Page 12 - ABA Salvoes 1999-2024

Vere and his party accompanied 2 PARA back to Tunisia, where further training followed until 9 September when the force moved by sea to Italy.
Interestingly we hear that on passage to Taranto they met the newly surrendered Italian Fleet en route to Malta. Once in Italy it seems, oddly enough, that there was no serious fighting involving Vere. L/Bdr Ted Eley was sick in hospital, and Vere along with L/Tel Alex Boomer ‘made themselves useful where they could’ . This included various errands for Bde HQ, visiting airfields in company with an RAF officer and, strangest of all, spending time with an Italian horsed field artillery battery as a liaison officer with a slightly covert role of assessing and reporting on their operational effectiveness. At the end of September came the news that Vere had been awarded an MC for his work at the Primosole Bridge. Most unusually both members of his party were also decorated, L/Tel Alex Boomer got the DSM and L/Bdr Ted Eley the MM. A pretty sensational achievement all round. On 7 October Vere was appointed a General Staff Officer Grade 3 (SO3 in today’s speak), in Brig Lathbury’s HQ. There was the little question of approval from 1 COBU in Troon, but that matter is sort of skated over! A spell of dysentery was followed by his departure from Italy on 19 November, and whilst at sea bound for Algiers he was diagnosed with jaundice. He managed to discharge himself just in time to catch the ship which was to take him back to UK on 9 December 1943. After some leave, Vere continued working in Brig Lathbury’s Brigade HQ, where his duties were many and various, including setting up an International Special Forces HQ in a castle in Ayrshire. By the end of March the HQ was up and running with Vere as sort of Camp Commandant. However, his castle was not a million miles from Dundonald Camp, the home of 1 COBU, who it might be recalled never seemed to have given copper-bottomed authorisation for his employment on the staff in the first place! It turned out that Vere had sort of ‘slipped through a crack in the military floor’ , but he was spotted and his return to Dundonald was swift. Back in 1 COBU the task on hand was to prepare for D Day. His party as before included Messrs Boomer and Eley, and a new RN Telegraphist Wilf Fortune, who apparently fitted in well. They trained on a new light weight radio, the 18 set. Additionally they had a heavier set which would follow by jeep. Soon they were detailed off to join 7 PARA, part of 6 Airborne Div. The Bn CO was Lt RG Pine-Coffin MC. They joined 7 PARA at a camp near Fairford in Gloucestershire, and Vere mentions the warm welcome which they received, helped by the fact that three of the four-man party had decorations for gallantry, as not many of 7 PARA had been in action yet.
As we all know now, D Day was postponed 24 hours due to bad weather and so the trip to the airfield on the afternoon of 4 June ended with them back in their well- guarded camp. On the night of 5 June, however, they were off. They took off about 2230hrs and were out over their DZ at Ranville around 0050hrs on 6 June. The actual drop
was quite exciting with searchlights and tracer fire from the Germans, and Vere mentions seeing one parachute on fire. Eventually the party rallied at the RV to find that L/Bdr Eley had a dislocated shoulder, which was causing him considerable pain. Soon 7 PARA were on the move towards Benouville, they crossed what was to become known as Pegasus Bridge and went firm on the outskirts of Benouville Village. Here Vere suggests that, contrary to the popularly held view that Lord Lovat and his Commando were the first to cross the bridge after its capture, 7 PARA was first and watched from the other side of the canal as the Commando came up from the direction of the beachhead! Also he remarks on the brilliant accuracy of the glider landings at the bridge. Accompanying A Coy in an orchard, Vere was becoming concerned at the difficulty in finding a suitable OP, as the ground was too flat. He needed to be in a position to observe by the time the main landings began when wireless silence could be broken. At last he spotted a suitable house and when his knocking went unanswered he decided to shoot the door lock off, but missed – not at all what we are used to in wild west films! The shot, however, served to rouse the inhabitants who, possibly thinking they were Germans, permitted the party to occupy an upstairs room with a window facing in the desired direction. At that stage a force of Germans was seen approaching, no ship could be obtained, and A Coy was forced back leaving Vere’s party in the house. L/Tel Fortune and L/Bdr Eley, still around despite his dislocated shoulder, were sent to try and rejoin the Coy leaving Vere and L/Tel Boomer in the house. A German knocked at the house door but the British presence on the first floor was not mentioned. After everything went quiet, Vere decided to try and rejoin the Coy and soon he was with the Coy Comd, who was apologetic at having failed to warn the party of his precipitate departure. The party was now in danger of breaking up, L/Tel Fortune had taken L/Bdr Eley to an RAP, and having deduced that the OP house must by now have been overrun and Vere probably lost, decided to attach himself to Capt Richie who was operating with a Tel Monks. However listening on Monks’s set, Fortune identified L/Tel Boomer’s touch and decided to try and rejoin Vere and Boomer which, after an adventurous journey under sniper fire, he did.
In an interesting sequel to this event, a few days later a Tel called Ken Moles found Vere’s party and asked if he could join, as his officer had been either killed or wounded. After a quick informal ‘selection board’ he was accepted, and remained a member of the party for the rest of the campaign. As the battle progressed, Vere used Ouistreham lighthouse as an OP until the Germans knocked the top off, thereafter he made use of the parish church tower, sometimes during services down below in the church! Around 8 June Vere was asked to take his party into the grounds of Benouville Chateau where ‘things were a bit sticky’. On the way there they met another COBU party coming back, saying that they had been up to the front but that it was not possible to do a shoot (presumably
10 | Amphibious Bombardment Association