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This story is submitted by volunteer Pat Yates on behalf of Alan Wellington with his permission and knowledge of the site's terms and conditions.
My part in the D-Day landings was rather brief.As a junior Merchant Navy officer I had just arrived back in the UK from hospital in Port Said, Egypt. I was then assigned to Glasgow and the City of Canterbury, a cargo and passenger ship of about 10,000 tons, bound for an unknown destination.
As I recall we sailed down the coast and eventually dropped anchor somewhere along the south coast. It was dark by then and our orders were to stay at anchor. We were then surrounded by landing craft carrying American troops. The landing craft and troops were then loaded on to our ship - we had derricks, handy for bringing landing craft aboard and lowering them back on the water at the Normandy bridgehead. Then within no time we were heading for the Channel and the Omoha beachhead.
I was on deck as assistant troop deck officer and the crossing was ghostly quiet among the troops. These were back up troops on Day 2 and we all know what a battle the Americans had on Day 1. The film "Saving Private Ryan" told that story.
However, our job was to take them as near to the beachhead as was allowed. Apparently on Day 1 the troops had a rough crossing weatherwise and there was a lot of seasickness on their landing craft. We dropped anchor for them to disembark and in no time they had been lowered down off our ship and they took off for the beachhead.
We saw areas lit up by flares and flashes of gunfire and felt relieved that we were getting out of there. But those brave men were heading straight into battle. They couldn't turn back. Their orders would be to kill or be killed..
Our captain was a Geordie and he broke the silence and shouted "Good luck lads". I suppose they were petrified going into battle like that. We then left, in the darkness, for home.

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