General News
26 July, 2025
VETERANS' VOICES: Foy Arnould-Jones
Foy Arnould-Jones’s recollection of his participation in World War II’s D-Day landing is held in the Horsham RSL Military History and Heritage Centre collection.
Foy was an 18-year-old able seaman with British Navy from Oxford, England, on D-Day.
He migrated to Australia in 1955 and lived in Horsham from 1987 after retiring from Australia Post.
Foy was a keen member of the RSL and a former sub-branch secretary.
He is buried in Horsham Cemetery.
The following article is taken from an interview in which Foy spoke to Faye Smith.
Fantastic!
D-Day was a fantastic operation.
The logistics were enormous: 10,000 planes, hundreds of ships, a pipeline laid beneath the English Channel to supply oil, a complete dock floated over.
Our navy personnel stayed on until after Arnhem, September 17 1944, part of Operation Market Garden, which is another story.
After Arnhem our squadron transferred from Keevil to Wethersfield near Braintree in Essex.
US navy members transferred back to navy base, later to join the British Pacific Fleet.
Looking back, I guess many hundreds of boys became men overnight on D-Day.
The leader was not kidding
I thought to myself “The leader’s kidding – we can’t be in France. We are still in England, and this is another of those trials.”
This is my story of Operation Overlord.
Operation Overlord was in full swing on June 6 1944.
This operation took place on a beach on the French coast between Cherbourg and Le Harve.
The beach was divided into sections which were named Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno.
In the early hours of June 6 we were woken up by our chief petty officer and told to dress in our boiler suits and to take our balaclavas because it was getting cold outside.
We were marched down to the jetty and onto a boat, maybe a minesweeper.
One fellow was in charge although he wore no badges of authority.
As soon as we landed we were to head for the nearest telephone poles and cut communication.
There was a slight swell on the ocean, cloudy and sometimes the partial moon shone through.
When we came to a standstill, a small boat was lowered over the side and we scrambled in, given wire cutters and a leather belt to put them in.
On landing were instructed to keep silent because we were on French soil.
Enemy
A few months before we had done a trial run for the D-Day landing in Portland Bill and something went horribly wrong when the enemy damaged a couple of our ships.
The enemy had penetrated our defence.
We made our way back to the beach after doing our job cutting communication.
There was now a stiff breeze and I was glad I had brought my balaclava.
But where was the boat?
Not in sight.
“Just hang around,” said the leader.
I sat under the cover of a sandbank and found myself starting to shake.
I was not really cold and I couldn’t understand why I was shaking.
Armada
After a while I dozed off.
It only seemed a short while until the leader was shaking me and telling me to wake up.
There, in front of us, with the sun rising rapidly, was the biggest gathering of ships I had ever seen.
There were big ships and small boats and launches, destroyers and cruisers and a thousand landing craft.
It dawned on me at last that this really was German-occupied France, these were the Normandy beaches – the second front.
An American landing craft hit the shoreline and the GIs spilled out.
We moved closer and up the craft’s ramp.
There were explosions and I thought the ‘Gerry’ had woken up.
But no, Americans were stepping on land mines.
The leader quickly spoke to the GI at the wheel of the craft.
I heard him say “That’s okay, keep your heads down.”
Navy base
Soon we were on our way back to base at Portsmouth.
After what seemed like hours we were back in port.
The leader set the pace for marching in to the navy base HMS Victory.
We arrived at the base hospital, where a doctor examined me.
He told me to get into bed in an adjoining room, where I went into a deep sleep.
I was awakened by a doctor and told to dress.
Our CPO was outside and marched me back to the hut and ordered some 20 men there to go to the showers.
We had what I thought was lunch, turned out to be breakfast: smoked cod.
After that we marched down to the quay where I, with others, boarded HMS Onslow, my regular ship at sea.
Onslow put out to sea and once again headed for Cherbourg where we assumed a patrolling position between Cherbourg and Le Harve.
Eisenhower
“It’s D-Day,” someone said.
I knew that.
A leaflet signed by General Dwight Eisenhower, Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, was distributed on board.
It explained what was going on.
General Montgomery was disappointed he was not in charge.
Eisenhower deliberated for hours over which day we should invade.
Would it be the fourth, fifth or sixth of June?
The fourth was too rough, the fifth was very overcast with rain threatening and with heavy seas, so it had to be the sixth.
The first day was noticeably quiet and the landings went smoothly, but the second day was anything but quiet.
With thanks: Sally Bertram, RSL Military History Library. Contact Sally at sj.bertram@hotmail.com or call 0409 351 940.
