Those of you with the strength to have lifted your head above the Brexit parapet, will have seen widespread coverage of a more noble and noteworthy European date which has been commemorated in recent weeks.
D-Day on June 6 this year celebrated 75 years since the liberation of France, and together with the French, Americans and Canadians, we remembered the tragically-high number of young lives lost. One such person who reflected on those days was Allan Gordon Orpin from Ringmer, who at 93 years old is a fine, upstanding 6’1” veteran, with a sharp mind and wit which belies his age.
Born in London on January 17, 1926, Allan was the youngest of four children living in a famous Warner flat in Walthamstow. By 1940, when he was just 14, most children were being evacuated to the countryside to avoid the Blitz. Instead, Allan’s education ceased and he remained with the family while working as a trainee jig and tool maker until he enlisted in October 1943, at the age of 17 years and ten months.
During basic training, he was moved to the Royal Armoured Corp, until he volunteered for the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, the only Airborne tank regiment in the British Army before or since. It did not have its own badge and soldiers were allowed to wear the cap badge from their previous regiment (22 in all), which made it a very elite corps.
“Our light tetrarch tanks weighed nine tons and were transported in Hamilcar gliders,” Allan recalls. “The lighter vehicles – jeeps, scout cars, trailers and motorbikes – travelled in Hawser gliders and paras in the rest.”
It is hard to imagine such lightweight aircraft carrying such hefty cargo, and these gliders were designed with the aim of a ‘one-off’ use; their flimsy wood construction breaking upon landing.
One of the best-known manoeuvres of D-Day took place at Pegasus Bridge, during operation Deadstick. It was the 2nd Batallion, the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry who formed the first landings, taking and holding the bridge and limiting the Germans’ counterattack.
Later that day, early evening, it was the 6th Armoured Airborne Reconnaissance with whom Trooper Orpin 14718161 landed in a Hawser glider with his jeep just outside the small Normandy village of Ranville – two miles from Benouville Bridge, as Pegasus was formally known.
As with all troops involved in the D-Day operation, they were given only the information relevant to their task and Allan describes the scene of utter chaos which greeted them, knowing that they had solely to focus on regrouping with their colleagues. However, he reflects on the feeling at the tender age of 18 of anticipation and a huge adrenalin rush. Had they known the full picture at the time, it would, of course, have been extremely different.
Having attended both the 70th and recent 75th commemorations, it is clear from Allan’s emotional description that the passing of time has neither blurred nor diluted his vivid recollection of D-Day and the following days and weeks.
He was particularly thrilled that he met up with a fellow 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance soldier who landed with Allan in the same zone.
“I was with my daughter at the Ranville memorial service when I saw someone with my cap badge on his red beret,” he says. “I raced – well moved more quickly than usual – over to him and we had an immediate emotional reunion. He was the first guy I had ever met from the regiment and it was wonderful for us both.”
Having come from such a small Regiment, it was a remarkable reunion of two veterans, two young soldiers who met again after 75 years. Allan often wonders how many of the 300-strong regiment is still alive. After all, at 93, he is one of the youngest!
A professional photographer got wind of this momentous occasion and arranged a photo shoot at the landing zone (LZN Landing Zone N), which brought back many memories.
“We experienced such fantastic comradeship and were from a small regiment of which over 50 were killed and many wounded,” Allan says. “That same sense of belonging remains and the respect and honour we, as veterans have been shown has been heartwarming.
“I have heard many say that this level of recognition is long overdue, but we were all just fit, healthy and enthusiastic young men at the time. People tend to forget that when they see doddering old men.”
Allan feels there is little comparison with today’s armed forces. “Technology and methods have changed beyond my comprehension.” Smiling, he adds: “With university graduates, it is easier to scale the ranks quickly – I have never seen so many young brigadier generals!”
After Normandy, Allan saw service in the Ardennes, followed by both the second and the last Airborne drop of the war across the Rhine at a place named Wessel. Their regiment continued through Germany to link up with the advancing Russians on the Baltic town of Wismar. His prevailing memory of this time is never having been so bitterly cold in his whole life.
“We were given swigs of brandy to warm us up, but unfortunately, as we had empty stomachs, the consequences were far from warming.” He grimaces at the memory but also laughs at the same time.
After the war, Allan served in Palestine for a year, but following a severe injury there, he was invalided out in July 1947. He spent some time in Bournemouth sanatorium, regaining his strength after losing a lung and suffering with pleurisy. His memories from this time, however, are happy ones, mainly based on the care of the pretty young nurses.
In January 1948 he met his future wife Paddy at a dance in Leyton Baths. She had been a Wren and they married in Walthamstow in March 1950. Allan continued his engineering career, progressing through the ranks to work study engineer at various companies in the area.
In 1961, when their son Stephen was eight and their new baby daughter Anita was eight months, they moved from their terraced cottage in Chingford to a new-build in the seaside town of Saltdean, East Sussex.
Six years later, in 1967 Allan was offered a job in Taikoo dockyard in Hong Kong. “We had a wonderful four years there as a family and I suppose it whetted my appetite for projects abroad,” he says.
Allan went on to work in Zambia, Libya, and Egypt, where he still spends several months a year when he is not living with his daughter in Ringmer.
“I have been very much involved in memorial and armistice day commemorations over recent years and been lucky enough to have poetry of mine read out, too,” he says. “To see the thousands of soldiers’ gravestones before you is humbling, and becomes more upsetting the older, I become.
“The sad truth though is that only as long as relatives are around, will we be remembered.
For those who follow, it will just be another part of history.”
D-Day veteran Allan Orpin shares his memories of one of the most momentous operations of World War II with Joseph Christy
