大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sue Manning-Jones on behalf of Jack Heasman and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Heasman fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

After HMS Nelson hit a mine on the way back from D-Day I was drafted on to a landing craft invasion training ship and joined HMS Lamont in Greenock. We carried nine landing craft on the starboard side and nine on the port side. They had to be winched up and down electrically because they were so heavy. You need a motor to lift them up and lower them down. We made for New York. It was so hot when we went past the Statue of Liberty 鈥� the decks were iron and were burning hot because of the heatwave. When you come into harbour you have to stand at attention on the upper deck 鈥� the skipper gave the order to fall out because it was so hot on our feet. We tied up at Pier 99 and we had the freedom of New York 鈥� we could go anywhere we liked. My group chose to go to Jack Dempsey鈥檚 bar and restaurant where Paul Whiteman and Benny Goodman鈥檚 dance bands played. Jack Dempsey, who was world heavyweight champion, gave us everything 鈥渙n the house鈥� because he was honoured that our ship鈥檚 company were visiting his restaurant. I鈥檒l always remember that he shook everyone鈥檚 hand and I remember that his hand felt like a big chunk of ham! When he shook my hand I was worried he was going to break it. We also went into the Stage Door Canteen where all the film stars went and we honoured by them as well and again the stars shook hands with us - Jack Hobb, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra. We went up the Empire State Building. The Americans treated us very well, everything was paid for and we had a wonderful time. The one thing that we couldn鈥檛 get over was that all the lights were on all over the city at night. For us, coming from England and the blackout, we just couldn鈥檛 believe there was a war on.

We were in New York for four or five days to take on stores before making our way out to the Pacific via the Panama Canal. We then made for Australia and the on to the Pacific and Christmas Island. Primarily we were training American troops for battle. We had the landing craft and we were doing dummy runs, ready for battle. But then of course they dropped the atom bomb and that was the end of that.

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