Dean Murray (1)

Today we remember Dean Murray, who was part of the D-Day landings in June 1944. He recalls the extraordinary lengths the Allies went to in order to keep the details of the landings from the Germans.

Dean Murray audio file (MP4 23.90 MB)

Dean Murray audio script

75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War

Audio actuality

“Fellow Citizens, the War is over” — (The Hon J B Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia)

August the 15th marks the 75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War. Around one million Australians enlisted to serve from a population of just seven million. Many more on the home-front rallied to the cause.

Australia remembers Dean Murray, who was part of the D-Day landing in June of ‘44.

He recalled the extraordinary lengths the Allies went to, to keep the details of the landing from the Germans.

Dean Murray

All of the landing craft and the soldiers and their equipment which took part in the landing, were in the area of Portsmouth and Southampton. As a decoy, the harbour of Dover was filled with wooden effigies of landing craft and landing ships. They even employed an actor who looked like Montgomery to parade on the pier at Dover each morning with a team of soldiers so that the Germans who were continually surveilling would see this and assume that the landing was going to start from Dover and head towards Calais. That of course was a complete farce — it was nowhere near there.

Saturday, August 15 marks the 75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War. Let’s pay our respects to that amazing generation of Australians.