大象传媒

Submitted by ERSKINE on behalf of Ian Hamilton.

***

I am not anxious. I am not even nervous. On the contrary, I am elated. I am privileged. At this moment I would not change places with anyone. I am standing on the bridge of H.M.S. "Rodney" as we steam towards the coasts of Normandy on this, the moming of 6th June, 1944, as I see unfold before my eyes one of the great events in the history of our time. Nothing like it has happened before; nothing to equal it is likely to happen again. We are part of the Second Front. We are about to break the Atlantic Wall

I am sorry for most of the ship's company, closed up to "Action Stations" in the Engine-Room, in the Boiler Room, in the Gun Turrets, in the Transmitting Stations, in the Damage Control Parties and in the First Aid Parties. Their horizon is limited to the bulkheads of the compartments in which they are closed-up and having to rely for reports from time to time over the P.A. system given by
the Chaplain on what is going on outside the confines of their own little world.

A few days earlier I had written home - "We've been entertaining recently. First, we had General Montgomery on board. He walked round the ship and also made a short speech. He spoke very well. The troops just lapped it up. How, when he was in Italy, he had seen "Rodney" bombarding the Italian Coast, how the newspapers spoke of a "Second Front", but it was his and our Fourth or Fifth Front; an appreciation of the German soldier today, and how we were certain to win. It was all sound psychology - how good we were and how he would like us to support him
again. It certainly was a morale-raiser".

Our assembly point was the Firth of Clyde. There were hundreds of ships in the anchorage. We sailed on 4th June, escorted by a group of Motor Mine-sweepers. The following day we were dismayed to be informed that D-Day had been postponed because of bad weather and we passed
what seemed to be an endless day slowly circling off the Welsh coast fearful that the whole operation might be abandoned. However, with no further news of postponement we realised that the long-awaited Second Front would be launched the following morning, 6th June.

We proceeded on our way. In the early morning we heard the Allied aircraft flying overhead - remember, they flew 10,000 (some say 13,000) sorties that day. Many were firing their guns. We could see no hostile aircraft and soon realised that they were merely testing their guns.
D-Day dawned bright and clear, thought there was quite a heavy swell. We were not among the early arrivals, and by the time we approached the beaches there was already a swept channel marked by gaily painted buoys with little flags on top. The closer to the shore we got the more
congested things became. Groups of landing craft continued to cross our bows causing us to make violent changes of course. These changes seemed only to lead us into further danger of collision. Eventually Captain Fitzroy declared - "We'll keep our course. "They will have to take their
chance". There must have been many anxious moments among the tail-enders of groups of
landing-craft as they saw the bows of "Rodney" bearing down on them. On a later sortie from Portsmouth, at night, we ran over a landing craft. "Rodney" gave a slight bobble, the landing-craft and her crew were gone forever.

As we proceeded to our allotted station, I remember a Signal Boy, horror-struck yet
fascinated, peering through his binoculars at bodies floating past, some head-less, then going to be sick in a bucket in the corner of the bridge. Hundreds of dead cuttle-fish and squid floated past,
killed by the concussion of shells exploding in the water.

The scene around was quite astonishing. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. 1,213 Naval ships took part in the assault and over 4,000 landing craft. As far as the eye could see there were ships coming and going. Also arriving were tugs towing strange-looking objects. We could
only describe them as being like small oil rigs. Only later did we discover that they were to form part of the artificial harbour already being constructed around the anchorage.

Shortly after our arrival a returning force of landing craft close to us was shelled by a German battery near Le Havre. The landing craft were soon hidden by a smoke screen and we fired two rounds of 16 inch shells at the battery. Their shelling ceased. To our great disappointment
we were informed we were "surplus to requirements" and ordered to return to Portsmouth until required. As we retired that evening heavy firing still continued away to the West, and to the East
at Ouistreham our destroyers were firing away at close range at a group of houses presumably still held by machine-gunners and snipers. On the shore directly ahead of us what had appeared like a disturbed ant-hill was now more like columns of Warrior Ants snaking away inland.

We had scarcely returned to Portsmouth when we received orders to return to the Beaches. There followed three days in which we fired 300 rounds of 16 inch shells; 450 rounds of 6 inch shells and countless rounds of multiple pom-poms and Oerlikon guns. Our targets were enemy
batteries and concentrations of Armoured Fighting Vehicles. Even without taking direct hits the blast from our exploding 16 inch shells was fearsome enough to knock a 45 ton Liger Tank over on
its side and obliterating personnel not behind armour. We were hammering, without any possibility of response, tank concentrations as far inland as Caen. It must have been devastating to the
morale of the German tank crews.

Memories of small incidents flood back. The artificial harbour, Mulberry, was almost complete, consisting of the sections towed out from home and naval and merchant ships used as block-ships. We got a call one day from a young Royal Marine officer who had left us a few months before to take charge of a motor boat squadron running what appeared to be a kind of taxi service. He had taken up residence in the partly flooded hold of one of these merchant ships. When the tide rose a body floated up from a corner of the hold to join him. As it receded the body disappeared to rejoin him with the next tide.

An alarm! Someone saw bubbles appearing from the ship's side. Suspicious of a limpet mine being placed on the hull the alarm was sounded and a small charge dropped over the side. Investigation proved that someone had left a pump from a bathroom sump running and after
clearing the water it was pumping air out!

A Guards officer, immaculately dressed, leaving the ship with two newly-baked loaves wrapped in tissue paper under each arm.

Our Supply Officer, Commander Greswolde Ozanne Davis, a small wiry Channel-Islander, wearing steel-rimmed glasses was not to be deflected of his custom of thirty years by a small matter like a Second Front. While the rest of us in the Wardroom wore white overalls and rank
shoulder-boards, he dressed for dinner each night. Dressing in his stiff shirt and bow tie in his cabin, he walked the thirty feet or so to the ship's main safe, turned the combination, pulled open
the heavy door and took from the safe, the safest place in the ship, his Mess Jacket, donned it, and entered the Wardroom in time to have his "standard" drink before dinner. He also had his very own Oerlikon guns. Whether he had ever had to go to "Action Stations" in his Mess Dress I do not know as I would be otherwise engaged. It would make an incongruous spectacle, someone in Mess Dress manning an Oerlikon gun repelling a German air attack.

On one occasion we received a signal to fire 75 rounds on a German A.F. V. concentration on a map reference which was a position near Caen. We opened fire and continued with the bombardment. We then received a peremptory signal from Flag Officer Gold - "Cease Firing.
Report why you have fired so many rounds." Captain Fitzroy, who was enjoying himself, inquired -
"How many rounds have we fired?"
"Sixty-eight, Sir!"
"We might as well complete the seventy-five. Carry on firing!"
When we completed the firing, we puzzled over the Flag Officer's signal. The signalman was
summoned - "Did you get that signal from Flag Officer Gold correctly?"
The signalman looked at his pad - "Yes, Sir. Fire fifteen rounds of 16 inch H.E. shell at A.F. V.
concentration, map reference. . . . . ."
"But the signal says 'Fire seventy-five rounds'."
"No, Sir. Fifteen rounds. I always make my one's with a tick at the front!"

Our Chaplain managed to "borrow" three trucks from the Army and advertised a "Free Trip of the Battlefields". The offer was vastly over-subscribed and the successful "tourists" were picked
from a hat. I was unsuccessful but I got their story on their return. The appearance of three trucks of matloes rubber-necking from a ship caused no little astonishment among the troops trudging up to the front, and there were many ribald remarks - "You're going the wrong way"; "Can you not take
it any more on the sea?" and indelicate suggestions as to the reason for the run ashore!

They finished up within a few hundred yards of the German position having a "picnic lunch" with an Anti-Tank Battery, dug-in and camouflaged at the side of a road. There was a little alarm
when they noticed that the guns were pointed along the road whence they had come. When we got the signal to return to Portsmouth everyone was quite happy. Whilst our destroyers and frigates had done a good job in keeping German U-Boats and other enemy surface craft away
from the anchorage, we were disturbed every night by enemy aircraft flying over dropping bombs and mines among our ships. We had brought down at least one Junker 88. We were looking forward to getting some undisturbed sleep, some mail and re-ammunitioning and reprovisioning.
However, we were infuriated when we heard the B.B.C. attribute all our successes and efforts to our arch-rival, H.M.S. "Nelson", who, we grumbled, had spent the last fortnight "swinging round a
buoy at Milford Haven", and there was not a word about "Rodney!"

In a letter I sent home on 16th June I wrote - "Well, we happened to be on tile" spot from D- Day, and pretty often since, the big ships firing away at the coastal batteries and inland; the destroyers flattened buildings that were used by snipers; thousands of landing-craft in a
continuous stream and squadron after squadron of aircraft passing overhead. The R.A.F. were first-class, they gave us complete air cover except for odd German fighter-bombers which sneaked in once in a while.

We have had a very mixed bag - coastal batteries, field batteries, tanks, motor transport, troops and villages - all in our own time and with scarcely any opposition. We haven't been issued with the seasickness pills. I gather that they are now really a success. We had a Russian Commander on board for a few days, now we have a Chinese Lieutenant
named Wong. Typical Chinese too - always smiling. He says he likes our food better than the Chinese food."

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