大象传媒

I was a sapper in the Royal Engineers.

Early in 1944 I was posted to 934 Port Construction & Repair Company stationed at Richborough Kent. My section was working at the railway sidings assembling metal sections into pontoons which we assumed were for bridges for which the Engineers are known. The assembled pontoons were taken to the nearby river estuary where other construction work was being done about which nobody spoke.

In April I was part of a small detachment sent to Eastchurch on Isle of Sheppey. Each day, at various times, we were taken to Sheerness Dockyard. There we kept a flat-bottomed Thames lighter which had been converted adding two marine engines. In the lighter were six or eight trailer pumps. We sailed out of the dockyard and through the opening in the anti-submarine boom, which stretched across the estuary, and round to the north side of the island. We came to what appeasred to be enormous concrete "boxes" parked on the sandy seabed not far from the shore. These we knew as Phoenix. Had they been left their weight would have pressed them into the sand. To prevent this we had to come alongside at low tide, close the valves and pump them out using the trailer pumps. When they had floated , the valves were opened and theyt rested again on the sand.

About 6th June we floated them and they were towed away by ocean-going tugs.

We returned to Richborough and some weeks later the company moved to Southampton and embarked on a landing craft which deposited us on Gold beach in Normandy. We set up camp near Arromanches to work on Mulberry Harbour. There were our pontoons and concrete "boxes".

To see the harbour working was a wonderful sight and I am proud to have done my very small part.

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