STORMING OF BEACHES

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24280, 10 June 1944, Page 5

STORMING OF BEACHES

Wounded Soldier’s Account - GERMAN SNIPERS IN WOODS (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) LONDON. June 8. A graphic story of the. storming of a beach by a famous North Country division was told by Sergeant G. Maynard, one of the first wounded men landed in England, “We landed from assault craft, he said. “The Navy’s guns were blazing and smashing shells into the fortifications guarding the strip of beach we had to take. “Just ahead, tank-landing craft were already inshore, and the tanks were racing up the shingle. German 88mm. guns got on to them and there were several direct hits, but others came on. “Three hundred yards ahead of us was a 20ft concrete wall. The Germans lining (he top wore sweeping the beach with machine-gun fire and hurling hand grenades. Several of our men fell, but we dashed forward and got under the base of the wall, where the Germans could not eet at us. “More of our landing craft were coming inshore. I saw one go up in flames. It had hit one of their underwater obstructions. I had seen these sticking up as we came in, but we missed them. They are long ramps sticking up from the sea-bottom and

ADMIRAL LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN, who laid the original plans for the conquest of Normandy when he was Chief of Combined Operations. The claim that Admiral Mountbatten’s plans, which were based on information obtained from commando raids, were taken over as the groundwork for General Eisenhower’s plan is made by a newspaper correspondent, Gault McGowan. —London, June 8.