大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by Anna Jones of the 大象传媒 on behalf of Charlie Williams and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

It was 5th June 1944 and the day before D-Day. We were on board our ship sailing from Southampton and heading towards Normandy. The ship was about 1000-1500 tonnes and built to carry tanks for the Normandy Landings. There were about 12 of us on board and we were in a flotilla of 10. I was the senior engineer - the Engine Room Artificer - and was in charge of all things mechanical on all 10 ships.
When we were all just off the Isle of Wight, I got a message that the cylinder head gasket had gone on one of the other ships and I was needed on board to change it for a new one.
It was now early morning of D-Day. It was very dark, stormy, pouring with rain and very choppy seas. Eventually the other ship managed to come alongside and I jumped across. But then my ship drifted away before I could get them to throw my tool kit over. That wasn't so bad as the other ship had got some tools I could use to change the head gasket - so not a real problem.
I went to the engine room, and with their crew to help, me I changed one of the four cylinder heads. It was very heavy and took four people to lift it out and put a new one in.
Then I stayed on the ship and we moved in a flotilla towards Normandy. I remember standing up on deck and I saw silhouettes of hundreds of smallish naval ships all around. I remember it was just getting light. Suddenly I became aware of a large shape looming up out of the darkness. It was the HMS Rodney, a large battlecruiser. She passed by us but caught the small ship at the end of the flotilla which turned over and sank. All 12 crew were killed. It was the ship that I'd been on just a few hours before.
We carried on to Normandy and took part in the D-Day landings.

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