´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was nineteen when I joined the Royal Navy.

D Day - I was a Sub Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in charge of 3 landing craft, including a converted Thames barge when we were put on Omaha beach. The crossing wasn’t good, the steering broke down half way and we had to bring over another craft to help repair it. The sea was so rough my gunner was swept overboard. There were 30 people on my craft.

The landings were a bit of a shambles, when I got onto the beach I thought where am I supposed to go? The Germans were everywhere in machine gun emplacements. We were under fire all the time. My 2nd in command and his assistant went ashore, unfortunately trod on a mine and were killed. We were on the beach for about a week.

The saddest part was seeing those guys you were trained with, your good friends just… We could see everything. It was torture watching the boys cut down from the top of the cliffs and not being able to do a thing to help them.

All the survivors were taken to a Red Cross camp where they gave us a mug of hot water and a tea bag — I’d never seen a tea bag before.

Many Royal Navy seamen were seconded to US units and when I was seconded to the US Navy, I was pretty unhappy about it, but after a short time with the Americans I felt like an honorary Yank. They were all brave men.

When they brought us back to the hospital unit in England they told me that I would be going to Japan. I didn’t like that idea and fortunately for me they changed their minds. I then commandeered minesweepers in Singapore. We sent down depth charges to clear areas of any mines. After serving in Singapore I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.