大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lin Freeman of Radio Derby CSV on behalf of Roy Christian and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The war in Europe had finished, but what was not finished was the clearance of mines which had been laid by both sides during the war and remained an obvious potential danger to shipping.
This included inland waterways as well as the sea and neither we nor the Germans had much idea of what inland waterways had been mined in Europe.
I was sent out to Germany with two 45 foot passenger launches fitted out with new experimental mine sweeping equipment. These improvised sweepers were not regarded as being sea worthy so we had to be towed out to Brenerhaven on the Weser. We soon discovered that there were problems. The tide on the Weser runs at 7 knots, the speed of our launches with the experimental equipment was also 7 knots so progress at time could be nil and any mines that might have gone off would have gone off under us. We decided not to continue and in due course Admiralty told us to stay where we were until we could be towed back to the UK. There was no officer accommodation on these boats so we ate in the American Naval Mess in Brenerhaven and slept in the house of a prominent local Nazi.
Then after about a month we were told to proceed under our own power through the German and Dutch inland waterways to Ijmuiden near Amsterdam and wait there for further orders. These came about another month later telling us to sail to Flushing (Holland), there to wait for further instructions, which in due course told us to stand by to be put on board a tank landing craft which would take us back to the UK when the weather was suitable.
For a week or two the weather was not suitable and I was beginning to realise that we were getting very close to the date of a FA Cup Tie involving Derby County which I was anxious to see. The Commanding Officer of the tank landing craft said 鈥渉e wasn鈥檛 going to move while the weather remained as it was鈥�, but nor did the weather seem inclined to move either.
It was now a matter of days to the Cup Tie at The Hawthorns. The weather was still rough and eventually we got to the Thursday before the match when I discovered that I was senior to the Commanding Officer of the tank landing craft. I pointed this out to him and said 鈥渟orry as I was to pull rank, but I was going to sail on the Friday whether he wanted to or not鈥�.
On the Friday he said it was as rough as ever, but I said that sorry I had to be back in England for Saturday morning and I was ordering him to sail. So he had no alternative but to accept this and we put the motor launches onto the tank landing craft and set sail. It was barely fit and we had anxious moments, but we eventually came back to England unscathed and very relieved.
So I got to England and I thanked my opposite number for his reluctant co-operation, but I would now be able to attend the function that it was imperative for me to go to. He said 鈥渢hat鈥檚 ok. Enjoy the match!鈥� and I said innocently 鈥渨hat match?鈥�..
It was a very good match, played partly in a snow storm, and the Rams won and went on to win the Cup that year.

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