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| Église Saint-Pierre de La Folie (St Peter's Church, La Folie.) S. Plaine, CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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On the 12th of August the convoy once more got under way. We travelled again amid clouds of dust, passing through numerous small villages that had been destroyed by the battles. A larger place, Creully was not too bad. We ended up at St. Contest and set up the technical equipment. Our domestic site was set up in an orchard about a mile away at La Folie. It looked quite comfortable.
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| "Just as I expected - no hot water." |
It was on that day that I saw my third Allied 'plane crash. The crew had bailed out of a Marauder [1] fairly high up and it came down in circles with both engines roaring. Near the ground it straightened out and looked to be coming straight for us. Luckily for us it turned away and hit the ground less than a mile away. The next few nights we saw a repetition of the performance we had at Le Manoir. Jerry came over again and it was just like another November 5th. Once I saw a 'plane cross the moon but couldn't recognise it.
Our main trouble at this place was the mosquitos, fly's and wasps. No matter how many were killed, they still came along in thousands. At night the mosquitos kept us awake with their biting and buzzing in our ears. Dive-bombing we called it. Those insects could bite and they left quite a mark. I had one bite me above the left eyebrow and when I was washing next day I rubbed the top off it with the towel. It started bleeding and I couldn't stop it. It was an artery. A good job it didn't bleed so much in the night. I held the spot until the blood congealed and left it alone.
At this time Jerry was only four or five miles away from us to the east. In fact, as we were situated on top of a hill we could see where they were supposed to be on the next hill. Too close! Caen was only two or three miles from us. A couple of shells landed in the next field one night but don't know where they came from. In both St. Contest and La Folie I did not see one house intact, some, in fact most, had been reduced to rubble. There were three or four families still living in La Folie in their patched up houses. The one thing that will always be associated with these places is the smell. It was very easily noticeable and made one think of dead bodies. This same smell, only ten times more was noticed in Caen later.
Meals were quite an ordeal here while the hot weather persisted. Swarms of fly's and wasps would settle on the food and if there was jam, we almost had to dig through a pile of wasps to get at it. I was stung once on the back of the neck but Milton soon made it disappear. Nearly every man in the camp caught a dose of Dysentery. I had stomach ache for a couple of days but soon got over it.
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| Pass to enter Caen dated 20 Aug 1944 to 3 Sep 1944 |
Most evenings here I spent in camp or else exploring the village. Actually there wasn't much to see. I went into Caen about three or four times on the bath run. I can quite easily believe that the damage here was worse than any other town (Perhaps outside Germany.) For miles there was only piles of rubble, in places even main streets had been obliterated. New tracks had to be cut through the debris with bull-dozers. [2] The Cathedral, luckily was comparatively untouched. Just outside the main part of the city there was a Race Course and at the other side ran the river. What had been a large Café had been taken over by the N.A.A.F.I. and next door the Cinema was showing fairly new British and American pictures. After Falaise-Gap battle [3] and our troops advanced towards the Seine, the civilians trickled back into the city.
- Martin B-26 Marauder
- Canadian bulldozer in Caen
- Falaise pocket (12–21 August 1944)
