Reginald Charles (Reg) – Légion d’Honneur

5392893 Corporal Reg Charles 5th and 1st Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 53rd Welsh Division

Reg joined the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on January 2nd 1942.

In July 1944 Reg was posted to the 1st Battalion Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, he landed in Normandy on Gold Beach, Arromanches and he joined the Regiment who were in action near the city of Caen.

Following the overthrow of the Germans in Caen the Battle of Falaise was the next big action and then the battalion cleared Pierefitte of the enemy.

During Reg’s first month in France he experienced the horrors of being an infantry soldier on foot, digging fox holes to survive in, driving a Bren gun carrier (a tracked armoured vehicle) and also clearing casualties from the front line by driving a jeep. Reg left Normandy at the end of August 1944, he then saw action in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany arriving in Hamburg on May 4th 1945.