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It was the early hours of the morning when we weighed anchor and left Portsmouth harbour for the invasion. When we got out to sea I looked around and all I could see was about ten ships, and I said to my friend, ‘is this it? We haven’t got enough ships here to invade the Isle of Wight so how are we going to invade France?’
It was still dark when we arrived off the coast of France and as it got light I had my first view of the invasion fleet and I have never seen anything like it. The whole of the sea was covered in ships. You couldn’t believe there could be so many ships.
It was the first time I had ever been into battle. Out task was to try and protect our ships from air attacks although I have to admit there was very little trouble from any enemy aircraft. The big danger was from thousands of acoustic mines the Germans had laid. I must have seen at least twenty landing craft sunk by them and it was always on your mind that you could be next.
We had been in Normandy for around ten weeks and one afternoon when we pulled along side of H.M.S. Belfast – I think there was a skippers conference going on and we could transfer our wounded at that point. The Belfast had been firing her six-inch guns at a shore battery off Le Havre. At five thirty we had started to slip away from the Belfast and as we got clear that battery at Le Harve opened up and we were hit by two 88mm shells. I was on the bowls taking the ropes in and we all run to help. I went into the bridge and it was blown to pieces. The Lieutenant Commander and the two marine officers were badly injured – two of them died later that night – but the skipper was just standing there. He was deafened by the sound but was otherwise unhurt. The following morning we held a memorial service and laid our dead to rest at sea and were then ordered back to Portsmouth. The dock workers gave us a great reception on entering harbour.

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