325th Glidermen prior to leaving for Normandy in a British-built Horsa glider.
Click on picture to return to 325th History Page.

Edith Steiger Phillips was a Red Cross Volunteer assigned to Camp Scraptoft, the 325th base while in England, near the town of Leicester. After the war she published a book of her experiences,
My World War II Diary. This is an excerpt from that book, written at the time the 325th returned to Leicester upon being relieved after 33 days of combat in France...

"We stood so alone under the only light at the Leicester railway station the night the 325 men returned after thirty-three days of battle without relief. It was Sunday, 9th July, and the night was pitch black. The light we stood under must have been a twenty-five watt. It gave out so little light I could not recognize any of the men as they marched by us. When I asked Colonel Lewis how many men were returning, he got all choked up. He wasn't too sure but he thought about a third! I was prepared for a few hundred but a third, never!

"The soldiers got off the train slowly and walked up the stairs like tired old men. I strained my eyes to recognize a face but didn't see anybody I knew. The men were unshaven, mud-caked and they slumped.

"Back at the camp that night Colonel Lewis insisted on going to the mess hall where the men were to be fed but a coughing spell racked him and he had to sit down on the ground. He leaned on the driver and me and went to his HQ shack where he put his head on his arms to get comfortable at his small desk. I left the Colonel and ran to the mess hall to help pour coffee, but the men just sat there staring into space. They didn't eat. They fell asleep at the table. I didn't say a word to anybody. I noticed, however, that the GIs sat here, there and everywhere in the hall as though returning to a place where they had sat before. I dare not ask where this or that boy was. I knew."