Notman

John Robertson Notman

King's Own Scottish Borderers & No.4 Commando

Killed in Action 2 July 1944 at Le Hauger, aged 22

Resting Easy Ranville War Cemetery, France.

Epitaph TREASURED ARE THE YEARS SPENT WITH THEE, SWEET THY MEMORY

Family Details SON OF JOHN AND ISABELLA NOTMAN, OF ANNAN, DUMFRIESSHIRE.

On the 2nd September 1939 he was transferred to 1 Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers and served overseas with the British Expeditionary Force in France. Soon after he transferred to 4 Commando.

Private JOHN NOTMAN is mentioned in the history of 4 Commando Swiftly They Struck written by Murdoch C. McDougall, who was the Section officer of F Troop, and later 3 Troop, in Normandy.

Murdoch C. McDougal describes the loss of one of his men following a mortar bombardement by the German forces. Although not mentioned by the name the demise of the casualty, matches the account Isabella Notman, JOHN NOTMAN's mother, was told about how her son was killed. The text also describes the courage and heroism this man had and his concern, for his fellow commandos, shown during the daring raid by 4 Commando at Dieppe in 1942... 'he was respected in the troop, the friends he had trusted him and stood by him as he did by them, and as he had been in the troop longer than most, he was accepted as a sort of institution.

Returning to Normandy on D-Day 6th June 1944, 4 Commando had taken heavy casualties throughout the month. Murdoch C. McDougal recalls how, early in July, a mortar took the life of this brave man... 'This was the last bomb they sent across, and when the noise died away, the occupants of the next trench, on looking out to see where it had landed, saw a struggling figure, with clothes alight and nerves in shreds, crawling painfully towards their trench. It was the other occupant of the sentry's trench, who could only whisper:

"Get him out, he's still in there."

And so from the ruin of the trench, they dug him out. The first bomb had been close, the second had crushed the walls of the trench, and as it was doing so the third had struck the branches of the hedge overhead. The splinters had scythed downwards at an angle, some striking and igniting the phospherous grenades on the lip of the trench, exploding the thirty-sixes, and some had hurtled through the entrance of the trench itself. Only by exploding where it did could this have happened, and it was just bad luck that he was crouching inside the trench with his back to the door.

He was still alive when we dug him out, but only just. And as we lay him gently on his face on the grass of the orchard, and sent for the doc and ambulance jeep, he whispered jeeringly at us:

"Let me die, ye bastards, let me die, ye're wasting yer time."

And as we lifted him and placed him on the stretcher on the jeep, he died.

Private JOHN NOTMAN was killed in action at Hameau Oger (also known as Hauger or Hoger), near Amfréville, on Sunday 2nd July 1944.