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This story is taken from an interview with Mr O’Sullivan at the Dublin WW2 Commemoration, and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Richard Crothers, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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[Was one of the boats you were on taken down by a radio-controlled missile?]

That’s right. I was sent up to join a ship — it was called Lawford, HMS Lawford. It was built in America. I was sent to Southampton in April before d-day. D-day was 6th June. And somebody went sick on it, and I was sent to take his place.

I got it ok, we went over for d-day when the time came. And we had a Canadian Brig had quarters on board. When they were landed on the Tuesday morning our job was to, we had a lot of minesweepers all along the beach to keep the subs off with their ASDIC/SONAR. We used to patrol along them to see they were in their station.
And on the Thursday morning, 8th — D-day was on 6th — on the Thursday morning, I suppose it was about 5o’clock. It was daylight. We went to drop the anchor. No, the anchor wasn’t dropped. Before the anchor was dropped we were hit on the port side. To the engine part of the ship. In the midships, in the middle. It went down like that. Just broke in the middle, broke the back. It was probably sticking up out of it. Anyway, there was 25 killed any we all got off it into a landing craft. The landing craft wasn’t so far away from us. And we got back into Southampton. Probably the Friday or Saturday after.

But they never knew what caused it to sink. But recently my son, over in Wales, got a recording of Channel 4/Discovery. Divers have gone down recently to examine it, and the conclusion they came to was it was from an aircraft 6 miles away. A guided missile hit it, and it went into a magazine. There was a young lad from Belfast killed in the magazine. And another man doing the same job as me — he was manning a gun in the middle, I was manning a gun at the front. And his body got thrown up onto the funnel — 1 half 1 side, the other half the other side. And the conclusion — it broke its back, the ship — but the conclusion they came to, was the first guided missile that Germany had used off an aircraft.

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