Lance Corporal Louis M Emery

Lewis Mervyn Emery was born in Brent Wood, East Brent, the second son of Mr and Mrs E Emery. He was educated at East Brent School, and after leaving worked for a baker.

In 1933, Private Emery joined the Somerset Light Infantry, and when war broke out was stationed at Gibraltar. He remained there for two years, later patrolling the Atlantic before returning to the UK, where in 1943 he volunteered to join The Parachute Regiment.

Lance Corporal Emery attended parachute training course 41 at RAF Ringway between 3 and 17 December 1943, and qualified as a parachutist. He described his training as ‘hair raising at first, but I got a thrill out of it by the end’.

He was posted to the Battalion Headquarters Staff of the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battlion, 5th Parachute Brigade, 6th Airborne Division.

On the 6 June 1944, the 7th Parachute Battalion jumped into Normandy for D Day, landing east of the River Orne.

In an interview after the war, Lance Corporal Emery recalled: ‘I was number 13 in the first plane, and I landed in the middle of a wheatfield 500 yards from my rendezvous. As we landed, ack-ack fire was coming up at us, and some of the back fellows had their chutes set on fire by tracer bullets.

Our objective was the bridge across the Orne and another across a canal running parallel with the river, which we had to hold until reinforced.’

He took part in the Normandy, Ardennes and Rhine Crossing campaigns and was discharged from Regular Army service on the 31st January 1946.

Lewis Emery died in 1986.