By Tom Lewis*
It is a long way from England for a veteran of the 1944 D-Day landings, but Tasmania is where Les Elliott made home for the last 60 years. With his 100th birthday on 11 February, the British Royal Marine put war behind him a long time ago, but it remains one of the most memorable times in a long life.
D-Day was one of the most momentous turning points in world history. On 6 June 1944, a combined force of American, British, and Canadian troops stormed ashore in the biggest amphibious assault ever. Berlin had to be taken and Adolf Hitler defeated, and then the Allied powers would turn their attention to the Pacific. Anyone who has seen the initial 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan can get an idea of how dangerous and deadly that day was, but it was utterly necessary. Without it – and soldiers like Les – the world would be a different place today.
When I first interviewed Les Elliott – a quiet and modest man – about it all some years back, he was straightforward about why he joined up. “I wanted to do something rather than sit under the staircase – I wanted to hit back,” he said. He was living in Britain where the country had been bombarded by the Blitz; had seen ships by the hundred sunk around it by U-Boats; had seen thousands of its armed forces men not come home – and still the war raged on.
Joining up in 1942, Les entered the Royal Marines at the age of 17. After nine months of training he was selected to be an officer. He remembers their role in D-Day to be “seaborne assault troops; to be first troops ashore as a spearhead, and clear the way for the rest, who will then leapfrog.”
Les’s unit went ashore on Sword Beach, one of the five being taken by the British and Americans with two each, while Canadian troops stormed the fifth. The attack was enormous: nearly 160,000 men using parachute, glider, and amphibious assault craft went in, backed by the big guns of hundreds of warships firing inland over their heads. The Germans, caught by surprise, nevertheless fought fiercely from scores of defensive pillboxes, with the Luftwaffe coming in from the air, despite the Allied air superiority.
Les recalls:
…..we left harbour at 2am, after an evening of entertainment by the likes of Gracie Fields. The weather was not kind to the 16 flat bottomed landing craft in our flotilla, with stormy seas.
…our commander got hit in the first wave and was taken out so chaos ensured on the beach. I came in with the second wave three or four hours later, and had to assume command. The beach had been taken but was still being strafed by the odd German fighter. We were unprotected on our left flank, and got hit by low flying aircraft.
I was only 19 and it was all one big great adventure. The sea was alive with ships and boats; constantly overtaken by hordes of gliders and aircraft. The naval gunfire support was firing over our heads.
….to my great surprise I was reunited with my commander, who I thought had not survived, several years later at a rugby match in Kenya.
Despite 10,300 casualties – killed, wounded, and missing – the landing was a success. By the end of June, the Allies had landed over 850,000 troops, 570,000 tons of supplies, and nearly 150,000 vehicles across the beaches of Normandy. The European war would go on until May 1945, but eventually the Third Reich was conquered. Les served until the end of the conflict with 44 Commando Royal Marines in the Far East.
Post-war, he worked with the Palestine Police until 1948 on His Majesty’s Service as part of the League of Nations, before joining the Kenya Police in Africa. He served with them until 1965, reaching the rank of Assistant Commissioner, and commandant of the Police Training School. Australia offered better prospects, and Les then emigrated with his wife Margaret and three children – Nick, Tim, and Carol – to Tasmania in 1965. He was Personnel Manager at Universal Textiles Australia, before working in the Australian Public Service. His wife Margaret passed away in July 2018 after 69 years of marriage.
D-Day brought us all not only the beginning of the end of World War II, but also showed how a combined multi-country force could unite against the evils of militant nationalism, and what indeed were the evil empires of the Axis powers. Millions of people were grateful then and are grateful now for what military personnel such as Les Elliott did, at massive threat to their lives.
To have such a person still living with us now is indeed a privilege.
*Dr Tom Lewis OAM is a military historian
