大象传媒

I served in the Royal Naval Patrol Service which was set up in 1939 and disbanded in 1945. It's main purpose was mine-sweeping. I joined in January 1942 as a volunteer wireless telegraphist and did the 6 months training for that. I then did some more specialised training and when I had completed it, I went to the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham and from to the Signal School in Rochester, both in Kent. The latter was there so that telegraphists could keep up with their training. I was there for a very short time and then, as no draft seemed to be coming through for me, I volunteered for mine-sweeping. I was told to do draft routine and on the following day I went down to the Isle of Sheppey and joined a mine-sweeper.

I was on mine-sweeping until just before D-Day when I did some more specialised training and we used to sweep up the coast of France practically every night training. Then we took part in the D-Day landings on Gold Beach which was the main British beach. Our job was to clear 2 lanes of mines right in to the beach-head before the first wave of troops went in, and once we went in, we widened the lanes so that the whole area was clear of mines. The following day we were transferred from Gold Beach to Omerhavre to help the Americans there. About 6 weeks later we scored an own goal and hit a mine. I was one of 9 survivors. Eventually I was picked up, taken back to England for 5 days survivor's leave - only 5 days - and then returned to base and back to mine-sweeping.

We continued sweeping along the coast of France. There was a big operation at the end of October 1944 when Field Marshall Montgomery ordered that the port of Antwerp was to be cleared at all costs. Antwerp was the biggest deep-water port in the area and all the ammunition, munitions and supplies had to be taken over to France, so we swept the troops into the area, and then we moved on up the estuary to clear there. There were 50 minesweepers involved, each about 120 feet long with a crew of 20. Of those 50, 8 were sunk, and because one side of the estuary was still under the control of the Germans, practically every one of the minesweepers suffered some damage or other. It took us about a month, but we eventually cleared it.

After clearing it, it was back to normal minesweeping work until the beginning of May 1945, when we were ordered to enter the port of Igemuiden, which is the main port leading up to Amsterdam. That was still in the hands of the Germans at the time, so it was a queer feeling going into a harbour that was lined by armed Germans! The war was more or less finished at the time though. That part of Holland had been bypassed by the British on the drive up to the Rhine, so there was this pocket in there still full of Germans. A lot of people don't realise, but there were also two ports of France that were in the hands of the Germans right up until the end of the war. There was no point in losing lives going into them, so there were just bypassed.

We spent the rest of that time disarming Germans, and then by the end of May the war was finished and all the excitement was over, so I volunteered for the Far East. We didn't get there though. I joined an aircraft repair ship commissioned at Rosyth. We were ready to go when the dropped the atom bombs, and that was it - end of story!

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