D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Henry Leach

Henry Leach, Age 98, Royal Hampshire Regiment

Interviewed 24 September 2023

Soldiers from the 1st Hampshire Battalion were among the first British troops ashore on D-Day at T Jig Sector of Gold Beach.

Henry Leach landed two weeks later and was a sergeant with the 7th - a territorial battalion from the New Forest.

He became involved in heavy fighting in Maltot in July, aimed at breaking the German defensive line around Caen.

He said: "That was a village which we had to take.

"We went down a slope into the village and then got to the other side and the Germans withdrew into a valley and we more or less pinned them down for a while. Eventually we cleared it up.

"When we were in there the Germans had a machine gun. The platoon was trapped. I got fed up with that and went up round onto the other side and took a few shots of them over the valley and of course the machine post we couldn’t see.

"I covered the withdrawal of the rest of the platoon out of the valley and joined them on the other side of the village.’’

"There was tension of course. When we stopped we dug trenches big enough for one or two.

"One unpleasant experience I had, we were preparing to move and I put my pack on a little fence and a salvo of mortars came, you could hear them, nine barrel mortars coming in over the top.

"I dived down into the bottom of the trench. Something came on top of my leg and I thought the side of the trench had blown in but it was only my pack. It wasn’t as frightening as it was at first."

Mr Leach went through France and Belgium and was later wounded in Holland. He’s one of the regiment’s last surviving Normandy veterans.

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