大象传媒

I was an apprentice plater at Rosedowns and Thompsons on Cannon Street, in Hull.

We were building big steel tanks, like you get on the back of a petrol lorry but half as small, about 15 foot long. We had no idea what they were for. All we knew is that they were for the Admiralty. It was a very well-kept secret.

They sent all the steel in, already cut to the right shape sometimes. They weighed the tanks we made, and they weighed the scrap, and made sure nobody could steal any. They'd come and collect the tanks and another wagon would pick up the scrap. We never knew where they went. The lorry drivers just said they took them to the docks, but we didn't know if that was true.

Once we鈥檇 made them we had to test them with compressed air and soft soap on every joint, to check they were airtight. You had to lock the soft soap up or it got pinched, because soap was in short supply. It was just like checking a bicycle tyre inner tube for a puncture. If there were any leaks, you鈥檇 see the soap bubbling, and then the caulker would come and you'd check it again.

When we had six tanks ready, the inspector would come, test all of them again himself. He had special brackets to connect them too (we didn't know what those were for either), and he tested where the tanks joined up. Each tank got a certificate and a number.

On D-Day, someone at the factory came in and said they've landed our tanks in Normandy. Someone else said that was down Hessle Road! Took us a while the next day to find out where it was. We found out that the tanks were used on D-Day to make a floating roadway for the lorries to go on. They took the tanks over for the Normandy landing, on barges as far as I know, they鈥檇 slip them out onto the water and that did it.

(Transcribed by Joachim Noreiko)

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