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At the beginning of the war I was at Borough Polytechnic School in South London. I was about half way through the course. The school then transferred to Exeter and I joined them there where I stayed until about Easter 1941. I was lucky enough to be billeted with the Chief Engineer of the Electricity Works and very much enjoyed the time I was there.

I visited home for a couple of weeks in 1940 during the Blitz and on Saturday 7 September, the first night of the Blitz, at 7.15 p.m. our home was hit and we lost our home, but although we were buried in the debris, fortunately we were not hurt.

On my return at the end of my schooling, I started work in the electrical trade and became a trainee (like an apprentice). They were always asking for volunteers for the Home Guard, and although I was not really 16, I told a fib and joined them.

By 1943 in September I was 18, but I volunteered for the Royal Navy in the previous June and luckily, they wanted electrical people so they took me for that. I joined up at the flagship recruiting centre, HMS Royal Arthur at Skegness - the Butlins Holiday Camp! I did training all over the country when I first joined and then put into Combined Operations, getting ready for invasions and ultimately, D-Day.

I then picked up my first commission on a landing craft. This was a rocket craft: LCT(R) 436. There were 12 in a flotilla and there were about three flotillas. We did a lot of training on them, and one of the most famous areas for training was at Sandbanks, near Poole. We could practise landings and operations and indeed for many years after the war, it was closed to the public until it had been cleared of all the left-overs.

D-Day was to be 5th June, but the weather forced a change to 6th. Because our craft were to be first in, we had actually left harbour on the 5th and had to turn back again until the next day. In the night, as we moved off from anchor off the Isle of Wight, it was a quiet night on board. A night of anticipation I would say. We knew of where we were going as we had been shown pictures of the area and we were going to fire at a place called Le Hamel. That was to the East of Arromanches and we were in Force G and were going to Gold Beach. I can remember coming on deck just as it got light, about 5.45 a.m. We were due to fire at 6.15 a.m. Ahead there was hardly anything but the French coast, but as I looked to port and starboard, I could almost have walked back to England dryshod there were so many ships! If anyone asked me my most vivid memory of the whole war, that was it.

When we went into action, we fired 1150 rockets to strafe the beach before the landings. I was involved with all the electrical systems on the ship and was MX 611375 – a wireman.

A couple of weeks later I had appendicitis and had to be returned home and subsequently seconded to other landing craft. We were ferrying things back and forth – including at one time some German prisoners. They were a sorrowful lot; they were soaking wet from boarding. We didn’t really see any signs of bitterness – they were only with us for a short while. I felt a bit resentful, because we lost an Aunt and Uncle killed in an air raid shelter and a cousin who was a Flying Officer, who was killed over Genoa only two weeks after he was married, but we didn’t bother them.

Next, we were about to be sent to Japan and I always think I was fortunate that they dropped the Bomb and we were turned back.

Doug Harmer

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