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In 1940 I was a cyclist for the Fire Brigade. Later, I joined the Home Guard and we had
a Drum Band at Prescot. We used to do our duties and sleep overnight at the old local
school in Whiston Village.
In late 1942 I caught the bus to Liverpool and my mate and I joined a queue in Renshaw
Street and we joined the Royal Navy. On my eighteenth birthday I was sent to do basic training at Malvern, Worcestershire and for the next five weeks I did square bashing,
Sea boat training at a local lake and all the medical requirements.
At the end of the training, complete with bag and hammock I was sent to Devonport Barracks to join thousands of other ratings. I was there to join Combined Operations to
train for landing craft duties. We trained with the Royal Marines instructors. We slept with 30 ratings to each hut
We had to take turns working in the Boom Defence nets across Plymouth Sound. They
had very heavy bombing raids. I was very lucky to get through it. As I had been a lorry
driver (first license 1942) I had to train to be a stoker trainer on petrol and diesel engines.
I was also on steam boilers and engines.
Early in 1943 General Eisenhower came over from America and together with Montgomery discussed plans for the future Normandy Invasion. It was soon realised
that the landing craft numbers were insufficient. A suggestion was made that in England
we had craft with low water draft and were flat-bottomed (i.e. London Thames Barges).
A thousand of these barges were commandeered and engines were sent over from the
States in Lease Lend scheme. These were powerful V eight and straight eight marine
engines. The barges were then converted at different yards in the U.K.
This was one of the crafts I joined as a stoker first class. We all had to learn how to
operate the gun. As stokers we had to look after and operate the engines including the
generators. Someone also had to cook for seven crewmen and I was allocated the job.
We spent a year training for landings all around the Devon coast.
As 5th June 1944 became the secret target for the attack the weather conditions were
unsuitable. A day later,D-Day we slowly (at four and a half knots) did hops around the coast until we arrived at Poole, Dorset and that became our spring off point for Normandy.
We loaded on to our craft, at Poole, a very heavy engineering lorry. Our job was to
put this lorry on a beach in Normandy. We succeeded to do this. The driver was George
Langley from St. Helens. We had to repair damaged craft and keep them going. We
then had to ferry troops from the troopships. There were many dead men on the beaches of Normandy.
Eventually, our craft landed on a mine and the stern was damaged beyond repair. We had
to sleep under canvas for a week. The weather was very stormy, but we soon found
space on an American L.S.T loaded with thousands of German prisoners. We came ashore at Southampton and I had 14 days survivors leave.
My war continued when I was sent to join a ship in South Africa. Our memories live
forever. We pay our respects to the many fallen shipmates, every time we meet the L.C.A
(Landing Craft Association).
P.S.
The full story of Thames Barges has been published by ex officer Jim Jarman called ‘The
Wallowing Beauties.’ Ten per cent of the total landing crafts were barges.

'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of William Dando and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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