Ted Gowers

TED GOWERS

When the ramp on the landing craft went down, Ted Gowers decided to go over the side, rather than out through the front. “Someone had warned me that the ramp was where the enemy would concentrate its fire,” he said. “They were right. Lots of men were hit.”

Getting over the side wasn’t that easy. Ted and his fellow commandos were encumbered, not just by their kit and their weapons, but by bicycles, on which they were to pedal furiously, until they reached, what became known as Pegasus Bridge. He had the added burden of a deflated 18-man rubber dinghy strapped to his handlebars.

Before his call-up in 1942, Ted worked in a timber yard at Lower Halling, where he lived. He was sent north to join the Middlesex Regiment, part of the Machine Gun Corps. When, after a year, a call went out for volunteers to join the commandos, he jumped at the chance.

“The training was very tough,” he said. “Long marches, rock climbing, boating, abseiling, and a thing called the Tarzan course, which involved swinging through trees. Finally, you came to something called ‘the death slide’. A rope had been stretched diagonally across a ravine, and you had to slide down by hanging onto a short strop thrown across it.”

In February 1944 Ted was posted to No. 3 Commando. He was invited to join No. 3 Troop, which was to train with the Sixth Airborne regiment, whose task on D-Day was to take the bridges over the River Orne and the Orne Canal.

“It was about seven or eight o’clock when we arrived on Sword Beach,” he said. “A lot of infantry troops were trying to dig themselves into the sand, but our sergeant stood up and shouted: ‘Come on lads, get through the wire and get off the beach.’ So many men were being killed.

“When we reached the other side of the sea wall, we found that the Germans had flooded the area. We had to wade through water up to our waist, holding our bikes above our heads. If you got hit, you’d had it. You would just drop below the flood water.”

It was a long ride to the bridge and they arrived about midday. “Our job was to relieve the paratroopers and the glider troops who had captured it the night before,” he said. “If the enemy had blown the bridges, we would have attempted to cross using the rubber dinghies.”

“As it turned out, the dinghies weren’t needed. The bridges had been secured. When we got there, an officer shouted out: ‘Go on lads, make a run for it.’ I didn’t find out until much later the officer was Mike Todd, the film star. He was one of the glider officers.”

As he peddled across the first bridge, Ted became aware that a mate of his, who was riding behind him, was shot and killed by a sniper. No. 3 Troop now had new orders to take the nearby village of Ampreville, which was on high ground a short distance away.

“The road up there had no real shelter,” said Ted. “The enemy hit us with machine gun fire. Lots of our guys were hit and some of them killed.”

When they got to the outskirts of the village, the commandos got rid of their bikes and the rubber dinghy, which were no longer needed. Ted helped one of his comrades, who had been shot, back to the dressing station to be patched up.

He went back up to rejoin the Troop, who were taking cover behind a bank, on the edge of an orchard. Their Lieutenant had been considering the best way to capture Ampreville.

“In the end,” said Ted, “He told us: ‘Come on lads. Fix bayonets. We’ll chase them out.’ And that’s what we did. We ran up into the village, shouting and hollering for all we were worth. I think we frightened them more by the noise we made than anything else.

“The Jerries hit back with mortar fire. Ted Coker, our regimental sergeant major, was killed immediately.

“My orders were to run to the top of this hill where there was a machine gun. I ran like a hare, jumping over low walls of the gardens, until I reached a position behind the machine gun. It was a Maxim type, and the two men operating it had moved it to a position where they could fire down the street, at anyone coming up.

“Thank heavens the two men gave themselves up. I felt as big as a house! I had taken my first prisoners and a machine gun, on the first day of the invasion.

“It all seemed to be over so quickly.”

But No. 3 Troop’s success had come at a cost. It was only when they settled down for the night, back in the orchard where they had sheltered before, that Ted realised how many men they had lost, many of them close friends.