Newmarket family remembers the part their father and grandfather played in D-Day
On the night of June 5, 1944, a mighty Anglo-American armada set out for the coast of France.
Preceeded by a huge aerial bombardment and airborne landings on the flanks of the landing beaches, the vast fleet assembled off the coast of Normandy.
Shortly before dawn on June 6 shelling of targets along the shoreline started. Operation Overlord, the greatest sea-borne operation in history had begun.
By the end of that day, immortalised as The Longest Day, more than 150,000 men had fought their way ashore under intensive and unrelenting enemy bombardment to establish a foothold in Hitler's Fortress Europe and the liberation of the continent, which had suffered under Nazi tyranny for nearly five years, was under way.
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Few veterans survive, but their families can still recount the stories of how their bravery and sacrifice turned the tide of the Second World War.
One of those was Brian ‘Freddie’ Bartholomew, a Royal Marine Commando who landed on Sword Beach on his 24th birthday.
He later charted the events of that day, and the days beyond, in a book he wrote for his grandchildren, Sarah and Thomas, to mark the 50th anniversary of the invasion.
“For both of them, for all that we went through, it was all worthwhile,” he wrote.
As Newmarket prepares to commemorate D-Day, Brian's daughter, Jane Lewin Smith, a former High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, who lives in the town, remembers her father and shares his memories of a day she said changed him forever.
Born in an upstairs bedroom above the family's shoe and boot shop, Quant and Son, in Newmarket High Street, Brian was the youngest of the three sons of Percy and Anne Bartholomew. His grandfather had worked in racing stables and known the great jockey Fred Archer. In 1935, aged 15, Brian had begun a five-year apprenticeship with his father at Quants. It was the start of a lifetime's vocation which was to span nearly 50 years, punctuated only by five years' war service.
When war broke out Brian had wanted to join the Royal Navy but when told it wasn't taking any more recruits he joined the Royal Marines.
Basic training identified Brian's prowess as a marksman and he was chosen to go to sniper school.
Known to his fellow marines as Freddie, after the British-born Hollywood child star who shared his surname, he came out as the best shot on the ranges after his last session saw him hit five bullseyes at 600 yards.
“I cannot help wondering whether those days I spent in my father’s wood with my old BSA air-gun shooting cones off pine tree and countless holes in tin cans had something to do with it,” he said in his book.
D-Day had originally been planned for June 4 but foul weather over the Channel saw it delayed for 24 hours.
As Brian, with his fellow marines, prepared to board their landing craft he remembered them being asked for comments by the BBC.
“One of them asked me how I felt when I was about to make history. I realised that tomorrow June 6, 1944, would be my 24th birthday. I was not looking forward to a Happy Birthday.”
At 5pm on June 5, Brian and fellow members of the Royal Marine Commandos boarded their landing craft and set off to take up position in The Solent ready to make the Channel crossing to Sword Beach in Normandy.
“The scene was one I shall never forget,” wrote Brian. “We had rations for the crossing but by now those were far from our minds. We had a tin of soup which was heated up by lighting a centre wick which ran down the middle of the tin. How could anyone have thought that in June, on a rough sea, anyone would enjoy a tin of soup. Most of the cans ended up in the middle of the Channel along with some of the other rations which had been eaten long before D-Day morning.”
While some of his fellow commandos kept to the lower deck, Brian stayed in the fresh air, propping himself against a steel sheet near the wheelhouse. “There was not much one could do for this early part of the journey except gather one’s thoughts about home and what the dawn would be like knowing we perhaps may not see another,” he recalled.
“We were now getting nearer the coast and we were beginning to hear the noise of battle. This was soon brought home by passing the battleship Warspite firing her 16 inch guns in support of the first wave of troops. It soon became clear we would need all that good luck which that passing ship had sent us. Our beach was defended by mines, underwater obstacles and batteries of guns which opened up and caused many casualties during the final approach.
“We were right in the din of battle bullets flying, guns blazing and shells bursting all around. As the bullets hit the steel they would ricochet away with that humming noise. Down went our two ramps and we were away, down through the surf and on to the beach passing bodies as they floated up and down with the waves, face down where they fell.
“We were up on the sand and the scene was one of chaos with tanks, guns, and men making all the flotsam of war all over the beach.”
Once off the beach the commandos pushed south and east across the Orne River and Caen Canal and by nightfall had penetrated as far as Salanelles and the outskirts of Merville.
On the way they were always at risk coming under fire from German snipers but were determined to keep their date with airborne troops to relieve forces at the strategically
critical Pegasus Bridge.
Three hours had been set for the commandos to break through the German defences and navigate across the seven kilometres of open land to relieve the paratroop and glider brigades who had landed the night before. And remarkably they made the rendezvous almost to the minute.
Later that day the brigade moved west to secure the left flank of the allied bridgehead and over the next six days successfully withstood numerous intense German counter attacks. During one such encounter Brian recalled how not following the rules he had been taught during his training almost proved fatal.
“We had become owners of a small well-knocked about farm house. I found quite a good lookout view through the beams and broken slates,” he said. “I could see most of my front which was a fairly wooded area. I fixed my telescopic sight on and had my field telescope ready by my side. I was using both to advantage and could see the Germans advancing through the trees and cover. They were closing in fast.
“There was an anti-tank gun being lined up on the house so I thought it best to give them some attention and keep their heads down. I also saw one of their fellow snipers who I saw was about to use a small thin tree as cover to hide behind.
“I loaded up one of my armour piercing bullets and took careful aim. The figure behind the tree took a slow drop to the ground so it obviously worked. I had seen this one through my large field telescope and had just put it down by my head. The next minute it gave a violent kick away from me and landed across the roof.
“It seemed one of my victim’s fellow snipers had spotted me and had a go. I was very lucky that time. When I recovered my scope I found I had not carried out one of the very important rules, well taught during training, which was to pull out the shade at the end so that sunlight did not glint on the glass. This error could have cost me my life.”
Brian then realised his fellow troops had withdrawn. “They had not thought to tell me up in the roof,” he remembered. “I guessed they had taken a sunken lane which ran away from the house towards Merville so I made my way down it. In fact it was the route they had taken and I only had the hope that the covering section of the troop would know it was me coming up the lane and not some German patrol. I had no password to shout out only that I was Freddie Bartholomew C Troop. All was well. They had wondered where I’d got to.”
With the rest of the men, Brian then had to get back to Le Plein and, with German patrols looking for them, Royal Navy ships in the Channel were told to bombard the area behind the men.
“The old farm house went up in the air and I was very glad I had just left it behind or that would have been the end of me,” said Brian. The men arrived at Le Plein just before dusk, led by Major Nichol Gray in whose memory Brian later wrote his memoir.
“We had been been fighting continually for over 60 hours since D-Day. We came up the slope into the churchyard at Le Plein and were told that we were to rest for the night in this dear little church,” Brian wrote.
The next day the men were moved into their new defensive positions and were to remain in slit trenches for the next six weeks.
Brian had survived D-Day and then much more heavy combat in the days and weeks that followed which eventually saw his troop fighting in Germany, where he lost one of his best pals. His sergeant major was also injured and evacuated back to England and to Newmarket where the St Louis convent in Fordham Road was being used as a hospital.
“He arrived on Newmarket station where my father, who was with the Red Cross, was unloading the wounded from the train,” said Brian.
“He saw Sgt Major Gray, with his green beret on his lap, and seeing the Royal Marine badge on it told him his son was a Royal Marine commando. ‘What commando is he in?’ ‘45’ came dad’s reply. ‘What troop is he in? ‘C Troop’ ‘What’s his name? ‘Freddie Bartholomew,’ answered dad.
‘I have just left him in charge in the middle of a wood on the river Aller and he is quite OK,’ said the sergeant major much to my father’s joy and relief.”
Brian was finally demobbed at Chatham Barracks on February 15, 1946, and returned to Newmarket, to his family and work at Quants where he was a familiar face until he retired in the 1980s. He was to be a regular attender at D-Day reunions for the rest of his life.
He died in 2004 at the age of 84.
His daughter Jane, for whom today’s D-Day commemorations will inevitably bring back memories of the part her father played, said his family remained immensely proud of the role he played.
“He was the gentlest and kindest of men who stepped up when required to do his duty,” she said. “He lost his best friend and many other comrades but he came home and got on with
his life. He was happy to talk about the war but it left its mark on him mentally. We have always been really proud of him and what he did.”
And the last words rest with Brian and are those he wrote in the foreword to his book.
“The wartime events will not have been mine alone but were experienced by thousands of the un-sung fighting men. They all fought to defend the free world and the rights of men and women to live in peace and freedom many to give their young lives.”
