Framed Colour Portrait Photograph of Ernest Turner. Overall ...

Hammer

£20

Framed Colour Portrait Photograph of Ernest Turner. Overall size including frame 76cm x 56cm. This is his story: "Hill 112 not far from Caen, was an unimpressive stretch of country covered with wheat two or three feet high. Rommel had said, “He who controls Hill 112 controls Normandy.” Certainly the Germans clung to it desperately, and when they were driven off, they counter-attacked at once. Between 29 June, when the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions regained the hill, and 23 July, Hill 112 changed hands many times and thousands of Allied and German troops were killed or wounded on its bloody slopes. The 43rd Division alone lost more than 2,000 men in the first 36 hours of operation. It was reported that the Odon River was dammed with corpses. Finally we won the hill. The SS were absolutely wicked and pure fanatics. They didn’t take prisoners and if our boys surrendered, they shot them in cold blood, so our side started to do the same to them, which was understandable. When we got to Germany, something happened which summed up typical ‘Tommy’ humour under fire. We got to the Siegfried line up to our knees in mud and at the start of a pontoon bridge that we had to cross, a sign read ‘This is the Siegfried Line’, further down at the end of the bridge, there was a washing line with some old German clothes hanging and another sign read ‘…and here is the washing!’ Later, we were near to Belsen and while I never actually saw it, the stench from the camp was terrible. Because of the SS, It was many years after the war before I could speak to another German".

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Very good condition.