Letters from Normandy

John Mercer was called up in June 1944, and after an intense nine months of square-bashing, vehicle training, Morse code, and line laying, he became a gunner and landed in Normandy on 13 June 1944. The next year saw Mercer skirmishing in Belgium and suffering in waterlogged Holland, where he would spend hundreds of hours glued to the radio, waiting for a signal to fire. He was taken prisoner during the assault on Le Havre and spent time with a counter mortar unit. It was when he was in the 7th Division that they had the honour of becoming the first British troops to enter Berlin. By the end of the war, he was keen to return to Britain, but the Army Education Corps recruited him to teach children and ex-soldiers, an occupation that suited him perfectly. He arrived home without warning on Christmas Eve 1946. Mercer's letters to his widowed mother, together with extracts from the official War Diaries, help to tell this gripping story of all that makes soldiers' life: the trauma, the uncertainty, and perhaps above all, the will to return home.