大象传媒

June 9th 1944
Emil was sent back to join his flotille but a few of the crew deserted at St Malo including Sergeant Schultz. Emil remembers being fired upon by Partisans from a church tower while they were in harbour. One week after D-Day, Emil was sent to the Channel Islands where they lived on board their boat and carried out shore patrols in St Helier, Jersey. Emil was instructed in the use of grenade launchers, though he never had to ue this skill in anger. Due to food shortages caused by the Allied blockade, Emil often had to share a loaf of bread between eight people and was shown how to make nettle soup. On his nights off, Emil got friendly with some of the islanders and used to help make syrup from sugar beet for aloaf of bread. This style of life continued right until the end of the war.

July 1944
Harold left LST 63 and transferred to a shore base at Hayling Island, Hampshire, with Combined Operations (Combined Ops) which was involved in training SAS type units for preperation in crossing the Rhine. This was only a short saty because he then joined HMS Cawsand Bay, a brand new Bay Class frigate built at the Blythe shipyards in Northumberland.

May 8th 1945
Harold was on board this new boat when he heard the news that Germany had surrendered and shortly afterwards the Cawsand Bay was detailed to escort ships of the German navy from Wilhelmshaven to Scotland as a condition of the surrender. The Cawsand Bay was also involved in Operation Deadlight and was one of the ships that was used to tow many of the the German U-Boat submarine fleet out into the North Atlantic where they were used for target practice and sunk. Harold says that he was involved with sinking more U-Boats than the rest of the British Navy.

May 9th 1945
The German occupying forces on the Channel Islands, of which Emil was a part, surrendered the day after the official surrender was announced. The following day, Emil and all the other crews and German military personnel, were taken off their boats and marched through the streets of St Helier to the pier. Emotions ran high as the locals pelted Emil and the others with rotten eggs, tomatoes and slop to cause maximum humiliation. First of all everyone was put into a prison camp near St Helier airport but after a short while the main part of the occupying force was sent to a Prisoner of War camp in England. Emil, however, along with other ordinary seamen, were made to stay behind to clear the shore line of mines and barbed wire etc.

October 1945
Emil was then shipped to a camp at Tlbury in Essex where he could see Admiral Doenitz, who was also held captive, exercising on a nearby hotel balcony whilst Emil had to make do with a small ridge tent with straw bedding that slept four people. The Germans were treated badly by the Polish cooks and were only given bread and water. Emil says that they were looked after better by their English guards. After a short while Emil was moved again, this time he ended up at Maldon near Colchester in Essex, where he stayed at the Parochial Hall. It was here that he started working within the confines of the camp, building concrete roads on piecework. At this time Emil was also occassionally let out to work on nearby farms. During one of these days off camp, Emil rememebers one of his guards falling asleep on duty so and some others were able to get the guard鈥檚 gun and hide it. However, this was not a serious breakout attempt and the gun was given back to the embarrassed but the lucky guard and everyone ended up laughing about the whole incident.

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