the RAF were able to identify and attack these sites.

The code name for a V-2 rocket was "Knife" the V-1 was "Fork".

I visited this site many years later with my wife (Frances Horton), and I was able to identify where we had our gun emplacement, my wife looked at the grassy banks of the dyke and asked where I slept, “right here said I on the ground”, she asked where did you eat, “right here on the ground”.

We had constructed a tarpaulin in the lee of the dyke, one hot meal a day was delivered from the Battery HQ in nearby Driewegen, and we made do with whatever rations were given to us.

The subject of food brings to mind the fact that we had to eat an awful lot of compo, supplemented by bread and potatoes, plus whatever we could scrounge.

We had an arrangement with the local farmhouse for a supply of fresh eggs, so we did not fare too badly. We had seven cigarettes a day, chocolate or sweets, One memory also brings to mind the "Tommy Cooker" a small metal stand with a white cube which when ignited would heat a mess tin of tea or soup. On special occasions, we had cans of self-heating soups which were just great after coming off duty standing on a windswept dyke in the depths of winter.

Our war ended in April 1945 when we moved off from the dykes to hand in our guns and towing vehicles at "Fort Schooten" near Antwerp. We were later deployed in Bochum in Germany, our new task being patrols, guard duties and rounding up Displaced Persons (DPs) because they were playing havoc with German farmers, beating them up, stealing cattle, bicycles and whatever else they could lay their lands on.

It was their revenge for the ill-treatment they had received from the Germans.

I left the Regiment in September (the day before they lifted the Frat ban) to go back to the UK en route for the Far East under the "Pickford" scheme transferring NCOs to reinforce the Army in India

That however is another story...