大象传媒

My name is Richard Smart and I am a native of Croydon in Surrey and I now live in Northampton. This is a record just of some of the memories of D Day minus one to D Day plus two.
I was aboard a ship called H.M.S.Chamois; I was a Coder in the office. I found that I had an important job to do, I did not understand that at the time, but I remember it now, very well indeed.

One day, one of the officers came aboard, he came into the office and said, we need someone to do this, that and the other very quickly, and I found myself volunteering. It seems impossible now to have been able to do it, that I was able to decode something that was important, and I know now that it was vitally important and my section of the war effort.
We had first of all, to make sure we were part of the 41st Minesweeping Flotilla (M.S.F for short) and our job was simply to clear the approaches for D Day. I can remember various things about that, first of all, we were assigned to a job to do at 02.15 precisely, in the morning of D Day. I remember it particularly because of what happened later. After the war when I visited Bletchley Park, I was taken round with others, round the whole complex, and I found myself, saying to myself, I know this, I was there. As did some-one else in the party said.
I must say that the most important thing was to be in the spot at the right time and to have had the opportunity to have taken part was extraordinary. One of the things of that incident, which will stay in my memory for ever and ever amen, was the fact of being there and our ship volunteered apparently, to take action at a particular time. I didn鈥檛 know what time it was of course, but it was 02.15 precisely apparently when the German battery opposite us opened up on both what they could see and what they couldn鈥檛 see, and H.M.S. Warspite, commonly called 鈥淭he Old Lady鈥� in those days, was sizing up the situation to knock all these German machines out of action. It was very difficult to know what to do, how to do, what we had to do, but we simply did the job and got it as close as we could and everyone shelling 5.9s couldn鈥檛 get low enough to get us out of the water, they were firing over the top and this gave marvelous help to H.M.S. Warspite and other ships about thirteen miles away, marvelous gunnery, tremendous gunnery, but within a few minutes, the battery, the German battery, was silenced. The gun shot had been so good, so clear and so wonderful it enabled us to get out otherwise we wouldn鈥檛 be here at all to tell this tale, but thanks be to God and thanks be to the people who were there.

That was the serious part of the war effort, but on the whole, I had bore a charmed life having gone right across the United States by train, as part of the ships company. Our ship was to be built on the far west coast, it was actually built in Seattle, to come back, we didn鈥檛 know what for, eventually we were to learn we were part of the D Day squadron and that was a tough assignment to think about. Of course, we didn鈥檛 know where we were, we didn鈥檛 know much about it, we just did as we were told, but I remember very well two things of that trip. One was going right across the States by train, incredible. We came of course by sea to the United States, we were given a luxury apartment, more like a complex, and out of from there the ships companies were sent all over the United States to be trained for whatever our job was to be.

Another incident that I remember very clearly, was going passed the scuppers on board the ship towards the galley, and seeing all this fat being wasted, going down to the scuppers. I said to the cook, what鈥檚 that doing going down there, why are you wasting it? We have got no use for it he said, I said, just a minute, put an empty seven pound tin under all that fat. Surprisingly he did it without question and I took home seven pounds of pure fat for my mum in Croydon in Surry and she was the toast of the neighborhood, because then fat was very rare. We had only, I think, two ounces a week, so it was incredible to have this amount of fat that we shared, or she shared all around the fortunate neighbors.

Another thing I remember very clearly was the hammock that I managed to have done up locally when I got back to the warship. I earned some money by scrubbing up some hammocks, and I had done a very good job I thought. One day, low and behold, a whole lot of, as we said, literally 鈥榮hit鈥� came over the bow, we had been hit by something, and so I had to scrub up those hammocks again at I think at a shilling or two a head, not much more, it was great fun.

Going back to aboard ship now again, I was a Coder as I said, and I could do anything, which surprises me to say, on the signals deck which I did.

At the outbreak of war, I remember very well sitting in the sixth form common room at my Grammar School in Sohurst College, outside Croydon and hearing that the voice of Chamberlain coming through the ether, so at this precise hour a situation of war exists between us and Germany. We crouched, all our gas masks to hand, and on the following day, we were transferred from our home town of Croydon to what was then thought to be a safe place, to Hove in Sussex, not safe at all we were to learn, within three months the school was re-transferred to Biddeford, but I came home, I came back to Croydon. With that period in Hove, the three months went for us, in 1939, was three months was to change my whole life. I was destined to be a Commercial Traveler, but on the other hand, I found myself very much called to Christian Ministry of some kind or another, not realizing that the vicar of the day a man called Gordon Guinness who was to be an inspiration for the future. I wasn鈥檛 a good scholar, not at all; there was a lot to learn. I owe it to that man and to his colleague, a man called Terry Waite, who was a great sportsman, something rather special. It was the next to last day, of September 1939, and we had 159 big Brambly apples on the tree at the bottom of the garden. I remember that quite well because that was the number of our bus 159, and as a result of what Gordon Guinness and others shared that November time, was to make a difference in my life in Christ for the future, and it was to inspire me and others in the group that we were representing on the sports-field, we had a half day school, and it was during that time we recognized that we could perhaps share, and Terry Waite thought that we might play touch rugger, and he got a whole lot of us to play the game up on the Downs, behind Hove. It was to us then very exciting because we didn鈥檛 have the freedom to do anything like that before, and I tried to score a try, the whole of September I was black and blue all over, I never scored a try the whole of that September, I got within 3 yards of the line, one yard maybe, but never scored, never. So, the next to the last day, I got Terry, asked him if he and his wife would have a crowd of fellows and girls down to his flat the following night. Which he did, I can still see 43 cups laid out, I mean there were 43 of us, there were 50 cups or mugs laid out in the room and to me that was the start, as he opened up the scriptures and pointed to the Lord Jesus as somebody he knew personally. It was to me an opening I never forgot. I often let the Lord down but I know He has never let me down. The most important thing out of that, a trip, or whatever it was to Hove was a meeting with a man called Tiny Palmer. He was called Tiny because he was so tall. I was 6` 3鈥� and he seemed to be much much taller as he was as we sat on the dais in the school hall and we saw him come through the door. He had iron grey hair, a dark grey suit, he looked enormous as we sat there, as it were, and he looked like Goliath. We were as it were, nine foot above him, nine foot below him, incredible. Anyway, we listened carefully while he put something behind his back. Then he asked us a question, tell me he said, do you remember a picture? He described the picture as a man with a lamp in his hand standing outside a door, and he then tried to help us to understand the door. He went all the way round it and said, at the end of it, now where is the lock. None of could tell, we knew it wasn鈥檛 there, or we thought it wasn鈥檛 there, and then he said, but suppose, and he brought this something from behind his back and it was a picture of Holland Hunts 鈥楲ights to the World鈥� in colour. We had no colour, and so it was very startling. Remember, a change from the sepia picture that we had in the girls' bedroom, as we called it in our house in Croydon all our lives. We knew that picture, but not the secrets of the picture, and nor did anybody else except five people, one of whom was myself. We got asked to put up our hands if we knew the picture. We put up our hands, and then the speaker said, but where is the lock? Lock! My finger went round all of it, went round the door in my mind. No, there was no lock on the outside that was the secret of the picture that opened the heart of men and women, boys and girls to the love of Jesus.

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