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The Prince Albert was part of a flotilla of five former Belgian cross channel ships, which were converted into Landing Craft Assault Carriers, these were made up of my
ship - The Prince Albert - plus the Prince Charles, Prince Leopold, Princess Josephine Charlotte and the Princess Astrid, their main duty was to carry commandos for the first assaults.

I left England on June 5th 1943 on the Prince Albert from Falmouth to go to the Mediterranean, the ship was loaded with too much weight and three to four days out in the middle of the Bay of Biscay the steel plates of the ship, which were made up of less than an half inch of steel, started splitting, instead of riding the waves the ship was bashing through the rough seas, the RAF personnel we were carrying out to the Med were handling buckets of water right through the ship, quite a few were seasick.

We had to return to Falmouth for another week, we then set sail again, through
the Med, down to the Suez Canal and anchored off Port Tufik for three weeks while the rest of the ships got together for the invasion of Sicily, no leave was allowed.

The Prince Albert landed number three commando in Avola Bay in Sicily, the first
wave of boats landed and came back for the second wave, as the boats went in they saw objects in the sea, for which they could not stop, on the way back after the Landing they picked up fifteen Glider Soldiers, these fellows were in the sea but they did not call for help on our way out because they knew we had a job to do, but waited for our return.

The Prince Albert was made the into the Area Headquarter Ship, we were machine gunned, morning and evening every day for three weeks or more. We all took turns to go out on Landing Craft to lay the smoke canisters, that hid the ships, going out on one occasion, George sat on the back between two smoke canisters, amongst all the noise, guns blazing, tracing fire lighting up the sky, and said 'Les I would not have missed this for the world'.

One after another American Liberty Ships were being sunk each time being hit in the same place, just in front of the Bridge. We picked up survivors and took them to the Hospital Ship, these Merchant Seaman were in a dreadful state covered in oil and burnt.

We landed the Commandos, after three days fighting, they came back on board for two days, we then set sail. The Battle had been held up at Cotainia, it was then decided to use the commandos to go behind enemy lines, we then set sail with a destroyer.

The Destroyer fired before the first wave of Commandos went in, once that wave was landed the eight boats came back for the second wave. The Destroyer fired again, the Jerry knew we were coming then. The Enemy guns were positioned on the cliff tops and directed onto the shoreline, a few Commandos were killed before they even left the boats, the Flotilla Officer was badly wounded and later died of his wounds.

I was on Radio Watch at the time, boats were calling for help but we were not
allowed to answer, meanwhile the First Lieutenant of the Ship saw a torpedo go past the Bows from an Italian E Boat, we could not stay and pick our boats up. It was not safe, we needed to make ourselves scarce for fear of being hit.

We circled around the Ocean and picked the boats up at first light, there were body bags in the passage way for the next few days, we then returned to our duty of being Headquarter Ship.

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