My war started in earnest when I was evacuated to Creswell in Derbyshire (do you remember the famous Creswell Colliery Brass Band? It use to be heard on the radio nearly every week it seemed)
Well Creswell got a ruddy good hiding from 'Jerry bombers' as they tried to hit the coal mines.
I got really cheesed off so got my mum and dad to get me back to Lowestoft and went to work at 'Richards Ship Yard' as a seven shillings and sixpence a week assistant to 'Mick' who was the stoker in charge of the gas furnace which supplied gas for the twin Crossley engines that supplied power for the shipyard. We built magnetic minesweepers for the war effort.
My dad 'Arthur'was a T124 rating during the war. He served on the 'Girl Gladys' a steam trawler, sailing out of Lowestoft, converted to a shore patrol boat with a gun on the foredeck. The 'Girl Gladys' would have shook to pieces if they ever had to fire the gun I am sure. I remember my dad telling me after one patrol, that German aircraft had tried to sink them by dropping giant mettle darts on the ship instead of bombs.
At the age of sixteen I wanted to join up so my dad took me to Norwich but I got sent home by the M.O. because I wasn't big enough. My dad was told to take me home and get my mum to fatten me up. She managed to do it becuase in 1943 at the age of seventeen I joined the Royal Navy as a probationer Sick Bay Attendant. Did all of my training in the caves at Chatham Barracks and Gillingham Hospital after my initial square bashing at HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness ( anybody remember the old tennis courts at Butlins Holiday Canp which was 'Royal Arthur'?)
Joined LST 65 in Southhamton Waters for the D-Day landings. I never could believe that so many ships could be in one place without the German High Command not knowing about it. We took a contingent of the 3rd Canadian Armoured Brigade over to Juno Beach on the morning of the 6th. Stood on deck and saw that a lot of brave men, and boys (like myself), who would never see another day as they were mown down. May they Rest in Peace.
On D-Day plus three we brought back a Canadian who we had taken out on D-Day, he had caught 'a blighty' by being shot by a Gernan sniper. We joked together and I found out that he knew my family when his mob were stationed at Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft during 1943/44.
Went back and forth taking more supplies and gear over to Normandy till 'Jimmy the one' drooped our front 'hook' (anchor, to laymen) and tore three plates out of the bottom of the ship. We limped back home and spent three weeks in the old LNER docks at Poplar in London before rejoining the war effort. We got 'paid off' after three months so I returned to Chatham before embarkation to Australia in November '44. Got seconded to a natty unit called Royal Naval Air Evacuation Unit, flying Dekotas from the Admiralty Island, now part of the Papua New Guinea, bringing wounded back to hospital at Herne Bay just outside of Sydney, New South Wales.
Reurned to 'blighty' in '46 and got my relief in December of that year.
By the way my name is George Dangerfield
Recommended story
Story with photo