259249 Pte. Norman Lamb British Army 19th Coy. Royal Army Medical Corps from:Manchester It was by chance that I discovered our Dad, Norman Lamb, was a medic serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps who went to France at the age of 20, on the 18th of June 1944 and then progressed through to Caen which had been badly bombarded and battled over.
I went there in 1984 to practice my French just prior to my degree's oral exam. I rang home to tell him where I was and he casually said,'Oh we marched into Caen in 1944, the Cathedral was badly bombed when I was there.' I had indeed visited it that day, studying photos of it bombed post D-Day.
In my childhood, he had jokingly told tales of great camaraderie, marching through Holland, singing 'roll out the barrel' and chuckling as he told us of squaddies falling into dykes as they nipped to have a pee.
It was only Christmas 2005, the year before he passed away, that he told me of the fact that he was one of the first troops to arrive at Bergen-Belsen and his job was to sort through the bodies and the sick to delouse them etc.
He said the images he saw came back to haunt him in his retirement, preventing him from sleeping so he had to get up in the night and go out for a walk. God Bless him and all who served with him. I miss him, his strength and bravery, every day.
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