My paternal grandfather – Alfred Wyles – served in the 1st Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry (Territorials) – the “Light Bobs” – between 1940-1946. Prior to participating in the first-waves on D-Day, he train in and around the Exeter canal system. At Exeter, Glider troops and infantry co-operated together in co-ordinated manoeuvres. The infantry would assault the area from the periphery – and the Glider Troops would protect the centre (as if they had just dropped from the sky). As combat can be fluid and all kinds of emergencies can occur – Glider Troops would also train to assault the area from the periphery – and Infantry would defend the area from the centre. The reality on the ground might involve any contingency being used with flexibility being the key. I am told that this might explain how my grandfather came to possess an Airborne badge. When we were first researching this subject, die to the presence of this badge, we first thought Alfred Wyles had landed at Caen in a wooden Glider (this was in fact “D Company” of the 2nd Battalion [Professional] Ox & Bucks – but were later informed that in all likelihood (there is till a niggling doubt) my grandfather landed on Sword Beach as part of the supporting-infantry. Whatever the case, his official War Record is vague on this point.
The Ox & Bucks were given two primary tasks on D-Day. One was to land as “Glider Troops” (Airborne) on the canal system at Caen in North France just past midnight of June 6th, 1944 and hold the area until relieved – whilst the other was to land on Sword Beach from the sea in landing-craft around 7am of June 6th, 1944 – launching a massed infantry attack southward toward Caen (a distance of around 10 miles) to relieve the Glider Troops already fighting there. Of the five beaches landed on that day by the Allies – Sword Beach was the most Eastern. The fighting was hard and bloody – with the 21st Panzer Division being in the area – as were other SS Units and various Nazi German formations supposedly “resting” from carrying-out mass-murder in the USSR. Needless to say, the Anti-Tank Platoon my grandfather was a part of was soon wiped out – with himself becoming a straggler – fighting for survival amongst the hedgerows of France. As far as I know, he never made to it Caen, but three-weeks later was taken in by the Gordon Highlanders. He then fought his way to Hamburg – where, after seven months of continuous combat, he was finally granted leave (in January, 1945).
Alfred Wyles used to talk (on occasion) about his friends being killed by Nazi Germans and how he had to run for his life after destroying an enemy tank. He also spoke of the barbarity of the Nazi German “SS” troops and the foreigners who fought in the Nazi German armed forces. This included a substantial number of collaborating French – thousand of whom had “volunteered” to invade the Soviet Union. I believe tens of thousands of Western Europeans fought for the invading and occupying Nazi Germans – and got away with it after the war – despite these people killing and wounding British soldiers. Of course, tens of thousands of Northern Europeans also “volunteered” to fight for Nazi Germany – many these men comprising the bulk of the Nazi German forces defending Berlin as the Allies closed-in. Today, with the rise of far-right, many view these collaborators as “heroes” but I do not – after-all, they tried to kill my grandfather. The same can be said for today’s Neo-Nazi Ukraine – the population of that country should be ashamed of itself. The rhetoric of the far-right and the right is to eulogise Hitler and his ilk – and pour scorn on the hundreds of thousands of British men who fought, died, and were wounded fighting the perversion and mental illness that is “fascism”. As British people who took the right-side during WWII – we must never forget the 15 countries then known as the “Soviet Union” – which was our stuanch ally during WWII!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 