The Story of LES BAYNTON

...which was earned through occupation duties in Iceland. They were at Stourbridge, Worcester:

"Stourbridge was the best of places to be stationed. The people there were wonderful and made us really feel
at home."

From Stourbridge, 757 Field Company moved to Halton, near Lancaster, for intensive further Bailey Bridge training.

"We used to go salmon fishing in the River Lune, I suppose we didn’t play fair.... using detonators!"

After that, a move to Dunblane, Scotland:

"It was really picturesque country. We were near Blackford, and in the evenings, way up on the mountainside, Crofter used to play his bagpipes... wonderful – if you liked them!

Our task was to construct a full size replica of part of Hitler’s West Wall defences, although at the time, we were in the dark as to its exact origin. The design was based on information provided by the French Resistance and before we could be trusted we had to sign the Official Secrets Act.

The construction work included carefully detailed reinforced concrete defensive emplacements of all types, blockhouses and heavy gun casements. The idea was to test explosive types to determine what quantities would be needed to deal with them and for the infantry to practice assaults.

We worked on this project all through August 1943 which must have been one of the wettest on record – we were always up to our knees in mud."

In October 1943, Les and his company were moved with the Durham Light Infantry of the 70th Brigade to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. As the 49th Division had been earmarked as the first wave assault division for the forthcoming invasion of North-West Europe, there was intensive amphibious assault training using the remote Scottish beaches for practice landings. Mock defences had been constructed from palings, barbed wire
entanglements and a variety of steel beach obstructions to form an assault course.

"We used to practice attacking these ‘pillboxes’...