大象传媒

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

I was in Motor Launch 1465 and had to patrol Antwerp harbour 鈥� a very large harbour. I had a grenade sweep 鈥� a tube: we took pins out of grenades and out 12 in the tube and then let them off over the side of the ship against German frogmen. We had just tied up alongside after a patrol when a V2 rocket exploded nearby in the water. The boat rocked violently sideways from the force of a wave. Shrapnel came through the side which appeared to be just flames 鈥� red hot. Six of the 12-man crew were injured. A piece just missed my head by inches. Most people were caught in the legs and cookie was hit in the face.

The injured were taken to hospital. We were tied to other motor launches, one each side and towed to Hoboken for repairs. A big crane lifted the ship out of the water onto stocks for repair. All the crew, except for me, were sent on survivor鈥檚 leave. I stayed behind to look after the ship whilst it was being repaired in Hoboken.

Next morning I was on a moored landing craft for wash and ablutions etc. when there was a very large explosion and a V1 hit the very crane which had lifted us out of the water - it was laying over the water completely useless.

The next day, I went ashore to a small caf茅 in Hoboken. As I left the caf茅 and walked down the road, a little boy ran past me carrying a jar of pickles. Just a few yards in front of me he fell over and severed the artery in his wrist. Blood spurted out like a fountain. I ran to him, grabbed his arm above the cut to stop the blood flowing and then ran him back to the caf茅 where they stopped the flow with a tourniquet. I then left to go back to my ship.

A couple of days later I called into the caf茅 where they told me if I had left him he would have died within two minutes.

After repairs to the ship, we resumed normal duties in Antwerp Harbour.

Fifty-odd years after the war I was talking to a friend in Littlehampton library about this incident. At his suggestion I phoned the newspaper in Antwerp and the story was published in the paper to try and find the boy (now 60 years old!). 48 hours later I received a phone call from a friend of his in Hoboken who said he would be in touch. Two days later the 鈥渂oy鈥檚鈥� wife phoned and we arranged to meet in a hotel in Antwerp.

We met, had a lovely reunion and we鈥檝e kept in touch ever since.

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