大象传媒

Monday 5thJune, 0500am

Horribly tired at Dawn action stations. Steaming South again. Hope to pull it off tommorrow. Time 08.30am Captain just been on the broadcaster again. This is it! We are attacking from the mouth of Seine to Cherbourg. Americans to the right flank, British to the left, so my Dieppe forcast wasn't far out! Our job is to engage shore batteries and anything that will oppose the soldiers' landing,which should be about 0.730am. Our bombardment commencing at dawn. We have been promised the largest air attack tonight that has ever been seen. Eisenhower is C.in C. Allied Forces. Sir Bertram Ramsay C. in C. Naval Forces. Nothing much to do now. We are steaming along as far as the Isle of Wight and then - then turn South! No more for now. Action stations tonight 21.30pm till - when! Time 21.00pm made our rendezvous just off the Isle of Wight with lots of squadrons of landing craft. All around as far as the eye can see we are able to discern craft of all description. From Battleships to Tugs! Received a bit of "guff" from the Commander re the operation. Biggest air attack ever on coast off N.France. Our first paratroops and airborne divisions will be let loose tonight. Our own bombardment commences 05.30am 6thJune. Our targets will be 6" coastal batteries. We may come under fire of these and bigger guns! Warspite is looking after one big 16" gun known to be there. She'd just better thump it good and hard or else!!!! Altogether we hear there are 5 large Naval Task forces. And H.M.S. Ramillies has the honour (doubtful)? to be with the main landing support squadron. The army should land at 0.730am Let's hope the boys have it all their own way with all the opposition blasted to hell and back. E boats and submarines and minefields are expected Should be quite a party. We are going to drop the hook (anchor) there and drop bricks over any old where, where the Army Forward Observation Officer wants them. And we are to enter harbour with full ceremony, dress of the day No 3's and band playing. All this is alleged to buck up the morale of the pongoes (soldiers) on shore. Seems good psychology to me, let's hope it works out that way!! Not seen any Jerry bombers yet. Would have thought he'd have tried before now. Still - he's tons of time! Action stations in ten minutes time. All that we have trained for etc. is going into this effort. Pray God it shall not fail.

7th June. Time 22.15pm
Had neither the energy nor the time to write yesterday so I'll try and give a record of the events in chronological order. We were at our bombardment position about 05.00am after passing through the minefields in the channel swept and Dan-buoyed by the sweepers. As we approached the French coast numerous air raids were seen and we watched pretty firework displays for quite awhile. About 0.510am just 5 mins. before schedule we opened fire with 15" on a 6" battery on a high ridge. This battery had 6 guns and they were in armoured casemates,so it was no walkover. After about 1 to 2 hours firing enemy shells landed uncomfortably close without doing damage. This went on intermittently all day. About 06.30am two enemy destroyers attacked with torpedoes. Five were fired and three came perilously close. No more thatn 50 yards away the nearest. A pack of E boats was observed and the 4" and 6" armament were blazing away and were very effective, causing the enemy to retire. They attacked again later on and were again driven off. By this time we had ranged the enemy battery and put four of the six guns out of action The remaining two were quite a nusiance and some of their shells landed no more than twenty yards away.

In the meantime one of the tinfish fired at us, and hit the destroyer Svenna, a Norwegian escort of ours. She sank almost immediately and I don't think any survivors were picked up, Bodies and wreckage, rafts, timber etc. floated past and we observed the bow and stern of the wreck showing above water. Must be pretty shallow here. Apparently she broke her back. Poor chaps- leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Aircraft were now thumping hell out of Jerry's position ashore and at 0.6.30am the first wave of troops landed. Later in the day we heard they had succeeded at all points and our Royal Marine Commando battalion had taken a coastal defence battery intact!! The day wore on with mumerous alarms for aircraft but we saw none. One dropped a stick of bombs between a destroyer and cruiser. JU88 I believe. We carried out several bombardments in the afternoon and evening and eventually completed the oblitertion of the last 6" gun of the battery. We then had orders to proceed to Portsmouth to reamunition. Fired 220 - 15" shells and goodness knows how many 6" and 4". Not one A.A. gun opened fire! What a difference to 1940 (note 15" shell weighs nearly 1 ton). Just as we were preparing to leave, hundreds and jundreds of gliders came in, in great masses. Each one had a towing plane and they came over for an hour, solid. We estimated over a thousand, so they probably landed a least one complete division. What a sight! Just like a Wellsian dream of the future. I forgot to mention before, that as we went into battle, the Captain donned the Maori skirt so how could we come to any harm? Battle ensign was flying from the gaff. Lots of firework displays as we left. R.A.F. again giving Jerry a bad night. 0.6.30am arrived Portsmouth and reamunitioned all day. Were we worn out! Sailed again 20.30 and we still had our deck full of cordite to be stowed. Wonder where we are bound now. 7th June 23.00pm Too dark now. Write again tomorrow.

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