大象传媒

My father, Noel Taylor, was an 18 year old, newly passed-out Ordinary Telegraphist in the Royal Navy in early 1944.

Having volunteered for the intriguingly-named "Party Funshore" unit (meaning "foreign, unknown shores"), he went to Plymouth Signal School at Petersfield, Hampshire, for special unit training in wireless radio telegraphy, weapons and combat. This was, as would become clear later, the lead up to D-Day.

He was asked to join a unit already in the field - i.e. under canvas - expecting that this would lead to a promotion. It lead, in fact, to HMS Ganges, a shore station, where he was kitted out in an exciting but strange uniform of kahki battledress, Naval hat, commando type equipment, including Colt 45 pistol, and Combined Operations badges. Here he met for the first time, Reg Much, a pal he was to remain in contact with for some years.

An old time Naval Gunnery Officer gave them pistol training. Five shots fired safely at dummy targets in woods but Noel's sixth shot narrowly missed the officer's foot,whereupon he knelt in front of my father and begged him to spare his life.

By May, the unit was engaged in serious pre-D-Day exercises in the New Forest, learning how to use an old type TW12 radio set, requiring two operators, one carrying the machine on his back and the other operating morse code keys. However, they also had to go on long route marches, interspersed with digging slit trenches.

Off duty, there was time to visit Church, go drinking and dancing in Eastleigh, where the sailors would sometimes fight and try to keep one step ahead of the Police. Noel's unit camped with the Canadian Winnipeg Rifles, bartering for cigarettes, throwing knives at cards pinned to trees etc. They were very friendly but outdid the Navy for foul language.

When Noel's unit were ordered to waterproof the engines of their vehicles, they realised that they were going to participate in an operation where they would get wet...

Noel landed on D-Day on Juno Beach as part of Naval Party 1749 "Heavy and Mobile Communications". The unit was attached to the Canadian landing troops but under the overall command of the Beachmaster, Capt. "Mad" Maud, who directed operations with his baton and his dog by his side. My father spent some time at Courseulles, near the coast. One of his duties was to issue the signal "make smoke Juno" to the warships anchored offshore, to deter any Luftwaffe in the area. During one air raid, Noel took cover in a barn, behind some cows who took some of the shrapnel in their hides.

After the beachhead became more established,King George VI visited Noel's unit. As they were in khaki but wearing naval hats, the king said to the Admiral "Very smart, but don't you think the hats look silly". The uniform caused consternation on other occasions; such as when, returning from leave via Euston station, my father and pal were stopped by a very officious Warrant Officer, complete with knee-length puttees and baton. He said "You two can't go on leave looking like that". They told him that they were actually returning to their units. Outraged, the Warrant Officer demanded to know who their commanding officer was, because he was going to report them. They said he was Capt. Maud, had just been decorated in the field and wouldn't talk to the likes of him. At this point, the WO had them escorted across London to their barracks, expecting them to be put on a charge, but when the MP's escorting them heard that they'd been at the D-Day landings, they let them off.

Back in Normandy, off duty, my father set off one day to find my Uncle Jim, who was stationed in Normandy with the RAF. Walking cheerfully along a road towards where he believed my uncle's unit to be, he came across some tommies brewing up in a ditch. Asking if he was on the right road to such and such unit, the soldiers replied "Only if your brother's a ** Jerry!" Eventually, they did meet up, in Bayeux, where the tapestry was unfortunately boarded up for protection.

It was in Normandy that Noel received the "war wound" for which he eventually, many years later, was awarded a modest pension. Playing football, he badly injured his knee ligaments. The field hospitals perhaps had more major injuries to worry about and so he never received proper treatment. The injury has plagued him for the remainder of his life. However, he has always argued that his hearing was damaged as a result of years of listening through ear phones to the constant crackle and hiss of radio traffic but has never been able to prove that the deafness that came on later in life was directly caused by his war service.

Noel's mobile signals unit remained for some time in Normandy, awaiting the Allied breakout, before suddenly speeding to Belgium, to enter Brussels with the Guards' Armoured Division on the day of its liberation.

Noel's 5 person Naval - Air Liaison Unit reported to the Rue De La Hoise and were billeted at the Caserne Baudiun, with their wireless truck stationed at the Plain De Maneouvres. The people of Brussels were extremely hospitable and Noel and friend Reg Much were invited to stay with a local family during september 1944. Robert and Gaby Freres were to remain family friends after the war, with their son, Henri, visiting Wigan and Noel and my mother, Eileen, visiting Brussels in 1954. Whilst travelling on a tram in Brussels, Noel fainted. Rather improbably, a beautiful young woman on the tram insisted that he return with her to her apartment nearby to recover. It turned out that the woman's family were highly respectable and her father, a General in the Belgian Army, was a prisoner of war of the Germans.

Eventually, Noel's unit was ordered to go to Bruges to join Force T, under Captain (later Rear Admiral) Pugsley RN, to prepare for the assault on the island of Walcheren.

Before the Allies could use the vital port of Antwerp, the approach from the sea, via the Schelde estuary, had to be cleared of Germans, as they had formidable coastal defences, including very large artillery positions. This would necessitate a sea-borne attack on the island of Walcheren and other defended islands.

After the successful landings, Noel was based on the northern shore of North Beveland, looking across to the island of Schouen, which the Germans still occupied. He went on night time raids across the Oster Schelde with Royal Marine Commandos in small boats, for reconaissance or to capture prisoners. On these raids, my father used a new, night time navigation aid, involving infra-red light. On the enemy shore, he would set up his radio position, with a Marine sergeant standing guard with a machine gun.

On one particularly difficult raid, Noel's party had to bring back their Marine mine detector operator, who had had his leg blown off by a mine. The party retired to a house to recover, and tots of rum were served up with the coffee. Noel was sitting at a table, when a Marine in the room above put his rifle down on the floor. The gun went off and a bullet lodged in the table just in front of my father. The Marine sergeant told my shaking father to look at the wall behing him. The bullet had come through the ceiling, ricocheted off the wall and passed within inches of his head before striking the table. "Get that down you, lad!" said the sergeant, as he tipped the remainder of the rum bottle into Noel's coffee.

Part of Noel's job was to maintain radio contact with the naval patrol boats and Marine "George Posts" on the shore. They knew that German E-boats were in the area and, one night, patrol boat "Poppy" reported that it was being fired on by an E-boat. The command post thought they were facing a major German attack when one of the George posts reported that they too were under attack from an E-boat. Of course, Noel guessed that they could actually be firing at each other, and a tragic incident was avoided.

Whilst in the Walcheren area, Noel's unit, including Reg Much and Johnny McMinn, was visited by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Admiral Burrows, shortly after he'd taken over from Admiral Ramsey, who had been killed in a plane crash.

After the German surrender, Noel found himself on a train heading, they believed, for Berlin. At one point, the train, comprised of goods vans, was stationary in a marshalling yard next to another train. Cans of peas were visible through the splintered side of the adjacent train. Noel had his arm fully extended through the shattered shards of wood when his train began to move off. He just managed to extract it in time.

The train never reached Berlin, because the Soviets refused to allow British or American troops in to begin with. So Noel was posted to the HQ of the Naval Commander in Chief - Europe, at Minden in Westphalia, North Gernmany. There he met my mother, WREN Eileen Murray (see separate story "ULTRA Secret Service").

My mother was working in the Fleet Mail office and father was in an adjacent office doing administrative work. One of his duties was to issue condoms to the men.

My mother and father's courtship in minden wasn't without incident. Returning through the unlit streets to the WRENs' quarters, my mother cut her legs badly on barbed wire. The sight of a sailor dragging a bleeding WREN back to barracks necessitated a fair amount of explaining to the MP's! On another occasion, whilst they were out, my father was wearing a WREN mackintosh that he'd rather taken a fancy to when they passed Admiral "Hookey" Walker, accompanied by his Flag Lieutenant. The "Flag" chased after them and said "The old man wants to speak to you". At this point, my mother sloped off, leaving poor Dad to explain his strange uniform to the Admiral.

Noel and Eileen left the Navy and were married in December 1946 and remain so to the present day, almost 60 years later.

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