The Story of LES BAYNTON

...Further on, at Pont-Audemer, our own Recce Regiment in armoured cars was the first unit to enter the town against strong German opposition. A Dutch unit under command of 6th Airborne Division was behind them - to this day, the town population believes that they were liberated by the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade. They have an annual Liberation ceremony and invite the Dutch to join them. Queen Juliana unveiled a monument there. She had more clout than us!

At Pont-Audemer alongside the River Risle there is a small hotel and bar. Our platoon put a Bailey Bridge across to replace the old bridge which had been blown up by the retreating Germans. They were still shelling the town and the population had not yet returned. We found the doors and windows at the bar all blown in, but by a miracle, there were all these bottles intact behind the bar. We quickly filled a couple of sacks and stashed them away in our half-track! Later on, at Le Harve where we had spent the night time doing minefield reconnaissance, we couldn’t get to sleep in the day because of the proximity of a heavy artillery battery so we fished out the bottles and soon became oblivious to the noise."

Les says he has since put up a plague in the present day bar recalling his exploits and thanking Pont-Audemer for its present!

At Le Havre, for the first and therefore the most dangerous minefield reconnaissance, Les and two other sappers were escorted to the start line in enemy territory by a section of infantry from the battalion in 56 Brigade to which Les’s platoon was now attached.

"I won’t give any details - ‘no names, no pack drill’ as they used to say – but how we missed our old comrades from the Durham Light Infantry, who never once let us down. Not like this new shower, who refused to stay on the start line to give covering fire in case we sappers ran into trouble and had to get back in a hurry. They left us three out in the minefields, defenceless except for on Lugar pistol as we had a load of mine detecting gear to carry. We did the job nevertheless and got back safe to our own lines but no thanks to them."

After Le Havre, the 49th Division carried on to the Antwerp-Turnhout canal in Belgium and then spent the hard winter of 1944-45 on the 'Island' between Nijmegen and Arnhem...