Panics after the Explosion on the Ship

In 1943 Miloš Knorr became an officer of 43rd British Regiment. He and his unit operated in the second invasive wave in Normandy in June 1944: “When we sailed from England through the Channel, the northern part of France had been already occupied by the Allied troops, so we went by a big steamer.” Because of the bad weather conditions and rough sea they could not land and so the crew had to wait four days on the sea, several kilometers from a Normandy village Ouistreham. On June 24 the Captain was ordered to disembark the soldiers of the 43rd regiment. In the very moment the ship pulled up the anchor and switched on the engines, there was an explosion. A fire broke out on the ship. Miloš Knorr describes the situation with these words: “We ran over a mine and the ship went up. Probably a propeller drew up the mine to the ship. Panics occurred and people were jumping to the water, but I decided to stay because I thought somebody comes for us. And they did. Only fifty people out of six hundred stayed on the ship and I was one of them.” One hundred and eighty men died during the explosion of the ship at the coast of Normandy and one hundred and fifty wounded soldiers had to be transported back to the Great Britain. Miloš Knorr was the only Czechoslovak soldier who participated in the second wave of invasion aside with the Allied troops in northern France.