大象传媒

This is an extract from the memoirs of Stan Hook transcribed from an interview tape by Byron Whitehead of the Folkestone Heritage Team. This account has been added to the site with Stan's permission. Stan fully understands the site's terms and conditions鈥�

Stan Hook was also a motorcycle messenger boy in the Auxiliary Fire Service. His account of the London Blitz, especially the bombing of Docklands and the City of London, has been published in "We Remember the Blitz" compiled by Frank and Joan Shaw.

Combined Operations- D Day Landing- Courseulles

They sent me across to the States where they were assembling landing craft in 3 sections鈥� We鈥檇 take them over in the dockyard in New York, break them into 3 sections and put them on to a liberty ship, ship them over [to the UK] One liberty ship used to take three major large landing craft, tank landing craft this was. We used to bring them over, assemble them and put them in every little creek all around Devon and Cornwall. Everywhere there was a little harbour, there was landing craft. They sent me up to North Africa and we did a landing in Italy. I finished up in Malta and them they said 鈥淲e want experienced men home now to train for D- Day.鈥�

What they did was use a long beach this one was near Purbrook. They built this beach with an exact replica of information the Underground had sent from France. We used to land there. This went on for about 6 to 9 months. We used to land there in all sorts of weather , sometimes about 30 foot high seas and sometimes it would be flat calm. We would practice, practice, practice and they would keep making improvements to the things.

Eventually, when we landed, our first job was to breach the sea defences at a place called Courseulles in France. We had been trained specifically for this, they had this beach rigged and they had it to perfection. When we landed there was the church, Courseulles church and I remember the skipper say to the coxswain, 鈥淐oxswain, can you make out the steeple?鈥� and he said,
鈥淵es Sir, I can just see it, just where the sky is getting bright.鈥�
The skipper said 鈥淪teady on that, that鈥檚 where we鈥檙e going in.鈥�

When we went in, first of all, the noise was horrific. I鈥檝e never heard noise like it. The one thing they didn鈥檛 allow for was the noise鈥� They sent us a rocket ship for protection and this rocket ship was laying down this covering fire of rockets. I always remember 2 American fighters, just flew into this lot and exploded. The noise was horrific. By now bodies were beginning to float in on the tide and there was thick smoke everywhere. But, anyway, we鈥檇 done all the practice so there wasn鈥檛 an order given. I never remember an order because everybody knew what they had to do鈥e had so much training, we all did it automatically鈥�

The germans had built scaffolding just on the water鈥檚 edge and mines like huge quart milk bottles painted black were on the ends of all these. We manoeuvred our vessel in just between 2 of these. Now, the beach was mined. It was a sand beach. Then there was a convex sea wall, so that had to be got over. At the top of the sea wall there was a tank trap, an absolutely huge hole. So, somehow, we had to get our tanks across this mined beach, up this convex wall and across this thing. But we鈥檇 been trained and we had 4 tanks on board.

The 1st tank was what they call a flail tank. It had a huge thing built on the front and it had long bits of chain which banged down and exploded all the mines in front of it as it went up the beach. So the door went down and the 1st one made a road up to the convex wall. We went up this road that had been carved by the flail tank, then he pulled to one side. The 2nd tank off had a huge bridge built on to the front of it. He went up this cleared piece of sand and manoeuvred the thing into position then [the bridge] was detonated off and he slowly climbed this seawall to the top. On the top of the 3rd tank were huge logs. He went up the sand road, up the ramp, got on top of the wall, then detonated off all of the logs which filled up the ditch. The 4th tank off was a normal tank. That was it! That was the breaching of the sea wall, then they all came in behind us.

By then it was just about dawn and getting lighter and the rest came in. That was how we breached the sea wall at this place called Courseulles. We landed in the British sector. We landed near Goldbeach. There was Gold and Juno and we landed just about where Gold and Juno met at this place called Courseulles. Then there was Ohmaha, the other side of Gold and Utah鈥�

I think it was Ohmaha, that was the American beach. [They] had just said 鈥淕ive 鈥楨m Hell鈥� 鈥� They lost thousands and thousands of troops on Ohmaha beach. We, OK, we lost a few hundred but nothing like Ohmaha. The Americans hadn鈥檛 done their homework, they just depended on force. The airplanes were going to go in and soften up the beach and they were going to just land and that was going to be it. But, from experience, Monty had said 鈥淣o鈥� and he had [made this plan.] All of our practice paid off at that point.

I was in what they called the wheel house so I had a 1st class view of this. At one point the door jammed right at the critical moment. After we鈥檇 dropped the tanks we started to pull the door up and the door jammed. I could see this, so I ran, there were shells and bombs exploding but I just ran up, freed this hawser from the door and we pulled it up. And the skipper said to me afterwards
鈥淭hat was a fantastic thing you did there, I鈥檓 going to nominate you for decoration.鈥�
And I said 鈥淣ow you know what you can do with your decoration!鈥� And that was it. But that鈥檚 another story. There were hundreds of people that earned the Victoria Cross that day, but half of them dead, unfortunately鈥�

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