RIP Eric Barley
1924-2016
12th Yorkshire Parachute Battalion
6th Airborne Division
Eric Barley parachuted on June 6, 1944, at 00:50 as a signalman over Normandy with the 12th Yorkshire Parachute Battalion, as part of Operation Tonga. He recalls that during the night, with some of his comrades-in-arms, “we made out figures in the darkness approaching us. To identify ourselves, we had to call out ‘Fish’ – and the answer had to be ‘Chips’.” “If we didn’t say ‘Chips,’ we’d get fried!” But the figures answered ‘Chips,’ and we continued walking to the rendezvous point. We then heard German voices and then gunfire. The planes were flying overhead and we could see the tracer bullets coming towards them in bursts. The voices came from a group of German mortar crews that was spotted. A young English medic then threw a grenade in their direction, killing them all.”
With his regiment, he captured the village of Bas de Ranville, which was secured around 4:00 a.m. His unit held and resisted German counterattacks that continued until June 12, 1944, before participating in the furious fighting at Bréville. The 6th Airborne Division was tasked with protecting the left flank of the Allied forces in Normandy, relying on the banks of the Orne River. Two weeks after D-Day, Eric Barley was wounded in the Mesnil sector and had to be evacuated. He was hospitalized for five months before taking part in the fighting in the Belgian Ardennes in early 1945. In March of that same year, he was deployed on German soil as part of Operation Varsity, parachuting west of Hamminkeln.
After the armistice, he served with his regiment in Malaya, where he participated in the liberation of the Malaysian peninsula and the island of Singapore, before returning to Great Britain.
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