大象传媒

For me D-Day started to loom in early May 1944 when I completed 10 months of training as a Royal Navy Radio Mechanic. Having celebrated my 15th birthday on 3 September 1939, the day war broke out, I had not really expected to be part of the war.
With training completed, having spent 3 weeks at HMS Royal Arthur, (Butlin's Holiday Camp, Skegness); 6 months in London at Northampton Polytechnic, 6 weeks at HMS Valkarie in Douglas, Isle of Man, and one month at HMS Mercury near Petersfield, I now found myself at Portsmouth waiting a draft to a ship. After 2 days I was told I was to join HMS Fernie - a Hunt Class Destroyer of some 1,000 tons, quite small and adopted by Market Harborough. The L11 was to be my home for two and a quarter years until my demob.
Fernie's first operation after commissioning in 1940, was to evacuate people from Cherbourg at the time of Dunkirk. Later it was the reserve command ship on the Dieppe raid. At Cherbourg a dog jumped aboard Fernie and was the ship's mascot during the whole of the war - it jumped overboard on VE Day and was drowned.
Having eventually joined up with Fernie at Sheerness it was obvious that something big would be happeneing before long. I was entitled to 10 days' leave but never got it as the ship was without a Radio Mechanic and now they had one he was not going on leave. However, the ship went in for a boiler clean for 48 hours so I did get a couple of days at home.
On return to Sheerness, which I now knew was to be our base, preparations were going on, North sea convoys to be escorted, German E boats to be chased off, and manoeuvres. My job was to see that the 3 radar sets were kept in tip top order - the ship's safety depended on them. I was only 19 but the thrill of standing on the quarter deck, with the ship flat out at 28 knots, the White Ensign flying, made me so proud to be serving my country.
The beginning of June saw liners off Southend with troops aboard and so we set sail on Sunday evening, 4th June, with a 5 knot convoy. We were due to go through the Straits of Dover during darkness. However, just before midnight we were turned back - D-Day had been postponed for 24 hours due to the weather. So off again on 5 June - no turning back this time; through the Straits of Dover and no enemy gun fire. During the night so I was told - unfortunately I was fast asleep - hundreds of planes, many towing gliders, passed over the convoy. The invasion really was on.
We arrived off Portsmouth around mid-day and sailed at 2 p.m. on D-Day with a much enlarged convoy. During our short stop it had been explained to us just where we were going and the danger we would be facing.
The one ship I remember particularly in that convoy was the paddle steamer 'Golden Eagle' which used to ply the Thames. It was full of reporters and photographers and I believe it was to be used as a hospital ship.
As we headed for the beach head at about 6 in the evening coming towards us we could see a large line of liners. They had delivered their troops to the beach head and were returning for more. Landing craft had taken the place of lifeboats in their davits and it was remarkable that only odd ones were missing. We assumed that things must have gone reasonably well.
So we pressed on at 5 knots (about 6 miles an hour) - slow but we would get there.
We arrived at 6 a.m. on D+1 and what a sight! Ships everywhere, it was like a review.There did not seem to be much going on, the sea was getting a bit choppy - just 2 German planes dive bombing. I could not believe we should be so lucky. After a good look round we gathered a convoy of ships to return and took on board some wounded soldiers to return home. As we started back towards POrtsmouth a loud explosion -a mine sweeper had swept up and destroyed a mine. We returned to Sheerness and I was able to have an evening's leave in London with my wife to be - an ambulance driver in the Army.
Our first of 21 convoys to Normandy was over and surprisingly not as eventful as some later ones, but a lasting memory of D-Day and how lucky we were that we had returned safely. At this time we remember so many who did not.

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