Original Footage and Personal Accounts from veterans of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Royal Ulster Rifles of days on and around D-Day 1944
Original Footage and some excerpts from "The Longest Day" about the landings on Sword Beach
Original Pathe News Footage of landings.
Documentary with Original Footage and Personal Accounts from British, American and German veterans about the first few hours of the landings on Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.
BBC documentary detailing the innovations which helped to make D-Day a success.
Historian James Holland moves beyond the D-Day beaches to reassess the brutal 77-day Battle for Normandy.
Corporal Cornelius O'Reilly DCM (7020028), Rifleman Jeremiah Long MM (7014577) and Rifleman Hugh Henry McGlennon MM (7012171), were decorated for their bravery at the battle of Cambes and attended a parade at Cazelle on 27th July 1944 where they received their decorations from the Commander in Chief, Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, KCB, DSO.
Royal Ulster Rifles troops are distinguishable by their Caubeen berets with regimental badge over the right eye (rather than standard left eye) and it is likely that Corporal O'Reilly is the soldier being presented with his award at 1 minute 5 seconds in to the film, with other members of 2RUR visible in the group shots throughout. Lieutenant Colonel I.C.Harris can be seen in his Side Cap chatting to Montgomery after 1 minute 45 seconds of footage.
General Montgomery inspects the four-man Guard of Honour at the entrance to the château; nearby Sergeant Smales AFPU can be seen filming the event. Accompanied by Major-General Whistler, 3rd Division's commander, Montgomery is introduced to the brigade's four unit commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Gibbs, Bellamy, Millett and Foster, before they all go into the château. The group of officers steps out onto the lawn at the rear of the building where a presentation table and the brigade's HQ company are ready for the investiture. Montgomery decorates several men and then gives a pep talk to the entire gathering. Before leaving, he chats to the four unit commanders, their brigadier and their divisional commander and is driven away in 'Old Faithful' with Major-General Whistler and Lieutenant-Colonel Gibbs, the 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment's CO.
1944-06-13 - A PIAT team from the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles is seen in position in a foxhole by the roadside at Cambes; further up the road, a sentry occupies a slit trench. At a regimental aid post established in a farmhouse, two Royal Army Medical Corps men load field medical stores into a jeep fitted to carry stretchers, get in and drive away to an advanced dressing station. A Royal Engineers bulldozer is seen at work during the construction of the Douvres-la-Délivrande bypass. Airborne stretcher bearers load a casualty into the back of an ambulance at a 6th Airborne RAP sited in a requisitioned château near Ranville in the Orne bridgehead. Medical personnel dash to and fro in the forecourt of the building whose facade is covered by a Red Cross flag. Men serving with the 5th Battalion The Black Watch's mortar platoon dig two (?) emplacements in an orchard near Bréville. An NCO (?) uses a surveyor's instrument to line up a mortar pit in the direction of the German lines. Three men assemble a 3-inch mortar from its component parts.
1944-07-08 - I. 'FALL OF CAEN.' A British sapper uses a mine detector in a field in the environs of Caen as a caterpillar tractor equipped with a winch drives past. The commentary outlines events leading to the final Allied push to capture Caen over footage of British tank crews boarding their M4 Shermans. British M4 tank crews perform routine maintenance on their machines, one crew is shown "pulling through" their 75mm tank gun. A British tank crewman gets into his M4 hull entry hatch and closes it slowly, affording good views of the hatch-mounted driver's periscope. Canadian (?) infantry carrying picks and Lee-Enfield .303-in No.IV rifles march along a road described by the commentary as the "Falaise Highway." British infantry ride on the hull of a Churchill Mk VI tank (with 75mm gun). British infantry carrying Lee-Enfield No.IV rifles and Bren .303-in light machine guns walk past parked Churchill Mk IV and VI tanks and M4 Shermans. Waffen SS prisoners (12th SS Pz Div ?) stand with their hands placed on their heads as they are interrogated by a roadside, British Churchill (Mk III ?) tanks drive past raising dust. Stock shots show British troops firing a Vickers .303-in water-cooled machine gun followed by an artillery barrage by heavy field guns. A British M4 Sherman travels at speed along a country lane, its frontal armour augmented by extra track links affixed to its hull. The commentary states that Caen was captured by British and Canadian elements (British 1 Corps and Canadian 1 Corps) and that the Americans (US VII Corps) had simultaneously taken La Haye-du-Puits (Manche). Panoramic footage shows British infantry advancing over open country supported by M4 Shermans and Universal carriers. British infantry walk across a field carrying Lee-Enfield No.IV rifles, an Enfield .38-in pistol, and slung PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti Tank) projector, a Sherman M4A2 (76mm gun) is parked in the background. General Bernard Law Montgomery (Commander 21st Army Group) seated in his Humber Snipe tourer is given three cheers by a small group of assembled British soldiers. A British Sherman Firefly fires its 17-pounder gun at unseen targets. Waffen SS prisoners, still wearing camouflage smocks and helmets are guarded by Canadian (?) infantry armed with Sten 9mm sub-machine guns. General Montgomery talks to recently liberated French civilians near to the Palais de Justice in Caen. French civilians gather outside the Lycée Malherbe in Caen to watch the raising of the French national flag on Bastille Day (July 14 1944). Lieutenant Rand of 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles, British 3rd Infantry Division, poses near a road sign that reads "Paris, Rouen, Le Mans, Laval.".
1944-07-08 - Smoke rises from fires started by a British artillery bombardment aimed at neutralising German observation posts in Schneider steelworks at Les Colombelles; note the German anti-glider stakes planted in the wheat-field in the foreground. Wearing long-length camouflaged combat jackets, two soldiers from the 31st Jäger Regiment are brought back from Lebisey Wood, as prisoners of war, by two British motorcycle despatch riders after their capture by the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles. A section of infantry from the 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment makes its way along the Caen-Bieville road towards 185th Brigade's forward positions. Two more Luftwaffe ground soldiers are brought back after their capture by the Warwickshires by an infantryman armed with a No 4 Mark I T rifle fitted with telescopic sights. Five Warwickshire infantrymen, anticipating German shelling, dash across-country to their battalion's front. German shells aimed at disrupting 185th Brigade's progress towards Point 64 fall in a field several hundred yards from the cameraman.
1944-07-08 - A motorcycle despatch rider watches three universal carriers engaged in ferrying supplies, to either the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles or the 2nd Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI), rumble along Caen-Bieville road through Lebisey Wood and then follows in their wake towards Point 64. Two riflemen serving with the 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment keep watch over a sector of the Battalion's front in Lebisey Wood for German stragglers and snipers. Two universal carriers from the 2nd KSLI's support company move towards Point 64. A man is seen briefly running for cover past burnt-out vehicles during a German shelling of the 2nd Warwickshire's positions. The cameraman surveys the Schneider steelworks at Les Colombelles from whose chimneys German spotters have been able to spy on 1st Corps sector of the British beach-head since D-Day with relative immunity from Allied aircraft and artillery.
1944-07-09 - A Stuart III tank (144th RAC's recce troop) motors into Lebisey. Shermans and a Humber scout car (144th RAC's 'A' or 'C' squadron and RHQ troop) advance towards Couvre-Chef; note the numerous German anti-glider stakes. A Luftwaffe Feldwebel is searched by a 3rd Division 'Redcap'; bedraggled prisoners try out new boots, smoke cigarettes and sleep in a temporary reception cage. MPs search a Wehrmacht prisoner. An RAF flight officer, cigarette in mouth, talks to a major (2nd Battalion Middlesex Regiment) and other officers, having reached British lines after a month in hiding in Caen. Watched by 'Redcaps', Luftwaffe prisoners sit in the back of a CMP truck; more Luftwaffe troops arrive at the POW reception cage. From the Caen-Bieville/Douvres-la-Délivrande road, the cameraman surveys Caen and its moon-like northern suburbs; explosions (German demolitions) occur in the city. Humber III light recce cars and Churchill AVREs (3rd Recce Regiment and 5th Assault Regiment RE) make their way into Caen. The cameraman surveys the devastation and observes infantrymen and a universal carrier detachment (2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles) entering the city; smoke rises from explosions inside Caen and shelling in the countryside beyond the Orne.
1944-07-09 - Trailing a dust cloud, a jeep ambulance from 9th Brigade's RAMC field ambulance unit races into Lebisey to deliver casualties to an FAP in the village after avoiding German shelling on the Caen-Bieville road. Accompanied by two Frenchmen, four Luftwaffe prisoners from 31st Jäger Regiment are escorted into Lebisey past a DR (despatch rider) and two universal carrier detachments belonging to the 1st Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers. Sherman tanks from 144th RAC deployed outside the village come under German shellfire. From the Caen-Bieville/Douvres-La-Délivrande road, the cameraman surveys the ravaged city of Caen (the Abbaye aux Hommes still intact) from its bombed-out northern suburbs. Infantrymen belonging to the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles file into Caen along the bombed-out road past sappers and an armoured bulldozer (245th Field Company and 15th Field Park Company RE) engaged in road clearance, accompanied by a Stuart V light tank (1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry or 144th RAC) and a Sherman OP tank (33rd Field Regiment RA), on which a crew member is seen arranging the extra equipment stored on its engine decking.
1944-07-10 - Vichy poster deriding Allies' snail-like progress up the Italian peninsula; British troops in rubble-blocked street near Abbaye aux Hommes; Vichy anti-Churchill poster ("His last hope - Hunger"); Palais de Justice (with British and Canadian troops in Place Fontenette); Lycée Malherbe and Abbaye aux Hommes (St Etienne) in use as refugee centres; infantrymen (2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles) in position near River Orne and Caen racecourse; a 'blitzed' street; posters urging Frenchmen to join the Waffen-SS ("Shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy", "Your comrades wait for you in the Waffen-SS"); infantry (2nd RUR) moving through 'blitzed' city centre; Frenchwomen talking to SHAEF civil affairs major; RUR infantrymen occupying a German slit-trench near racecourse; smouldering rubble; Churchill AVREs (5th Assault Regiment RE) advancing towards Orne past racecourse, watched by infantrymen, and returning under fire; RUR infantrymen patrolling ruins and mansion, during which they meet French Red Cross workers; acres of 'blitzed' ground; Red Cross workers passing British troops around Cook's Tourist Office; refugees, Red Cross workers in city centre.
1944-07-10 - A Sherman Firefly and two other Sherman tanks belonging to the 13/18th Hussars' 'A' squadron motor into La Bijude past Shermans (their turrets at 3 o'clock) already in harbour in the devastated village. In Caen, members of a French family shake hands with Sergeant Collins AFPU and make their way out of Caen's 'blitzed' northern suburbs along the Caen-Bieville/Douvres-la-Délivrande road; other civilians pick their way through the ruins in search of their home. An infantry section (1st Battalion King's Own Scots Borderers or 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles) patrols a street. Civilians survey the wreckage of their home and sift through the rubble for their belongings. Near the Château de Caen, NCOs from the 59th Staffordshire Division chat to two young French couples, watched by a despatch rider (2nd RUR or 2/6th South Staffordshire Regiment). A captured Kübelwagen, in the hands of 253rd Field Company RE, motors out of Caen, leaving behind it a wilderness of bomb-craters, gutted buildings and rubble.
1944-08-10 - Soldiers from the 2nd US Infantry Division and 3rd British Division's 9th Brigade (1st KOSB) share slit trenches and gun positions in the 'bocage' near Le Pont du Vaudry. One of the GI's leaves his position to get a light for his cigarette from the British crew of a six-pounder anti-tank gun. Another GI reads a book as he sucks a large lollipop while his British ally quietly writes a letter home. A country road and a picturesque Norman cottage nestling in the greenery of the 'bocage' mark the junction of the two allied armies. An unlucky USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt burns furiously after crashing a short distance away. US and British officers (?) confer under a tree as men from the 9th Brigade march down a lane.
1944-09-19 - Under the cover of a smoke-screen shrouding the crossing site, sappers from 246th Field Company RE (?) unload Class 9 pontoon bridge(?) components from a Diamond T FBE lorry, paddle a floating bay for the bridge across the 40-yard wide canal and dig a landing stage on the south bank. A six-pounder gun from the Lincolns' anti-tank platoon is manhandled onto a Class 5 close-support raft manned by the 1st King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) assault pioneer platoon and rowed across the canal. Infantrymen (probably KOSB) wait on the canal levee before they are allowed to cross in stormboats manned by their own assault pioneers. Another close-support raft is assembled and ferries another six-pounder gun; sappers assemble a second(?) Class 9 floating bay(?). Jeeps for the Lincolns' anti-tank guns and KOSB infantrymen arrive at the canal levee; the latter cross the canal in stormboats. A Lincolns jeep carrying wounded returns to the south bank on one of the two rafts now in operation; these are seen ferrying detachments from the Lincoln's carrier platoon across the canal.1st KOSB provided boat parties and reinforcements for the Lincolnshires' and RUR's crossing.
In this silent footage, various shots show tanks driving through and infantry entering a bomb damaged Bremen mid to late April 1945.
In this silent footage, the German soldiers are held as prisoners in a pen while British soldiers continue to march and patrol the streets mid to late April 1945.
Members of today's military have recently returned to the site of that battle to better understand why the battalion paid such a high price for victory.
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