大象传媒

As a coxswain of minor landing craft, the coxswain was in charge of the craft and crew which consisted usually of a stoker in charge of the engine and an able seaman to raise and lower the ramp, we were a naval party attached to the Marine Commandos who were usually self sufficient and crewed their own craft.

We all boarded a 24,000 ton merchant ship at Tillbury called I believe the 'Ascania' (I think she was P&O line) but manned by the Royal Navy. We sailed from KG.5 docks where we had refuelled early in June 1944. We were shelled from France as we passed the White Cliffs of Dover and the large ship on our starboard side was hit and had to return. Destroyers raced around us laying smoke screens. We were strafed by two Focke Wolf aircraft. On the Ascania my action station was in the magazine.

We arrived at Normandy with an armada of ships and craft, there were battleships firing over our heads inland. We landed at Juno beach, which was the British beach, off the town of Courseulles. The opposition was strong and we did several trips. Our Marine Commando mates did a very good job (after D-Day they often marched inland through the trees to the right of Courseulles, up the hill inland to spearhead attacks with our British and Canadian troops, then returned to our ships).

I remember a bulldozer to the right of us on the beach. It was pushing landing craft out when their ramps had got stuck in the sand. Suddenly it hit a mine and went spinning up into the air.

The Gooseberry was a semicircle made up of merchant ships etc. The ships were taken and sunk off the beach at Courseulles and our Naval party boarded the second from the end in line called the Bedoran. The senior Naval Officer of the area was our Captain and our first lieutenant was a red haired and bearded New Zealander. They made me quartermaster and with my 'oppo' we kept a log. My oppo's on board called me Smokey because they thought I came from the Smoke (London).

The cruiser HMS Belfast and the monitor HMS Roberts were close to us, constantly firing inland. Battleships also fired over us, I think their target was Caen which was ten miles inland.

The Polish cruiser The Dragon was brought alongside our Bedoran and our naval party had to put the Polish dead crew into canvas bed covers. We also brought our own dead aboard, including a midshipman called Davies, a Welsh chap of 19 (my own age).

As the gunnery rating I fired the port and starboard Oerlikon guns on the bridge when the Luftwaffe came over.

The Gooseberry was a harbour for small craft; MTBs, MLs and minor landing craft. In bad weather, of which we had our fair share, the last ship behind us broke up in a storm.

About the end of June at morning divisions there was a loud noise above our heads. We looked up and saw our first V1 flying bomb or doodlebug. It was very low and I took a pace forward and requested permission from our first lieutenant to shoot at it. I dashed to the bridge, uncovered the starboard Oerlikon and opened fire but it was out of range and carried on heading towards England. When I later returned home to Morden on seven days survivors leave, one of these doodlebugs had exploded on the green opposite my parents home damaging their doors and windows. Three houses also had to be rebuilt because of the flying bomb; we were close to Croydon airport which was a fighter plane base and that made us a target.

After hitler launched the V1 against the UK many allied planes flew over, their wings striped yellow and black.

I was relieved of my post on the Gooseberry sometime in july and I was also relieved to see the back of compo rations.

In the Atlantic they put me on board an abandoned ship, about 8,000 tons, and told me to guard it. I had a Canadian Ross rifle with a clip of five rounds of 303 shells. There was furniture and personal gear onboard as well as ammunition and many notices stating 'DANGER HIGH EXPLOSIVES'. The gangway was down, the ship was adrift and there was nothing in sight but sea. I was entirely alone for four days and nights and felt pleased to be in charge of it, until an American ocean going tug arrived and took over.

The powers that be then decided to send me home to the UK, but not empty handed. With a Yorkshire able seaman from our naval party we were put aboard an auxillary tanker, which was damaged, its engine ruined. We were towed across the English Channel in a gale and the towing hawser broke several times until the LCT towing us changed the steel hawser for a heavy manila (which has a good spring). This lasted until about the Needles of the Isle of Wight where in the calmer waters of the Solent the tanker settled and sank. We were picked up from the water, put ashore near Gosport and given seven days survivors leave.

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