大象传媒

HOW I NEARLY MISSED THE WAR (Part 1)
6TH JUNE 1944
On 6th June 1944 I should have been driving ashore on a Normandy beach had it not been for the company corporal cook. He suffered from what some people called lack of moral fibre, a euphemism to describe somebody who was windy and down right scared. He had flunked it and ran away. He was not the only one who was scared. The corporal cook deserted on 4th June when we were embarking on landing craft. Later, when he was caught, he would land in the glasshouse the jail that would make him wish he had not deserted. Only a few weeks before I had been transferred from 66-field company to 183-field company in a Royal Engineers group. 183 were in a holding camp that was sealed with no leave being granted and telephone calls forbidden. Letters were censored. We were in Southampton that was stuffed with military equipment parked in all the roads of the suburbs The idea of sealing the camp was to stop prying eyes and loose talk giving the game away. Tension was electric. With wireless silence I had no chance to practice with the company signallers and as an 鈥榰ntried signaller鈥� I was not needed and considered expendable. Therefore I was told to get out of the International armoured half-track command vehicle and take the corporal cook鈥檚 15-cwt truck. A sturdy Bedford.
By the 6th June when the boys were fully鈥� occupied in Normandy I was sitting outside Southampton along with three 3 ton 4 wheel drive Bedford lorries and a compressor truck. We had not gone with the company. For whatever reason we were now bound for London. Nobody seemed to be in charge and 12 drivers and sappers, 1 corporal and a lance jack seemed to be adrift, isolated in their own little space of time. I can neither recall seeing a route map for our journey nor orders designating halts for meals and overnight stops. Our small contingent set off steering east by the sun, I thought, a most unusual and unreal military arrangement. We travelled leisurely whilst immense convoys of troops and equipment hurled west to the port of embarkation that we had just left. Things seemed disconcertingly wrong. I had the feeling that we were unwanted, mixed with a selfish sense of relief from the apprehension that had built up for two weeks before the invasion started. Everybody knew it was coming but nobody knew when. We dawdled on being frequently stopped as determined important units crossed out path exerting their priority. I kept wondering what the outcome would be.
When we reached Bustard Camp we were wheeled into an enormous vehicle park. Every type of truck, armoured car, tank, gun and transporters were parked wheel to wheel in great groups spread for miles over downs. Great tarpaulin dumps, nothing camouflaged everything in the open. We arrived as it was beginning to rain. The grass was slippery. Some Summerfield track, perforated inter linked trays of corrugated metal spiked into the ground, was laid to form the main alleys. Once away from the alleys the ground was being churned. The more vehicles passed the worse it became. Tents were pitched on the slope of a hill and after a few days mud was sliding down the slope into tents. Sleeping at night on ground sheet capes was impossible and we struck on the idea of forming beds with 15 square 4-gallon empty petrol tins apiece. Why the army kept using them since they leaked whenever they were bashed is difficult to understand. Until the Jerry can was fully adopted many gallons of petrol had been wasted. The 15 tin can beds were not practical. As soon as anybody lay down they bent and the ridges protruded. Sleeping on them was noisy, every time somebody rolled over there was a clattering clanging symphony and restless sleepers endured many ribald comments in the morning! The rain poured down. Everybody and everything was soaked, mid summer but cold, difficult to work in and everybody miserable. Would that we were in Normandy. By the time we left the trucks were wallowing axle deep and we were pushing to free them. They were, and had been, waterproofed for nearly three weeks and the engines were overheating. Life was full of complaints but there was nobody to listen or care about us.
We arrived in London a week later and stopped on what was left of Silvered Dock Station. No station, only a platform. Some 300 dejected troglodytes slept on the bare platform in a snoozing mass until about 3 o鈥檆lock in the morning when over came a doodlebug. Hitler had commenced his bombardment of London with V 1 flying bombs. We had still to learn that when the engine drone stopped the bomb was coming down. In the glow of searchlights the platform stood up and fled like ghouls across the railway lines and dived into deep open trenches. 300 arriving as one called for some comments. 鈥淲illiam take your boot out of my ear, please.鈥� or words, a little bit more expressive, to such effect. Reactions varied. I was intensely curious to see what was happening but unprepared for one poor laddie greeting and hanging on to me. It was not a reaction I had expected neither did the laddie expect my reaction, but it quietened him down. I never saw that lad in daylight and wondered often what became of him.
At daybreak we motored on to a quay where a 7000-ton, grey painted, slab sided liberty ship Samvern was tied up. The ship towered over the quay. Our trucks stopped in line, in front of a smashed Austin ambulance that had fallen off a crane hook, sometime during the night. It was an uncomfortable situation on which I did not wish to brood. We had arrived early and had to kick our heels, whilst smart, polished and well blancoed Ack Ack gunners with their bofor guns were lined up and loaded, on to the ship; followed by RASC lorries, bren gun carriers and accoutrements of an army on the move; except us. Some of the gleaming gunners gave the ambulance a quizzical look as they passed but said nothing. We busied ourselves checking over our vehicles, particularly the waterproofing, which was coming apart after the journey. Spark plugs were wrapped in electrician鈥檚 tape and covered over with white sealing paste. Other vulnerable parts were clartied with Shell asbestos compound and the mess smoothed to prevent leakage. Battery cells, capped with breather rubber cones, that were in short supply were replaced by a substitute, dished out by a large plump cheery ATS girl, handing out French letters, pierced with a pin, to allow the cells to breathe. The lassie鈥檚 suggestions of what we should do with the proffering were met with countering suitable profanities. Some old supplies were being flung from the ship on the quay and with the spirit of foraging I acquired a hammock, which I put in the back of the truck along with my load of two Dixie鈥檚. You can say that I was travelling light!
By nightfall we were eventually loaded with the trucks deep in one of the five holds. The top level of number five hold was reserved as troop deck. Somewhere up top the officers from the smart units were accommodated. The space for the troops measured some 28鈥檟25鈥� with headroom of 9鈥�, below this level were ballast and water tanks. The ship was propelled by a single four bladed propeller driven by engines amidships, capable we were told, of 11 knots; perhaps adequate for convoys, but I would have liked to have been on a ship that could have steamed faster. Samvern was one of some 200 Liberty ships loaned under Lease/Lend to Britain by America where they were produced on assembly lines by welding. The first ships were based on a British riveted design but this was quickly modified to enable welding to be utilised. The result was an unlovely shape sprouting a single funnel and three steel masts with derricks. There were a few life rafts in frames that seemed to be insufficient for the number of troops going aboard. In the hold the ship鈥榮 sides sweated, poor ventilation created a fetid fug, that was to thicken as the next seven days on the ship stretched out. We untied from the quay and moved away during the night, accompanied by distant Ack Ack gunfire and occasional V 1-bomb explosions, much muffled with the beat of Samvern鈥檚 engines and ventilation system. The ship moved down to the mouth of the Thames and anchored off Southend.
The merchant seamen wound the boys up with E-boat alley tales and advised us to blow up our life jackets and keep them on at all times. The life jacket was a poor sausage thing tied with tapes over greatcoat and webbing. It did not look as if it could give much support. We lay in the Thames for two days as a convoy of ships was assembled. Eventually we moved off at a sedate pace and passed through the Straits of Dover in the middle of the night. Next day we were informed that Jerry long-range guns had fired on the convoy but in the hold nothing was heard. Everybody was asleep in hammocks packed close together in swinging unison. Small parties were allowed at intervals to go up on deck. Living was cramped; eating difficult and latrines bloody awful. The ship *continued slowly down the channel and things became difficult as a storm developed and the ship rolled. The hold was lit by a blue light, which did not penetrate below the packed hammocks. As the weather deteriorated people were sick and the oldest man lost his teeth. He slid around the greasy deck, striking matches, trying to find a pair that fitted! To get back into his hammock he had to stand up, squeezing between large backsides threatening to squash his head every time he emerged. Dishwashing was two buckets of boiling water. One to dip and one to rinse, leaving late comers to stir in a greasy soup.
We lost track of time. A bofor gun mounted on top of the hold hatch opened fire with a quick burst that had everybody alert and apprehensive. Why it fired nobody said but it increased tension. The weather worsened and we slowed down but eventually we found ourselves in Normandy Bay.
Disembark
On the morning when we anchored, bodies were up on deck, and moves were afoot to unload the lorries and disembark. In the bay we were surrounded by a multitude of craft coming and going and intense activity. 鈥楽amvern鈥� could cope with its derricks, but for the part of the day, a floating crane tied alongside and helped unship the heavier equipment. Our trucks were lifted over the side and deposited on a Rhino raft, 180鈥� long, constructed from steel tanks joined together with steel girders, powered by two mammoth outboard motors, under the command of two RE. Sergeants from a Beach Operating Company. The raft had a draft of 9鈥�. Capable of transporting 30 lorries, it could take cargo and vehicles. It was slow, but stable and reliable. My 15 cwt. was set down on the first row right hand side (starboard). Scrambling nets hangings over the side of 鈥楽amvern鈥� were used by soldiers to reach the landing craft .I was enthusiastic and excited after the daylong wait. As night approached it was our turn to cast off. Across the bay, floating oil drums were burning to form a smoke screen of thick black clouds. Later I was told, the idea was not only to hide the bay from prying aircraft, but also to hide enemy aircraft from being seen by working parties on ships, who had a tendency to stop work when enemy aircraft were overhead!
Samvern did yeoman service until later, in the Scheldte she was blown to bits
by an acoustic mine