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I joined up at Mullers orphanage in Muller Road which was HMS Bristol in those days. It was the centre for all naval people of dubious medical category. I had an eyesight defect.

Bristol was bombed flat in those days, I was only there for a fortnight. They kept us in before we received our uniforms, and then we went on to Gosport for further training.

I was loading up just before D-Day, the landing crafts at Southampton, were rocket launching craft — there were 960 rockets in fixed racks for each landing craft. They weighed 100wt each. I was so tired at midday I went to sleep in a pool of oil.

In Southampton docks one could walk for half a mile across other ships, and across Landing Craft. Every creek in Southern England was jammed with Landing Craft. Chichester Creek, Emsworth Harbour, Langstone Creek. At Spithead just before D Day there were six aircraft carriers, plus cruisers and battleships.

Just after D-Day there was a V1 attack for a fortnight in Portsmouth and Southampton. If you were on fire picket, this meant sleeping in your clothes and being called out six or eight times a night and seeing the V1’s streaking through the sky.

Later I saw all the Navy ex POW’s returning. They flew into Ford Naval Air Station in Sussex and then taken by bus to Havant. They arrived, in a mixture of uniforms: American, French, Air Force, and Army. After re-kitting there was a pile of these discarded jackets, overcoats and trousers. Most of the men were gaunt, and grey-headed before their time. As one, a Dieppe survivor said, “The first word you learn over there is ‘Arbeit’ (work).

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