D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Bill Gladden

Bill Gladden, Aged 100, 6th Airborne Armoured Recce Regiment 

Interviewed 30 July 2023

Died 24 April 2024

Watching the men of the Ox and Bucks fly out from Tarrant Rushton on the night of 5 June, Bill Gladden followed on D-Day in a Hamilcar glider which was also carrying Tetrarch light tanks. 

He’d originally trained with the Royal West Kents in Maidstone as gunner, wireless operator, and driver before passing out as a despatch rider and then joining the airborne assault.

He was dropped near the River Orne where the Allies secured two bridges to stop the Germans destroying them and holding up the advance.

He said: "We waited and at last we were off. I had the inside of the glider up my back and a tank near to me. That was my unorthodox landing in Normandy.

"On the way over I couldn’t see anything. I thought I would climb on top of the  tank. I saw other tow planes and gliders in the air.

"Then the glider pilot dropped the tow rope and you’re not allowed to move because it upsets the weight for the glider pilot.

"So I had to freeze on top of this tank and that’s how I landed in Normandy, spreadeagled on top of a Tetrarch tank in a Hamilcar glider."

He landed east of the River Orne and was told to dug in for the first night. Pegasus Bridge and the Orne Bridge had been take.

Then he went to Ranville where his colleagues made a camp in an orchard, going out daily on recce missions. 

Mr Gladden was in Normandy for 12 days before being shot in the ankle.

He said: "We had come back to the orchard and I was just going to boil some water and have a brew up.

"Suddenly there was a bang and I was on the ground. I didn’t know what had happened.

"I was carried to a barn where we put our wounded. In fact two days prior to them taking me I carried two of my mates over. They were dead by the time we got them over. They are in Ranville cemetery now. 

"And they started pumping the morphine into me and I went out. I was wounded on the 18th and they kept me in a hospital there for three days and then I came back (to England).

"I was pushed from one hospital to another. I still haven’t recovered. I still get trouble."

Many years later Mr Gladden learnt that it was a Tiger Tank that had fired on him and his colleagues.

He passed away eight months after this interview.

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