Brown Master 80814

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Memoirs of a Landing Craft Assault Officer

Lieutenant D F Brown DSC RNVR Edited by Robert Vaughan August 20081

This document is extracts from Dennis Brown memoir found in the War

Museum which I have extract part of. Islwyn Vaughan served with D. Brown in Holland and the actions and occurrence relate directly to him. But the he is not mentioned by name for some reason. Why that is unclear. I have included photos from I. Vaughan which again related to Holland. The parts included are

Dieppe 19th Aug 1944– I Vaughan did serve at Dieppe BUT not in the part included here. I have included this as it gives a personal account of what they all went through.

Holland Sept 1944 – May 1945 This covers the build up and landing of during the assault on Walcheren and support till VE day

HMS BRONTOSAURUS on the west coast of Scotland until his demobilisation in November 1945 I Vaughan and D. Brown Flotilla were placed here. This tells us what I Vaughan got up to.

1Imperial War Museum - Box Reference 92/45/1

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Contents Dieppe ........................................................................................................................ 4

Dieppe summary ..................................................................................................... 14

South Bevland September - November 1944 ..................................................... 16

II Breskens ............................................................................................................... 22

III the Landings ........................................................................................................ 25

IV After action .......................................................................................................... 29

V Xmas 44 ................................................................................................................ 32

VI Holland – The end in sight ................................................................................ 35

Holland - March 1945 .............................................................................................. 39

VIII – VE Europe ...................................................................................................... 42

Scotland June 1945 ................................................................................................ 45

EPILOGUE. ............................................................................................................... 50

Force T Holland 1944 .............................................................................................. 52

Significant Photos .................................................................................................. 53

Index ......................................................................................................................... 54

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Synopsis of the full text of document held in the Museum

Detailed memoir (225pp including illustrations and index), written in 1988 - 1990, describing his employment as an office junior in Slough, Berkshire from 1930, his enlistment and training as a rating in the London Division RNVR (1938 - 1939), his mobilisation and appointment as an ordinary signalman in the trawler SAON, based on Dover for local anti-submarine patrols (October - November 1939), and then in the trawler BERNARD SHAW, based on Sheerness for minesweeping duties in the Thames estuary (November 1939 - September 1940); his appointment to HMS KING ALFRED, the RNVR officers training establishment at Brighton (September - November 1940), his service as a junior RNVR officer in the infantry assault ship HMS GLENGYLE (January 1941 - January 1943) for duties in landing craft, latterly with the 51st LCA Flotilla, and including participation in the evacuations from Greece and Crete, operations against the Vichy French in Lebanon (June 1941), a convoy to Malta (January 1942), the Dieppe raid and the landings at Oran in French North Africa during Operation Torch; his command of 51st LCA Flotilla in the infantry assault ship ORONTES (March - November 1943) including service in the Sicily and Salerno landings; his command of the Flotilla, renumbered as 525th LCA Flotilla, based on HMS CRICKET in Hampshire during the preparations for D-Day (January - March 1944) and then accommodated in the landing ship infantry SS EMPIRE SPEARHEAD (April - July 1944) including the landing of 231st Infantry Brigade (50th Division) in Gold area on D-Day and ferrying duties to the Normandy beachhead; his command of 508th LCA Flotilla (`H' LCA Squadron) during the assault on Walcheren (November 1944) and other operations on the River Scheldt in the Netherlands in support of the troops ashore till VE Day and then based on HMS BRONTOSAURUS on the west coast of Scotland until his demobilisation in November 1945. The memoirs are full of useful details about service in landing craft, notably the navigational hazards of landings on hostile shores

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Dieppe

Secret2 signals and messages had been coming and going for two or

three days. On the 18th of August, having embraced our Canadian military - men of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry — we assembled, with the other Landing Ships Infantry (LSIs) at Spithead, off Portsmouth.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, now Vice-Admiral and Chief of Combined operations, visited the LSIs and gave all the personnel a ‗pep‘ talk. Some of these LSIs had been camouflaged, to help to confuse possible spying eyes ashore. I do not recall what was done to Glengyle, but to the best of my recollection we had acquired a second (false) funnel? One or some of the ships had anyway.

I must refrain from repeating too much of the over—all story of the Dieppe operation. This has already been told in detail or in part in so many publications in the past. However I do think it is necessary here to give just a brief background introduction:—

I. The operation remained a reconnaissance in force‘ — no more, no less — with a number of limited objectives Code named operation Jubilee, there were to be five separate landings. The main assault would be over the sea front of Dieppe itself, in daylight. A half hour ahead of this, and just before dawn, there would be simultaneous landings on the eastern flank at Puys and on the western flank at Pourville. All of these were to be made by Canadian troops, with some Royal marine commandos and a small unit of American Rangers. On the outer flanks British commandos would land at Berneval to the east and at Vasterival to the west. There were heavy German coastal artillery batteries at each of these two places, covering the port of Dieppe itself, and it would be the job of the commandos to destroy these so that they should not have the opportunity to create havoc amongst our shipping which would lying off the beach areas. The naval, force included 9 LSIs with 8 destroyers and numerous coastal craft as covering and support groups, plus nearly 200 Landing Craft of various kinds. A huge air support would be given. The destroyer H. M. S. Calpe was the headquarters ship, with the Naval, Military and Air Force Commanders and their staffs embarked. The force would sail from several south coast ports.

II. HMS.Glengyle, with two other LSIs, Prince Charles and Prince Leopold, were to land the RHLI and. the Canadian Essex Scottish in the main assault on the sea front at Dieppe. LCTs were to follow the LCAs and land Churchill tanks.

III. The plan called for the frontal assault to capture the town and to capture the harbour, in the process of which they would link up with, the inner flank attacks. The Royal Navy would enter the harbour with a small force and capture whatever shipping they might take a

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fancy to. Upon completion of all the various tasks the LCAs would then enter the harbour to re-embark the army.

IV. Sadly it was destined not to work out like that at all, only a very few of our troops managed to get into just one or two buildings on or near the sea front. They certainly got nowhere near to the harbour let alone capture it. The entry of the naval force into the harbour was thus abandoned.

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V. The3 landing of the Churchill tanks was a disaster. The

LCTs had a dreadful hammering on that beach. In fact only part of the LCT force was eventually landed, it having been decided by the force commanders that it would have been futile to send the remainder in. Of the tanks that were landed none got very far. Most were destroyed on or near the beach where they had been put ashore. Some LCTs were also lost. Thus it was that the ―re-embarkation‖ of the army eventually became an ―evacuation‖, all from the same open beaches where they had originally been landed.

We sailed from Portsmouth during the evening of the 18th, the plan of

attack being basically the same as that which had been so abruptly abandoned nearly six weeks earlier. There must have been much heart-searching about the security risk - most of the force had been briefed before the cancellation last time! It was a risk which it was obviously felt had to be taken. The weather was good. The tides and times were right - but the Germans would also be quite aware of this fact. By the time the force had formed up au set course for the channel crossing it was dark. Two flotillas of minesweepers had sailed ahead of us to clear a passage through the enemy minefield.

Having successfully negotiated this minefield, the ships stopped, at a position about ten miles from the enemy coastline and, the landing craft crews and assaulting infantry being already embarked in the LCAs, all craft were lowered into the water at 0320, just as planned. I was in No.2 LCA, with Mr. Lowe, leading the port division of five LCAs and our LCS (M). To the right of us, numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 of the starboard division. Our three LCMs, with vehicles and troops, brought up the rear. We, with the two other flotillas of LCAs, and led by an M.L., set course for Dieppe.

All the LSIs had now fulfilled their function and they turned and headed for home. Lucky them!

After about half an hour of the run in, flares were seen some way ahead and on our port bow, these were followed by gunfire, and a battle ensued, mostly of small-arms fire. It was rather frightening to see some of the tracer bullets flying in our direction. My first reaction was of a horrible feeling in my gut; surely we were not going to be annihilated before we had even got within sight of the coast? We were not to know it then, but what had happened was that the force taking No.3 Commando to Berneval had, by a disastrous mischance, encountered a small German coastal convoy, with an armed escort. In the engagement that followed, and which we had been watching, most of the No.3 Commando force was destroyed or put out of action and only one boat actually landed at Berneval. This small contingent which fortuitously included its commanding officer, Major P. Young MC., gallantly attempted its task, but could do no more than engage the battery and contain it for a while.

Even worse than this - the German defenses in the Dieppe Command area had now been fully alerted.

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Footnote to page (108) In the official history of the War at Sea it is noted that seven out of the

original force of twenty-three landing craft actual‘ reached this beach. This is a variance with my impression when I talked with Brigadier Young (about two years ago) who gave me -the impression that his craft was the only one to reach that beach. Take your pick? Whichever may in fact be correct, it still remains a truly gallant effort on their part.

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(Page 109) and4 there was still worse to follow. The two inner f1ank landings were late, and were a disaster. This probably sealed the fate of the entire operation.

Having eventually been released by our M.L. navigational leader, Mr. Lowe took over and, with his customary and almost uncanny skill, took us in to deploy, and to affect our landing, on White beach, absolutely to plan, with the other two flotillas to the left of us, on Red beach.

Our fighter aircraft made a spectacular run, in formation, at very low level above us, to strafe the houses along the sea front with their machine gun fire just before our touch-down. Destroyers also gave covering gunfire as we landed, it was really quite an incredible sight, all three LGA flotillas had touched down on that beach at almost exactly the right time (0520), in exactly the right place, and in exat1y the right order. It could never have been bettered in any exercise: It was to be one of the few things that HAD been done virtually to perfection.

Enemy opposition had been minimal at this stage so far as we personally were concerned on this beach, but their gunfire increased just before we landed and, as we found later, two of our LCAs were lost during the assault. These were No. 5 and No. 7. Brian Sargent was in one of these. I very much fear that few, if any, of the troops and crews in these two craft could possibly have survived the hell and the shambles that this beach was soon to become.

Enemy activity increased still further as we left the beach and preceded to our appointed position offshore, the ‗Boat Pool‘, where we were all to be available as required, to take possible military reinforcements, and/or for the eventual re-embarkation.

Now, to a large extent, we were all on our own and Mr. Lowe, whilst keeping over-all command of the flotilla where he could had little choice then but to leave individual officers and/or coxswains to act on their own initiative. This applied to me also. After all if we could not do this then what had all our extensive training been all about? The ―Boat Pool‖ was under the over-all command of a ―Poolmaster‖ – command of H.V.P. McLintock R.N. who was now responsible for using any craft as might be required.

One of my divisions, No.10, taking a platoon of Royal Marine reinforcements into white beach was hit by a shell and started to take in water. The coxswain gave the order to abandon it, and the crew and the marines swam clear. Some were wounded a few were lost, but many of the remainder were picked up by the destroyer HMS. Brocklesby.

In my own boat we watched LCF (L) 2 engaging shore batteries. (LCP are LCTs converted into gunships to provide close inshore support). She appeared to be heavily outgunned and, with her guns finally silenced, she was sunk. Her C.O. and his second in command, both R.N.V.R. officers, were both killed, and many of the crew also killed or wounded. It suddenly occurred to me that there might well be survivors. We went in to see. Yes, there were men in the water and we lowered

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our5 ramp to pick them up. Many were wounded. A doctor, a Surgeon-Lieutenant R.N.V.R., had been aboard the LCF (L). He was one of the survivors and, from the water, was giving his directions to me about the condition of the men (one apparently had a broken leg) as my bow-man and I hauled them aboard over the ramp. We then took them and unloaded them all on to HMS. Ca1pe. I greatly admired the gallantry and efficiency of that young doctor. He later worked tirelessly and unceasingly aboard Calpe tending the ever increasing influx of wounded men being dumped into that ship. He was later awarded a DSO. for his magnificent efforts.

At 1030 Mr. Lowe had orders from the Poolmaster to close white beach to start re-embarkation of the troops. We were only able to collect LCA 4 and No.11 and our LCS (M), and at 1050 we approached the beach, to be met with heavy enemy fire. It all looked an awful shambles of stranded and wrecked tanks, LCTs, vehicles and bodies on that beach. No signs of life were to be seen, and we thought the beach must be in enemy hands as some of the gunfire seemed to be coming from the beach itself. We withdrew to see if we could get further instructions or information. We didn‘t, so we closed the beach area again, having collected a further three LCAs of another flotilla. Once again we met the same what can only be described as withering fire. This time however I. could just see some movement on the beach, and a small smoke screen had been started, so we went in, beaching at 1115. Our LCS (M) did her best to give us further smoke cover.

I was desperately apprehensive going into that beach. Alright, so i. was bloody dead scared. Anyone who could say they were not afraid has to be a liar. As-we beached I seemed to become a completely different person. I believe that I can, can honesty, say that i lost some of-my sense of awful, dreadful, fear. There became too much to think about and do to have time for fear. Somehow or other I now instinctively took charge. As we touched down and lowered our ramp on to the shingle of that frightfu1 beach we and the other boats, found that surviving troops appeared as if by magic. They rushed into the boats and virtually swamped us. Many were wounded, all appeared utterly exhausted. My boat broached-to, and stuck solid on the beach with the sudden, uncontrolled, influx of men. I literally had to shout my order to the last (five or ten?) of them to get off, until I felt the boat ‗afloat‘ again. To their great credit (and maybe the urgency of my command?) those men obeyed without question. Having got afloat again they worked with me to get our stern round off the beach. Then, with the ramp still down I crammed as many men back on board as I could, So many in fact that it was difficult to raise the ramp again. There were still men for us to try to recover so, while my coxswain - Leading Seaman Bellenie, a Londoner, who was marvelous, absolutely marvelous - kept the boat just afloat, using the engines, I managed to get on to the casing of the boat and haul as many men as I could from the water and up on to the casing with me. On the casing we were, of course, utterly exposed to all the shit the Germans were chucking at us. There was no way at all that any of us could get back in to the cover of the well of the

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boat6 — it was choked with men. I stooped on the casing to try and ‗reduce the target area‘. From my stooping position a bullet or a piece of shrapnel must have passed between my legs, within an inch of my testicles, and hit a soldier who was standing in the well of the boat and right in line with that projectile which had so narrowly missed me. There was obviously no room for him to have got down under cover. As I watched, with horror, the face of that soldier suddenly spurted red, and then became almost lost in a sea of blood. I felt a bullet snick my right arm. It drew blood but was little more than a surface scratch. Sometime later I found a jagged hole about ½‖ in diameter in my steel helmet which I had no recollection of being aware of at the time of contact. Whether it was from a bullet or from a piece of shrapnel I shall never know, but that steel helmet of mine either saved my life or saved me from a nasty head wound. A soldier alongside me on the casing was very still. Whatever hit him must have had his name on and not mine. He was dead.

LCA No. 4, one of my division had five German prisoners among the men who swamped his boat. Full marks to our gallant Canadians, they had worked bloody hard to get those few prisoners and had no intention of leaving them behind. When I saw him later to get his report, the coxswain said that he, also, left the beach unable to raise the ramp because of the bodies of dead and wounded men lying on it. There were also men clinging to the lifelines. A shell alongside holed the boat causing more casualties. All the unwounded Canadians and Germans – one or two of the German prisoners appear also to have been killed - were unloaded on to LCTs, and the wounded onto an LCP (L) No.4 was secured alongside, but when the LCF had to get underway the boat broke adrift, and had to be abandoned, leaving, apparently, only dead on board.

All the boats had a plywood board, about a foot square, fixed and clearly displayed, which bore a reference letter for identification purposes whilst in the boat pool. I looked at my board later on that day; it was peppered with bullet holes. I also found many spent bullets within the well of the boat.

How anyone got off that beach at all has got to be a miracle. All six boats did get off but only after up to ten minutes of ceaseless effort in coping with the situation, and in racing their engines in reverse. We had suffered casualties, many killed and wounded, but between us we had recovered one hell of a lot of men.

From my own craft we unloaded on to a LCT, as per plan, until fire from the shore forced her to move away. It was at 1215 when we unloaded the rest of our men into Calpe who, incidentally, was also under fire from the shore and soon, also, had to move. I‘m not sure of the casualties in my boat. My crews were all but two, at least, of our soldiers had been killed and many wounded.

Mr. Lowe had gone aboard Calpe to report. I was fearful that I might well be ordered back onto that beach again. It could only have been an utter disaster. A lot of water had been shipped before we had got our ramp up. More importantly

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neither7 of my engines were very good; one could only supply limited power, the other was also very doubtful. In addition, as I only discovered later, we were only able to develop very limited stern power. If I had been ordered to go back in I would obviously have obeyed orders and gone. I can only thank god that I was not required to.

It was 1245 when we cast off from Calpe, and for us it was now nearly over. We could really do no more, and we were now ordered by the Force Commander to proceed to a position to await formation of a return convoy. I believe the decision had by now been taken that further evacuation was no longer possible. Mr. Lowe did not rejoin me, he told me to carry on without him. I moved off in tow with our LCS (M). She had only one engine working, but I‘m not too sure which one of us was towing the other at that stage. Were now joined by one of our surviving LCM (Sub Lieutenant Bob Scopes R.N.V.R.) seemingly in perfectly good condition

Another of our flotilla, No.9, already damaged and in tow, was further damaged during an air attack on the return journey home, and had to be sunk by one of our escorting warships.

One or two return convoys were formed. My own return passage, although eventful, was a ‗picnic‘ compared to the inferno that was Dieppe. I logged it, and cannot do better than to repeat here what 1 had noted at the time:-

1300 Passed LCA 10, still afloat but engine room on fire. 1320 Enemy aircraft shot down by our fighter escort. 1340 Told to wait where I was for convoy. 1350 Saw another enemy aircraft shot down. 1400 Joined convoy and got under—way. 1523 Enemy bomber attacked convoy. Brought down by fighter

escort. 1500 Three Do. 217 over. One seemed to pick on me. Altered

course to starboard; stopped engines. Stick of five bombs fell, red 25 about fifty yards. Bleasdale (destroyer) was on our starboard beam about - mile at the time.

1620 I was unable to keep up the speed of the convoy, and was taken in tow by Q3l7

1630 Two Henkel‘s over. Driven off by our fighters. 1715 Passed first swept channel buoy. 1815 Passed last swept channel buoy. (I think?) 1840 Enemy bomber attacked convoy. Chased off by a fighter. 2135 Slipped tow, told to proceed in to Newhaven. 2205 Entered outer harbour. 2300 passed in to inner harbour and made fast alongside M. Ls.

How strange that I remember so little of this return passage. But for my

penciled log, starting to fade now, most of it might well have been completely forgotten, like so many things which must have escaped my memory over the years?

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I do remember my entry into Newhaven. I must have been about the last one to limp in, and was challenged by some clever bastard from the darkness at the end of the jetty

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as8 I made to enter the outer harbour. He was only doing his job I suppose, but I‘m afraid I was in no mood for this, and I can recall using one or two rather choice expletives, which I will refrain from repeating now. I was graciously told that I might enter. As soon as we had made fast I went ashore to find the building to which we had been allocated floor space to sleep. I couldn‘t find it. Not surprising really, .I was, by now, completely knackered. I had to tell the lads ―sorry, we‘ll have to stay here for now‖. To say that the inside of the boat was red with blood would hardly be an understatement, but, using our caps as pillows; we just flopped down and slept where we were until dawn.

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Dieppe summary

I9 never did learn the total casualties of our flotilla, for one reason we had naval beach party personnel attached for this operation and for another it was not known how many might have survived of the craft lost on the beaches. Certainly two officers were missing, presumed killed, as well as many ratings.

We lost nearly half our flotilla at Dieppe, with most of the others suffering damage of some sort or another. One of our LCMs was lost on those dreadful beaches. It was commanded by Jim Allison, my cabin mate in Glengyle. I had seen the boat on the beach, and on fire, during the re-embarkation we got the sad news later that Jim had last been seen trying to get his boat off the beach, and falling in a hail of machine gun fire.

Generally speaking Dieppe had been a gallant but tragic failure. Army casualties had been heavy. Just over 6000 troops had been used. Well over half were lost, although over 2,000 of them were prisoners-of-war. Of the RHLI that we in our flotilla had landed on ―white beach‖ nearly 200 had been killed. Naval losses had also been grievous; a total of 550 officers and men .killed, wounded, or missing. RAF losses both in men and in aircraft were also heavy.

The landing in one sector had gone according to plan. It was the attack by No.4 Commando, under the command of Lieut-Colonel the Lord Lovatt MC, MP. They were landed, on time, at Vasterival, and eventually captured their German battery after a bayonet assault, and spiked the guns. Their losses were light, their objective had been accomplished, and they had re-embarked, within less than three hours. All exactly to plan truly remarkable operation.

Much was said in subsequent reports about ‗lessons learnt‘. There can be no doubt whatsoever those lessons were learnt, very, very valuable lessons, which were applied to future and much larger such offensive operations. But oh how tragic that lesson always seems to have to be learnt the hard way. And yet I suppose there was no other way that lessons such as this could be learnt really. But right until the last moment of the six war years we still seemed to be learning lessons - and now, fifty years later, I still so often read those same words ―lessons learnt‖. During the various briefings before the Dieppe assault we had been told that the R.A.F. would only be using single engine fighter aircraft that day. This information as given as a little additional aid to help ships and craft to be able to identify between friend and foe. In the event when the battle was getting rather desperate the RAF were called -upon to send in some smoke cover. This they did, and very effectively, but using twin engine aircraft. Although it appeared perfectly obvious to me what this was all about many of our doubtless rather trigger happy craft opened fire on those aircraft. There must surely have been a lesson of some sort learnt there? During the six years of the war I cannot recall having too much heartache about the tragedies and the sometimes ghastly experiences. After all this was war, and

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dreadful10 happenings and losses had become almost an everyday part of life, indeed even life itself was reckoned cheap at times, awful though that may sound. I well remember the one occasion when I met up with my old pal, Les Norford, on a leave about a month later, and he asked me about Dieppe. It seems strange now to think that I had so little to say to him about it. It did not seem all that important at the time. This was part of my life now, and as I have already said we so seldom talked about the bad parts, we tried to forget that they ever happened. Aright, so I am talking of some of them now - how else could I recount the story that I am trying to tell? I have to confess, I must confess, that as the years start to catch up on me many thoughts do sometimes tend to haunt me, and to give me the odd sleepless hour or so at night now and again. That five or ten minutes of carnage and chaos on that dreadful beach at Dieppe is one of them. In all honesty I do not think I deserve to reproach myself in any way, but I wish, oh how I wish, that I could convince myself of this. How many lives was I responsible for with my order to those men to get off the boat and back on to that beach? I have always tried to tell myself that I got them all back and more besides - but did I? I finally have to console myself with the sobering thought that had I not given that instinctive order, my losses might well have been catastrophic indeed we might well all have been killed? I have the one truly consoling thought, I have asked myself ―If, with hindsight, I had those five or ten minutes to live through again, what would I, or what could I, have done to change them?‖ And the answer? ―Nothing, absolutely nothing‖ And after all I was not the only one having to cope with problems of that sort. Both in war and in peace one sometimes has to take split second decisions, and to act upon them. They may be right; they may be wrong, but so often there can be no second chances. It would be nice if Dieppe had never happened, but it did happen, and what has been done can never be undone.

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South Bevland September - November 1944

My11 orders upon arrival at HMS Cricket were to report to the

Commanding Officer. All I knew at that time was that there would be two flotillas, 508 and 509. What I did not know was that in fact five LCA flotillas and an LCM flotilla had been ordered to HMS Cricket, and that a signal to the Commanding Officer had indicated that all these flotillas were to be "operationally stored and in all respects ready for sea and war by 2000" that same day, the 22nd of September.

Conditions were rather chaotic, with a lot of boats trying to tie up to a limited number of buoys in the river. All the boats were littered with stores and spares, bags and hammocks. Quite a little shambles really.

I duly reported to the CO. "Are you in all respects ready for sea and war?" he demanded. This caught me very much on the hop. "Yes, I think I am Sir," I replied. "Think?" he said, "You should be sure. Are you or are you not?" Well, I had long since learnt the principle that it is precious little use trying to fart against thunder. "I am ready Sir," I replied.

Oh dear, this was a right old panic. What on earth could possibly be going on?

Just when the panic station finally subsided, I am not too sure, but we did not make any move out of Cricket that night. In fact it eventually transpired that we were now to remain here for a month.

Our destination was to have been Arnhem, in Holland. The British airborne attack on Arnhem had been launched on the 17th of September. It had not gone well and in fact, as history has since recorded, it ended in very gallant failure. The craft, all of us so hastily assembled at Cricket, were to have been transported by sea to Belgium and then overland to Arnhem, although whether to land reinforcements across the Dutch waterways or whether to assist in the evacuation of our airborne forces, I never did find out. All rather dodgy. There was so much involved, and so little time. This must have been proved by events because after all the panic nothing further happened.

We all now settled in at HMS Cricket, where it would seem that I managed to spend most of my evenings in either the 'Swan' or the 'Red Lion' at Bursledon.

However, all the indications were that we were not to be just left here and forgotten. Still more flotillas were arriving and steps were being taken to form an assault force. This finally took shape on the 26th of September. Many flotilla numbers disappeared, including my own, and a force called 'H' LCA Squadron, consisting of six flotillas each of twelve LCAs now took shape. The flotilla numbers within this new force were now

506 (Lieut. R.D. Lund),

508 (Lieut. D.F. Brown),

509 (Lieut. C.W.R. Cross DADS FLOTILLA

510 (Lieut. E.J. Langford),

550 (Lieut. R.J.A. Ellis)

552 (Lieut. R.E. Dobson).

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I had been given command of 508, keeping most of my original personnel and with the addition of other officers and ratings to make up the full strength of a twelve craft flotilla. My sub-divisional officers were now Sub-Lieutenants

Tom Carrick,

Maurice Jones,

Bruce Williams and

'Tiny' Young,

Ray Graham my engineer officer.

Petty Officer Ratcliffe was my RPO. Still not a lot appeared to be happening, however. There were the

inevitable exercises in the boats. I took a break from my evening visits to the local pubs by going to the Town Hall in Southampton one evening to listen to a symphony concert given by the London Philharmonic, and to the Rings Theatre in Portsmouth on another evening to a performance of Madame Butterfly by the Royal Carl Ross opera company.

Whilst at HMS Cricket I shared a Nissen hut with the officers of my own and of another flotilla. I happened to be in my bunk one night, and just nodding off to sleep, when two or three chaps of the other flotilla returned to the hut from a trip ashore - either to the 'Red Lion' or to the 'Swan' (or both?). They were quite well tanked-up needless to say. One of them perched himself upon a table, pulled his trousers tight across his backside, and yelled "Match!‖ One of the others duly obliged with a lighted match. The chap balancing on the table then let wind, to which the lighted match was applied. I watched this little episode with some amazement as the lighted match duly ignited the methane gas just emitted from the trousers of him perched upon the table. There was a small flash of blue flame - such as one would expect to see from the jet of a Bunsen burner. I had not seen anything like this before; neither had I anticipated this result from their little exercise. From being almost asleep I was now well and truly awake. I almost choked myself with laughter. That was quite obviously not the first time these chaps had done this, but I have often wondered since just how many scorched trousers, and bottoms also for that matter, had been suffered in the process. Very dodgy - not a practice to be recommended!

On the 17th of October three flotillas,

509,

550 and

552 had sudden orders to move. They were on their way to Holland. Lieutenant-

Commander S.J. Vernon, RNVR, had been appointed Squadron Officer 'H' LCA, and he accompanied these three flotillas.

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506 (Lieut. R.D. Lund),

508 (Lieut. D.F. Brown),

509 (Lieut. C.W.R. Cross

510 (Lieut. E.J.

Langford),

550 (Lieut. R.J.A. Ellis)

552 (Lieut. R.E.

Dobson).

On the 21st of October a signal was received stating that 506, 508 and 510

were no longer to be regarded as a part of 'H' LCA Squadron, and were to be retained by HMS Cricket. Two days later we appeared to be wanted again, and sailed from Cricket that very afternoon, all three flotillas, once more a part of 'H' LCA Squadron.

There was a ship waiting in the Solent to embark us. It was HMS Northway, a Landing Ship Dock (LSD). This was one of four ships which had been specially built, as the name suggests, to embark all types of landing craft for the purpose of effecting repair work and/or for transporting craft. It worked on something like the principle of a submarine by flooding tanks and partly submerges the ship. Then, having embarked whatever craft was to be

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transported or repaired, the tanks would be pumped out with the landing craft left high and dry inboard, in a huge 'dock' area. That was what now happened to us. When the ship had flooded her tanks an enormous area aft was under water. Rear doors on the ship now opened, and we just sailed in - all thirty-six of us. The tanks were pumped out to allow the water aft to return to the sea, and there we were, high and dry in this 'dock' area aft. Quite a fascinating and ingenious set-up.

Needless to say we were not aboard Northway for repairs, or even for accommodation. We were embarked for transportation. It was quite an extraordinary experience. The whole sequence was completed so quickly and so efficiently. The ship sailed that same afternoon.

The next day, the 24th of October, the ship stopped on the Belgian coast, off Ostend. There now followed the same process, only in reverse, and we were all spewed out into the open sea.HMS Northway returned to UK and we formed up and made our way into Ostend.

The port had only been re-occupied, by the advancing Canadian First Army, on the 8th of September. The Germans, before surrendering the port, had carried out very considerable demolition work and had sunk blockships. It was therefore still not, at this stage, available to our own shipping. One such blockship had been sunk right across the harbour entrance, and we, all thirty six LCAs, had to get in past this blockship one at a time. There was just room and there was no more than just a gentle swell on the water, so that we all got into the harbour and alongside without any damage.

We remained at Ostend for a couple of days. The officers were put up at a hotel called ―Frascatis‖. At least I assumed it was a hotel. Certainly we did not eat there, although this was doubtless because the Belgians did not have the food or the facilities to do it with anyway. Our meals were at No. 60 Transit Camp, at which all our crews had been accommodated.

Our stay at Ostend was just for one purpose, to have the LCAs loaded on to huge railway wagons. This was quite a laborious process, one at a time and one LCA per railway wagon.

When all this had been completed our train, a really hefty load and with at least two engines, chugged its way out of Ostend during the afternoon of the 26th of October. It gradually wound its ponderous way across the low, flat, countryside of Belgium and thence to the dockside at Ghent. Here the work of unloading the boats into the canal commenced immediately. This work was accomplished much more quickly than the loading operation at Ostend. The dockyard teams must have worked well into the night - probably right through it. All was ready for us to move off by the following morning. We, the officers, had stayed at the hotel 'Chateau Rouge' overnight. As far as I can recall it was a perfectly normal and respectable hotel and certainly not the sort of house that its name might imply. Or was it? If it was, then I must have missed out somewhere!

We left Ghent in the morning on the 27th, travelling along the canal which would take us to Terneuzen, in Holland. It was a pleasant uneventful journey, although there was some curiosity shown by the local inhabitants along the way, even though the other three flotillas of 'H' LCA had already covered this same journey about six days earlier. I do not remember having to negotiate locks on the way, but I reckon there must have been at least one, after we had crossed the border from Belgium and had entered Holland. At least we did have

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a brief stop on one occasion. There were a few Dutch people about, and we managed some sort of 'chat' with them. They were so obviously happy to see us, and in their own way to show their welcome. I feel sure that if they had anything to offer we would have been showered with gifts. As it was, more than four years of occupation had left them in very poor shape, with most things, including food, desperately short. Even so one or two of them pressed little (real) silver Dutch coins into my hand as 'souvenirs'. They were a few coins that they had kept hidden away during the German occupation. I still have those coins.

And so it was on to Terneuzen, a small Dutch port on the West Schelde estuary, where we arrived late in the afternoon. Our craft duly secured alongside; we, the officers, found ourselves allocated to mall hotel, the hotel 'Rotterdam'. My crews found themselves in residence at a local school building.

Figure 1 Hotel Rotterdam, Terneuzen, about 1970

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Figure 2 Hotel Rotterdam Terneuzen about 1900

Terneuzen was undamaged. The Germans had retreated through it,

without pause, and it had therefore not suffered from the effects of any fighting. The other three flotillas of 'H' LCA meantime had already been in action2.

In fact they had only just completed the task of taking infantry across the Schelde and landing them on the island of South Beveland behind the German forces already in retreat from advancing units of the Canadian Second Division. The opposition had been light, but they had encountered some shell fire, although suffering no losses of any sort within the flotillas. Ross Salmon, one of 509's3 officers, did not miss the opportunity of getting ashore on South Beveland and nicking a beautiful horse, which he brought back to Terneuzen with him in his LCA. It became quite a familiar sight to see him riding that horse around the cobbled streets of the little town.

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II Breskens

The initial reason for our presence in Holland now began to unfold itself. The

advancing allied armies had by now overrun most of France and some of Holland and Belgium. This included the large port of Antwerp, which had been left virtually unscathed, with its port facilities intact. That was something of major importance and its use would greatly help the movement of supplies to our forces. In fact its use was considered to be vital in this respect. But there was a problem. A very large and significant problem. There was still a pocket of German resistance at and around the small port of Breskens, just along the coast from Terneuzen. Much worse than that, though, the Germans were still established in great strength on the island of Walcheren on the opposite side of the Schelde Estuary, and of Breskens. They had considerable heavy coastal artillery emplacements on Walcheren and thus held complete domination of the approaches and the entrance to the Schelde. This effectively rendered the port of Antwerp useless as no shipping was able to negotiate those German guns. And the German army was committed to holding Walcheren at all costs.

Canadian troops eventually dealt with the pocket holding out at and around Breskens, which they finally managed to clear on the 28th of October.

There remained the problem of Walcheren. This could only be dealt with, or at least expedited by, assault from the sea. A large force of major landing craft, supported by gunfire from the 15" guns of the battleship HMS Warspite, and of two monitors, was to be landed from the sea on to Westkapelle. At the same time we, 'H' LCA Squadron, were to carry troops from Breskens across the Schelde for a frontal assault on the port of Flushing (Vlissingen). This overall operation was code-named 'Infatuate'.

Problems in Holland were complicated by the fact that so many of the coastal areas were low lying and much of it consisted of reclaimed land, protected only by the dyke walls. Many of these dyke walls had been breached, mainly by the Germans for defensive reasons but, in at least one instance, at Westkapelle, by the allies for offensive reasons. Quite a lot of land was therefore flooded.

There would be no question of conference or rehearsals now. We were literally following right behind the army. We were to take the assaulting infantry, of No. 4 (Army) Commando, across to Flushing from Breskens. The follow-up infantry would be a Mountain Brigade of the 52nd Division. It really looked most incongruous to see those men with their shoulder flashes 'Mountain' - in Holland of all places!

The LCA flotillas now had to make their way to Breskens. I had been at Terneuzen for just one day when the Canadians finally cleared the Breskens area. The next day, the 29th, I was ordered to lead the first two flotillas, 506 and 508, from Terneuzen and into Breskens.

We left late that night, and hugged the shoreline. It was not exactly a picnic. The only charts available to me or to any of us of course, were pre-war. All the areas around the Dutch islands are a mass of shoals which, over the years, had tended to shift anyway. Part way along the route my binoculars

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picked up something resembling a pipeline, or maybe a low groin, running out from the land and across my course. I moved out to starboard to go round it. What it was I never did find out - it may well have been just a shadow?

Arrangements had been made for a tiny red light to be shown at the little entrance to Breskens harbour. At 0200 (on the 30th) I picked up that light and led the two flotillas into the small harbour.

Breskens was an awful mess. The armies had flattened it. There was hardly a building left standing. It was also believed to be mined and booby-trapped. The Canadians had hurriedly swept and marked with white tape a few areas which, hopefully, could be regarded as clear.

I do not remember where everyone slept. I do remember where I slept. It was in one of the German pillboxes which had only just had the dead bodies of Germans emptied from it.

That day was spent doing what we could in the way of getting ourselves organised to some extent. One or two houses still having a roof were found, and we made one of these into a makeshift 'wardroom'. There was plenty of time to study Flushing, roughly three miles on the other side of the Schelde, also to have a grandstand view as our aircraft made a number of bombing attacks aimed at the coastal defence guns. We were within very easy reach of all those guns, but did not at this stage receive a lot of gunfire from them. I don't think the Germans could have been aware yet of the naval presence here at Breskens, or of the start of our build-up.

During that night, and roughly twenty-four hours after our arrival, 510 and 550 Flotillas arrived, again under cover of darkness.

The next day, again, remained reasonably quiet until the late afternoon. A loud noise, and getting steadily louder all the time, became apparent. This heralded the arrival of a squadron of army LVTs, amphibious vehicles, which had been making their way along the coast and into Breskens as a further part of the build-up for the forthcoming assault. Three LCAs, just to seaward of them, were covering their approach by laying a smoke screen. Brilliant! That really let the cat out of the bag. The Germans could hardly miss hearing and sighting that little lot, and they started to give us a good plastering with their artillery. For some reason, although goodness only knows why, I went along to the end of the little pier as the LCAs came alongside. Sub-Lieutenant Bobby Webber, of 509 Flotilla was in command of them, and I shall never, ever, forget the expression on his face as he stepped ashore and I greeted him. He was laughing like a drain and his face virtually said it all - "just look what I've stirred up for you lucky chaps".

Later still that afternoon we were given a briefing of sorts by Jimmy Vernon. It was bit of a risky thing to do, gathering so many men all together, because we were still under shell fire. A few ratings were in fact wounded by this shell fire, including one of my own coxswains.

552 Flotilla arrived during the night - what a shambles, we were to land on Flushing at 0545. Not much in the way of briefing for them. I did not see them arrive; I was, by that time, lying on the bare boards of my 'bed' in the bunker. Oh yes, I did sleep. But not a lot, and rather fitfully. It seems so hard to imagine now how one could possibly have slept at all in such circumstances and knowing full well that in only a few hours time we would all be literally facing possible death and destruction.

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In the early hours of the 1st of November I was up. No question of getting dressed; none of us had been out of our clothes since we arrived here. My officers and crews all had their own individual instructions, but it was all rather slap-happy. Having loaded our troops I was the first away, with eight boats of my flotilla, making up serials one and two. We left Breskens at 0445, and set course for Flushing. I had a good landmark - a windmill would you believe? - Which I managed to pick up without trouble.

I knew that we would have the support of artillery fire, for which our army batteries had been building up all around the Breskens area. What I did not know was the extent of that fire power. Soon after starting my run across, the silence was suddenly shattered as all those guns opened up, firing over our heads and on to Flushing. It seemed all hell had suddenly been let loose with a continuous, enormous, grotesque cacophony of sound. As I learnt later, that concentrated barrage was the biggest since the one at El Alamein, in the Western Desert, back in October 1942.

We arrived off our target a little early so had to wait for our batteries to stop firing of course. As soon as the gunfire stopped, I took my LCA in to the beach. We did not appear to have been spotted. I had to land first, with just my own boat and to put ashore a small army recce party and a small RN beach party. In the process of my beaching, I was unfortunate enough to manage to sit on a submerged beach obstruction which tore a hole in the bottom of my boat, and the water started to come in rather rapidly. My party, however, were all safely landed, in the right place, and, as I remember, at just about the right time. The main function of the recce party was to rush a German concrete pillbox, just a few yards above our touch-down point, and to drop hand grenades through the gun slits and thus kill its residents. They must have accomplished their task because as I was pulling away from the beach I saw the letter 'G', in red being flashed on a small signal lamp. This was the all-clear for my serials one and two to proceed in to the beach with their troops.

So far all was well, some machine gun fire had started, and I saw tracer bullets coming from the upper floor of a house, but all my boats landed their troops, just as planned, and left the beach.

However, I now found that I, in my boat, was rather in trouble. The boat was rapidly filling with water, a lot faster than my men were able to pump it clear, and I could only move very slowly away from the beach. Nevertheless I reckoned that if I could keep the engine room sealed I should be able to get back alright. I soon started to have my doubts about this, but fortunately, after about half an hour, Tom Carrick appeared and came alongside to see if I needed assistance. I did. With my crew I transferred to Tom's boat and took mine in tow. I need hardly have bothered, within about five minutes it sank, just about in the middle of the Schelde estuary. Tom had almost certainly saved my four crew and me from a watery grave.

I now collected together as many of my boats as I could and set off again back to Breskens, as I had been ordered. On the way there were signals for help from an LCA of 506 Flotilla. I indicated the harbour entrance to my other boats and sent them on, then went to help the other boat. It had both engines broken down and a badly wounded Sub-Lieutenant D.W. Quill. We took Bill aboard. Tom gave him morphia from his first aid bag, and we got the boat in tow and made our way back to Breskens.

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III the Landings

Army battledress was worn during most of the time that we were in

Holland. This also included army boots. I'd been having trouble with one of my feet; the boots were obviously ill fitting and my left heel had been bothering me. I had not done anything about it, and reckoned it would just have to keep for another week or so. But I now found that I was in real trouble. The foot had been immersed in the water in my boat for quite some time. Just what the significance of this might have been I had no idea, except that it was by now terribly swollen and very painful. What I certainly do know is that when I set foot ashore I almost fell. I was unable to stand on that foot, and hobbled along to the first aid point. I had only gone along to get a dressing, but from then on I got caught up in the system. It was a job getting that boot off. My foot was indeed very badly poisoned and I was passed on to a Field Dressing Station. There my foot seemed to disappear under a load of bandages. I found that it was useless protesting that I only wanted the dressing. I was handed my boot (bloody decent of them!) and then shoved straight into a field ambulance. Oh dear, how ignominious - fancy being whisked away at this stage, with a poisoned foot of all things!

There were four people in that ambulance. Bill Yuill was one, he was laid out on a stretcher complete with a drip injection of some sort, there was myself, and there were two German walking wounded. I suppose I had been classified as walking wounded, although in fact I was quite unable to walk. Anyway, I was given responsibility for the safe keeping of those two Germans. Bill was totally incapacitated, and was restless and unhappy. I had only one good leg but I had my revolver and tried hard to convince Bill that all would be well: he could see that I had the revolver in my hand and with my finger on the trigger. Poor Bill - I guess he just wanted his own hands on a gun!

We were en route for the 12th Canadian General Hospital in Bruges, not all that far of course but on the way the two Germans indicated by 'sign' language that they wanted to urinate. I stopped the ambulance. I sensed Bill become taught, very taught. I could well understand this. After all he was rather helpless, and he was fully aware of it. I told him there was no need to worry, but somehow I don't think I really convinced him. My finger was firmly on the trigger of my revolver as I indicated, via the revolver, to the two Germans to stay right where they were and to urinate down on to the roadway. I don't think either Bill or I really needed to worry too much. Our two Germans had had enough. They made no effort to do anything but relieve themselves. For me it was a slightly traumatic moment, and one which haunted me for many years afterwards. I so often asked myself the question: "If either, or both, of those men had jumped out, would I have pulled that trigger?" To my eternal shame I know that the answer would have been yes. And yet, with the passage of the years, the thought of being faced with the possibility of having killed a man, or men, in cold blood appals me. I have to confess that on the odd occasion when this situation came to mind I would feel a little lump in my throat as I pondered my dilemma. I guess so many men would not have given it a second thought. I suppose I

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wouldn't at the time, but to me it would have been dreadful to have had to live with it in later years.

I was shoved into a bed in the hospital, and saw no more of Bill until after the war. He had been taken back to England. There were spare beds in my ward. They soon started to fill up, with 'H' LCA officers claiming a share. Maurice Jones was first. His boat had been sunk by a shell. He told me that he was taking over a party of four or five soldiers with some special equipment of some sort. The soldiers, he believed, had all been killed, as was his stoker. Maurice had been wounded in the knee by a piece of shrapnel. Tom Carrick had also picked up Maurice and his surviving crew members. Well done Tom - a proper little water ambulance, in miniature. 'Pid' Pidden of 506 followed soon after. He also had shrapnel wounds. Lieutenant Dobson, 552 Flotilla Officer, followed. 'Dobbie' appeared to have been very badly shell-shocked, although I reckon he also must have got caught up with the system. He did rather better than I could though - he discharged himself the next morning and made his own way back to Breskens.

This was a real hospital, with real female nurses. One lovely young nurse asked me the question, "How do you sleep at night?‖ It was an unfortunate way to have phrased it and I could not resist the reply, "With my eyes shut". I should not have embarrassed the poor girl really, but she took it in good part.

The chap in the next bed to me was a young Canadian subaltern. He roared with laughter, thought it a huge joke. He did not have too much to laugh about really, having had a large chunk of his back shot away. He had been having a course of injections and got down to his last one, number ninety I think it was, and he said to our lovely little nurse, "Right, that's your lot, you can put that needle away now and let me have a little bit of peace". I was watching her as she smiled sweetly. "That's what you think," she laughed, "I have instructions to carry right on with another full course". She had, and she did, too. My young friend mumbled something under his breath, obviously not for the nurse's ears.

'Pid' was discharged from the hospital on the 7th, and Maurice on the 10th, but I was still kept in for a further three days. My foot, it seemed, must have been rather worse than I had thought. I was eventually discharged on the 13th of November, made my way to the nearest café for a large cognac, and was then delivered back to Terneuzen.

The flotillas had been back in Terneuzen for quite some time, having first completed about a couple of days of ferrying duties. The fighting on Walcheren itself had gone on for some days but the enemy gunfire from around Flushing had been gradually eliminated (so far as the flotillas were concerned) and was eventually limited to just one battery. After one LCA had already been hit and its officer killed12 trying to spot this gun, Tiny Young went out and drew its fire. This enabled the gun to be pinpointed. A couple of RAF Typhoons then came over and they apparently managed to knock it out, thus taking the pressure off and finally, at about 1600 on that first day, allowing an uninterrupted build-up to continue. Tiny Young was mentioned in despatches for his part in this.

The attack on Flushing had been a success, although not without some cost. 'H' LCA Squadron had lost two officers killed and four wounded. There were casualties among the ratings but I was never able to ascertain just how many. Within my own flotilla I had one officer (Maurice) wounded, one rating

12

Lawrence Graham Murray Hall

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killed and a number wounded. I had lost two LCAs sunk. Boats had also been lost by the rest of the squadron.

The attack at Westkapelle had also succeeded, but their losses had been very heavy, indeed.

The island of Walcheren was captured. The German garrison finally surrendered on the 8th of November. The total overall cost to our forces had been heavy. I saw it reported as over 7,000 killed or wounded. I do not know the extent of the enemy casualties (or of the Dutch civilian casualties), but 29,000 German prisoners were taken, and the way was now free to start clearing the Schelde of mines and thus to open the port of Antwerp.

Figure 3 Breskens, 1st Nov 1944, LCA 878, 843, 882, 863, ?, 1221, 998? 1009, 1227, ? The flottila in the background could be LCA 509

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Figure 4 Flushing - 1th Nov 1944 LCA 817?

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IV After action

Captain A.F. Pugsley, DSO, DSC, RN, had been the

officer commanding the naval forces involved in the Walcheren offensive. Upon its successful conclusion he set up headquarters at Bergen op Zoom and then assumed responsibility for control of the naval forces which would now be involved in operations around the Dutch islands and waterways until the end of hostilities. His command would be known as Force 'T', and it included 'H' LCA Squadron. We were to remain in Holland until the war in Europe was over, although we did not know that at the time, of course.

A few more landing craft would be coming over to join the forces already there, mainly LCS (M) s, but with just a few LCMs. There would also be some light coastal forces. So far as the military were concerned, this would consist of one army and three Royal Marine Commandos and a few Canadians, plus an RAF Balloon Barrage Unit. It seems strange to look back on it now, but this then virtually comprised the entire left flank of the British Army Group. I have often wondered if the Germans had been aware of that fact.

LCAs were to be used as the situation might demand in supporting the military, in whatever capacity they required, over the Dutch islands and inland rivers and canals. It would involve some patrolling, and of landing troops on German occupied islands for small scale raids, but mainly to land, wait for, and take off, patrols to probe and test the enemy strength, and to capture prisoners.

'H' LCA would now be scattered around the Dutch waterways. On the 17th of November

506,

510,

550 and

552 Flotillas left Terneuzen for various destinations. We, with 509, were to

remain at Terneuzen for the time being. A flotilla of LCS (M) s, manned by Royal Marine crews, arrived at the end of the month. They were much better armed and equipped than we were for patrol activities, and they took over these patrols from our LCAs in the Western Schelde estuary.

On the 20th of November came something of a turning point so far as 508/509 were concerned. Ross Salmon found a NAAFI store - two NAAFI stores in fact - from each of which we were able to collect good stocks of spirits and of cigarettes. This was a really big breakthrough and it was the first time in three weeks that we'd had access to liquor. We had something of a party that evening in our hotel by way of celebration. This also happened to coincide with the arrival of a small ENSA group, who stayed with us in the hotel, and we invited them to join us in our party.

The ENSA group remained here in Terneuzen for about four days, and gave two or three shows for as many servicemen as possible in the area. They were very much welcomed.

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Figure 5 ENSA - Terneuzen 17th Nov 1944 (I Vaughan on right)

I visited Antwerp one day during December. There must have been a

reason for this, but it escapes me. I know that I visited a Bols gin distillery one day seeking supplies. Maybe that was the reason? I also went to Ostend one day, staying overnight at the Verricot Hotel, and returning to Terneuzen the following day. There was another ENSA show later in December, and it would be about this time that home leave was started. And very nice too. This had to be taken in three groups. I did not go until the last group, probably because I knew that we would be making a move before long. On the 19th of December I was taken by car to Goes, in South Beveland, just for the day, and I know that this was related to making arrangements for our forthcoming move. On the 21st of December the second leave party left - they would be home for Christmas.

It was not too long after our arrival in Terneuzen that one or two officers acquired the company of attractive 'poppies‘. In some cases though it was not for very long - a few of these young ladies had also consorted with Germans and the irate local townsfolk did not waste a lot of time in exacting their vengeance. All such offending young ladies were yanked out and sat in the town square where their heads were unceremoniously shaved of every single lock of their lovely hair.

Needless to say one or two parties were organised, inviting some of the local girls, just as soon as we had managed to accumulate reasonable supplies of alcohol and of food (from our rations) to be able to entertain with. I do not remember too much about these, except that I never seemed to be getting an awful lot of sleep for one reason or another, and found I had to resort to 'pep' pills once or twice - which I managed to coerce from an RNVR quack - to keep me awake for a party. I think I succeeded in overlooking to tell him that this was what I wanted the pills for.

There was an acute shortage of food in Holland. At Terneuzen, though, they did seem to have a plentiful supply of oysters. I was invited by the mayor to an oyster and beer party one day, but had to tender my apologies - I don't like oysters. Pity.

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A couple of Dutchmen got one or two of my officers to accompany them on a few car trips across the border into Belgium and on into Brussels, where they appear to have fixed up a barter arrangement. It would seem that the young officer provided some sort of 'pass' to get the car across the border. At the same time this provided the said young officer with the opportunity to visit Brussels. They went out loaded with oysters and came back with butter, sugar, tea, coffee and other goodies, all severely rationed or non-existent to the people of Terneuzen. I suppose all this amounted to a nice little bit of black-market manipulation really.

I had made Maurice Jones my paymaster. He did not have a difficult job in this respect. I reckon most of the ratings - and indeed not a few of the officers - hardly drew a single guilder in pay all the time they were in Holland! There were several reasons. There was not normally a lot to spend money on, most of the ratings got themselves 'adopted' by Dutch families who welcomed them into their homes and, last but not least, there was the black market. Goodness knows what went on under that category. I did not get involved myself - fool that I was? - But I did not ask any questions. Cigarettes were one of the main commodities. The Dutch had no cigarettes. On one occasion when I went along to the local barber for a haircut (and beard trim) I tendered guilders for payment. The barber was not at all happy and implored me would I please pay in cigarettes. Yes, I did.

On the 16th of December the German armies commenced their counter offensive in the Ardennes. This was a massive onslaught, and for about a week there was a very tense situation. We were not directly involved in all this, unless of course the unthinkable happened and the enemy achieved a major success and breakthrough. Oh dear, I just did not bear thinking about. There was one day, well one night really, during this period that we received information that an attack by German parachutists in our area was believed to be imminent. I was ordered to allocate the landing craft crews to augment the commandos guarding various key positions - bridges and such like. Having done this, I then went round to the school, where we had our Flotilla Office, and joined Petty Officer Ratcliffe, plus a few messengers, and made this my headquarters for the night.

I happened to be the last to leave our wardroom, on my way to the school, and, just as I was about to leave, the telephone rang so I stopped to answer it. The voice at the other end of the line said, "Carry out operation Milk", after which the phone then went dead. Great stuff - what on earth was 'Operation Milk'? I never did find out.

The night passed without incident, thank goodness, except that it was goodbye to yet another night's sleep.

Christmas was spent at our hotel in Terneuzen. It was a jolly enough occasions. There was a Christmas tree, I remember, because some of the irrepressible young sub-lieutenants blew up condoms which they used as balloons to help decorate the tree and the dining room. A 'balloon' was also tied to the tail of the hotel's dog. I did not really subscribe to all this activity, especially as the hotel proprietor had two young daughters, in their early teens. However there did not seem to have been any offence taken.

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V Xmas 44

On the 28th of December we, 508 and 509, left Terneuzen en route for

South Beveland. We sailed up the Western Schelde to a little place called Hansweert, in South Beveland, and passed through the lock gates. We had to spend the night there. There was a large naval barge of some sort secured alongside in a small dock area. Having made fast the LCAs, we had to crowd aboard that barge and just stretch out and sleep wherever we could find a vacant space on the decks. Another restless night. This was not helped by a signal I received, warning of a possible small German infiltration. I posted appropriate sentries, of course, and we 'slept' fully clothed anyway, but nothing developed.

The next morning we set off from Hansweert and along the South

Beveland Canal eventually arriving at another small place called Wemeldinge. Here we passed through the lock and thus out into the Eastern Schelde. Thence along to a tiny place called Sas van Goes. Through yet another lock here and so along the Goes canal to Goes (pronounced with a gutteral H, as Hoose) where we arrived that evening. Goes was not a very large town, but it was the capital of South Beveland and was now to become our base. We, 508, were destined to remain here but 509 moved off elsewhere a few weeks later.

The officers were all accommodated at the small 'Hotel Centraal' at one end of the tiny town square, where we took over the lounge and established it, complete with its telephone, as our wardroom. Again we had the use of a school as a barracks and where we also established a flotilla office. The canal ended here in Goes where our boats had been secured in the basin, just a short walk from the town square. It was really quite a pleasant little town, at least it was a few months later on. Right at that time it was cold, very cold. 1944/1945 was another cold winter, there was often snow underfoot and the canal tended to ice in at times.

Heating was somewhat limited. Coal, for heating the hotel boilers, was rationed and very short indeed. An army lorry would deliver coal about every other month, probably even less frequently than that. Many of the townsfolk would gather round to watch the phenomenon of a coal delivery and to gather up any small lumps and dust left as spillage in the roadway.

Baths were strictly rationed, almost non-existent, we had to take our turn. There was sometimes an army bath unit in the area with some warm water but a bitterly cold ambient temperature!

The people here seemed quite a hardy lot; patient, long suffering and very friendly. Once again a lot of them welcomed many of the sailors into their homes. I do not remember seeing very much in the few shops. Even the café, although it boasted limited stocks of beer, such 'beer' had little or no alcohol content.

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On the 1st of January I took the boats round to Kortgene in North Beveland, and situated looking on to the narrow channel dividing North from South Beveland. To do this, it was first necessary to pass through the lock at Sas van Goes. We should be doing this many times during the coming months. There were two or three Dutchmen there whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to operate the lock. Like so many people in Holland they always wore clogs. I never saw them in any other sort of footwear. We all got to know them well, of course, even though it would usually be at night when the boats were taken through.

I wish I could remember just what Kortgene was all about. I know that there was a naval vessel at anchor there which was some sort of headquarters ship. Certainly it did not seem too clever to me to be making this trip in daylight. The Germans were occupying the island of Schouwen, just across the Eastern Schelde from North Beveland, and they were able to see any movements quite clearly. They lobbed over a few shells at us, just to let us know that they were able to see us, I suppose. I don't think they were over generous in this respect, thank goodness, because the commando units occupying North Beveland were more than happy to see the enemy gunfire, spot the position of the German guns, and then lob a few of their own shells over.

This, incidentally, supplied a little foretaste and indication of what was to be our role here. Two or three commando units were holding North Beveland, and their job was to contain the Germans still occupying the islands to the north. The LCAs would be patrolling the waters of the East Schelde, and also take commando patrols across to Schouwen whenever they called upon us to do so.

I went round to Kortgene again the next day. I do wish I could remember why.

Then the following day it was a trip by car to Antwerp and then to Alost, for pay. That must have been one of the very few occasions that I had to collect any money for pay.

In addition to the ration of bottles of spirits that we purchased from the NAAFI for our wardroom, we also found another source of supply. This was of gin. I never did know just where it came from (did it matter?) but it was distilled under British control somewhere or other. It was called 'Victory Gin'. We managed to purchase quite large amounts of the stuff to keep our wardroom well stocked. It was firewater! I remember on a couple of occasions having my breakfast, duly washed down with coffee. The coffee seemed to have the effect of re-activating the overnight gins that I had partaken of with the result that, although I had been perfectly sober and normal before my breakfast, I actually felt more than a little light headed as I subsequently made my way from the wardroom and along to the canal basin to supervise the morning work on the boats. Yes, that Victory Gin certainly was firewater!

On the 5th of January the second leave party returned. So now it was my turn. The next day I left Goes with my leave party, accompanied by Bobby Webber in charge of his leave party from 509 Flotilla.

It was quite some trip. We were taken by road to Ostend. Here we joined LST 80. There were a

number of LSTs now earmarked for the cross channel run taking men home on leave. The ship sailed from Ostend the next morning, arriving in the Thames estuary, off Southend, in the late afternoon. She had to anchor here for the

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night. The following day it was on to Tilbury where we disembarked. Here I lined the two parties up in the docks area while I searched for the customs officer to clear us. Having found him, I brought him along to where the lads had been fallen-in. "Do they have anything to declare?" he asked. "Most unlikely I should think," I replied. "There is really not much in Holland worth smuggling in." "Just ask them to put their kit bags down," he said. When I gave the order to do this, I was rather dismayed to hear a number of rather suspicious tinkling and clanging noises, including the loud uninterrupted ringing of an alarm clock. Oh dear, what on earth had those chaps got tucked away in their kit bags?? My customs man was great - he pretended he heard nothing and told me we might carry on. Actually some of the chaps could well have picked up a few things in Belgium; gold watches were obtainable and were a favourite. Any trinket such as this would be carefully tied up in a condom and submerged into a bottle or jar of hair cream. Rather crude as compared to modern day smuggling techniques, I suppose? Oh well, never mind, we were through customs.

From Tilbury we had to go on to HMS Cricket, yes - all the way to Southampton, where we stayed overnight. Then the next afternoon, the 9th of January, it was off home. I arrived that same afternoon for a little over eight days of glorious, luxurious leave, and of relaxation.

I left home at 0630 on the 18th, arriving at Cricket in the early afternoon, here to stay overnight. It was some night. Bobby and I had quite a fair old skinful at the bar in Cricket. Supper in the wardroom, at which I can remember we managed to make something of a nuisance of ourselves throwing bread rolls at each other. Then after supper Bob and I repaired down the road to the 'Swan', about which I remembered nothing, absolutely nothing. We returned to the bar at Cricket just in time for a nightcap, my memory returned and I remembered everything quite clearly from then on.

The two leave parties left Cricket at 0740 the next morning, and arrived at Purfleet in the afternoon, here we reported at S4 transit camp. This was something not easily forgotten; it was cold, it was snowing, and we were under canvas. We remained here until the following evening, then left, in a snowstorm, to join LST 161 at Tilbury. The ship left Tilbury the following morning, anchored off Southend, and then sailed from there in the evening, arriving in the West Schelde estuary the next morning. Here she anchored off Hansweert and remained until the following morning, when she finally made her way into Antwerp. We had to stay the night here - Bob and I were at the Hotel de Londres - and the next morning, the 24th we left Antwerp, by road, arriving back in Goes in the early afternoon. What a journey; eighteen days, of which I spent less than half of these actually at home.

And my goodness, what a lot of effort and organisation was involved in all this, especially when it is remembered that all men were being given home leave whenever the situation permitted.

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VI Holland – The end in sight

Whilst we were away one or two LCAs of 508/509 had already taken a

commando patrol over to the island of Schouwen and brought back a few German prisoners.

509 left Goes during February for other parts of the Dutch network of waterways, and at that same time Ross Salmon, with three boats, left 509 for detached service, based at 's-Hertogenbosch. He then remained there, and achieved quite a reputation. Whenever taking troops for their patrol activities he never wore his service cap or steel helmet, he wore a top hat. Goodness only knows where he found that, but needless to say it became quite renowned throughout the area, and also served as something of a morale booster. Not that any of our commandos needed their morale boosting. In my considered opinion they were mad, quite mad, all of them, every single one of them, utterly mad.

Bill Cross, with the remainder of his (509) Flotilla, were used for one of the crossings of the river Rhine towards the end of March. I had been alerted to this possibility. In fact, I had fully expected that the whole of 'H' LCA Squadron would be involved in the Rhine crossing. Although they would have been ideal for this purpose, I imagine it was found to be just too cumbersome. Each LCA had to be lifted aboard a tank transporter to carry it to its destination, and then, of course, lowered by a heavy crane back into the water (i.e. the river Rhine)

The 509 convoy of nine LCAs, on their tank transporters, happened to be halted along the roadside at Nijmegen when General [i.e. Field Marshal] Montgomery was being driven by in his staff car. Upon seeing naval caps he stopped his car, got out, and said, "Good gracious me, what on earth is the navy doing here?" Bill Cross was observed to rip off one of his smartest salutes and, grinning all over his face like half a dozen Cheshire cats off to some mad tea party, was heard to say, "We're here to take you across the Rhine, Sir".

Meanwhile we were the flotilla left at Goes to continue the night patrols in the East Schelde and to take the commandos over to Schouwen for their little night sorties. I took some of these over, and planned or controlled others. Now I know all this may sound simple and straightforward, but it was far from being so really. Times and tides and weather all had to be studied carefully, courses charted and constantly revised. The charts available to me were not too reliable anyway, and as I had already said the estuary was full of shoals which had more than likely shifted from the positions as actually shown on these charts. The nights had to be dark and overcast. So often the moon would appear. This would be directly behind us on a crossing from North Beveland to the island of Schouwen, thus silhouetting our approach perfectly for an enemy who could hardly fail to see us. On a dark night, however, we would be able to make a silent and hopefully unobserved approach and could thus be reasonably sure of landing our troops undetected. I seemed to spend hours, even days, planning a night operation, so often to be postponed at the last moment for one reason or another. Several times I even got as far as the lock gates at Sas van Goes only to have yet another postponement.

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I have so little in writing and basically only my memory for such a lot of all this. I know that I suffered much tension and many sleepless nights - and very often with little or nothing to show for it all. Although it was customary to take each day as it came, and outwardly at least to make light of problems and hazards, deep down I, and I do not doubt most other officers, took things rather more seriously of course. After all it was the lives of all those for whom you were responsible, and your own life, which was ultimately at stake, something never to be treated lightly. Having said that however, in the final analysis risks, inevitably, had to be taken and accepted. I really did work so very hard, though, with my research and planning to try to keep those risks down to a reasonable, acceptable, minimum. I have always liked to believe that my efforts were not without some success in this respect and that they did make a contribution. But I suppose I shall never really know.

The procedure for operations involving the commandos would normally be for one or two LCAs to pass through the lock at Sas van Goes, proceed along to a little place called Colijnsplaat in North Beveland, beach the craft there, embark the troops, carry them over to Schouwen, wait for them, and then bring them back to Colijnsplaat upon completion of their task.

Only in rare circumstances were these trips attempted on anything but a rising tide. To be stranded on Schouwen or on a sandbank on a falling tide could only have been a disaster. We would have presented a wonderful target to German gunners come daylight.

The commando patrols did not often come back empty-handed. They usually seemed to get hold of a German or two. But if they did not make contact with any Germans, they would bring back a few Dutch civilians, for interrogation purposes. I don't know whether the Dutch resented this or not. The ones I brought back did not seem unduly perturbed, so I suppose they came more or less willingly.

As I have already said, I was able to keep so little in the way of notes or reports of my activities whilst in Holland. However, I did find a carbon copy of one report which I appear to have retained for some reason. This was of an abortive raid which was attempted one night in February 1945. Whilst it is hardly an effort to be proud of, it is probably worth recording here as giving some indication of the conditions and problems with which one had to contend. Alright, so this particular effort failed, but many others didn't. It also serves to give some indication of the vicissitudes of war, and of the old old adage "You can't win 'em all!! You win some, you lose some..."

I was ordered to take three craft and land a commando patrol on the German held island of Schouwen. Normally it was the practice for the Flotilla Officer to make his own way across. However, some 'navigational' craft had started to appear on the scene, and for this operation I was to have one of these to lead me across. I was also to have an escort of two LCS (M) s on this occasion.

I passed through the lock at Sas van Goes just after midnight and proceeded to Colijnsplaat where I beached my three craft, at 0045. Here I loaded the military - half a troop from No. 4 Commando - that were to carry out the patrol. Then, led by my navigational leader, I proceeded towards Schouwen. We arrived at a buoy en route at which I was to rendezvous with our LCS (M) escort. By this time a fog, which had been threatening, started to close in. I received a message, via W/T, that the two LCS (M) s had run aground and that

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two others had now been diverted from their patrol duties to join me. Whilst waiting for these to arrive, I had a chat with the officer in command of the navigational craft whose job it was to lead me to the landing position and asked his opinion as to our chance of making a successful landfall in the now worsening conditions. He reckoned we had a 'fifty-fifty' chance of doing this, so I decided that I just had to take that chance and continue with the operation.

It was just about dead low water, so there were many shoal patches we had to contend with. I do not know just what navigational aids my leader had in his craft, but I know that he had echo-sounding equipment and that he was using this to keep altering course to dodge the shoals. At this point, perhaps not unreasonably, I lost my bearings to some extent. I knew roughly where I was, of course, but now had to leave myself in the hands of the navigational leader - well, after all that was what he was there for.

We never did sight the shoreline. The first we knew was when, quite literally, we hit it. The navigating craft just ran straight on to the shingle of the dyke wall. She was not supposed to do that, needless to say. Because of the poor visibility we were all in very close line ahead, so that with its sudden unscheduled stop I just ran straight into the stern of her. The LCA next in line ran into the back of me so that between us, even though we had not been moving very fast, we pushed our luckless leader quite hard-on to the shingle. And that, I felt, rather tended to settle the issue. I could hardly now put the military ashore in disarray, and unable to tell them precisely where they were. I reckoned my first priority now was to get that beached craft clear. I got a line across, and with the two of us using maximum stern power eventually got it clear of the shore. This must have taken fifteen or twenty minutes and necessitated quite a bit of shouting of instructions to and fro.

In the meantime one or two of the other craft had started to disappear into the fog and/or on to the beach. Great! I really did seem to have the makings of a mini-disaster on my hands.

As soon as I had got the navigational craft clear, I assumed complete command (I was designated the Naval Force Commander), which I would have done anyway of course as soon as my 'pilot' had indicated my beaching position. With some difficulty, and after losing more time, I managed to regroup my force. In the meantime, though, we had lost a fair bit of time, and the shouting might well have unduly compromised the essential initial surprise needed by the commandos had I now landed them. I discussed all this with the Military Force Commander, a Captain, who was, of course, with me in my boat. Obviously he was not too happy about it all and between us we agreed that to attempt to continue with the operation was now really out of the question.

As far as I can remember, I then led the force on the return passage, the navigating craft having probably damaged some of its navigational equipment. It was still a thick fog, it was still low water. The tide was by now though beginning to make - just as well because on several occasions we actually just brushed the bottom. German artillery had by now opened up and nine or ten rounds were fired at us. None of these connected - I doubt whether the enemy were able to locate us visually anyway. I certainly could not see their gun flashes to be able to send in a position to our own guns on North Beveland. I reckoned they had to be somewhere around Zierikzee - which was hardly a lot of use of course. However this did serve to indicate that the enemy had in fact been alerted, and the decision to abandon the operation had been the right one.

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Somewhat fortuitously maybe I managed to locate the buoy which had been our earlier rendezvous point. Here I asked, via W/T, for a dimmed light to be shown on the beach at Colijnsplaat, and at the same time told the two LCS (M) s to leave me, to resume their patrol duties.

Having found my way to Colijnsplaat I beached my three craft and unloaded the commandos. Then I had to 'grope' my way back to the lock at Sas van Goes. It was always easy enough to leave the lock, but with a very narrow gap as its entrance and in darkness and in fog I was not exactly happy in contemplating my prospects of now finding it. However, as I neared my destination the army - or someone - ashore very kindly 'obliged' by firing a few Very lights for me until I had made my way into the lock entrance.

We finally tied up outside the lock gates at 0600, to wait while the lock-keepers opened up for us. And so ended a long, disappointing, and very frustrating night. We had achieved precisely nothing for our efforts - but on the plus side, though, had suffered no casualties, no losses, and not even any apparent damage. I suppose I just had to be thankful for small mercies.

Incidentally though, whilst saying "no casualties", I found a sentence at the end of my report in which I submitted that our military might perhaps be a little more careful with their arms whilst aboard. All their weapons had been fully loaded and ready to fire of course, and one of the chaps managed to fire a round from his rifle. Fortunately it did not hit anyone but embedded itself in the boat somewhere. As I have said before, our commandos really were all quite mad!

I had some sympathy for the navigational leader. Under normal reasonable conditions I've little doubt he would have got me there alright. But in that awful fog it really was quite a risk anyway. It just didn't come off, that's all. In all honesty, I don't suppose I would have done much better myself than he did. I guess he was not the only one with 'egg on his face' though - after all I was the Naval Force Commander, so mine was the ultimate responsibility for it all. Oh well - it was disappointing, but it was not the end of the world!

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Holland - March 1945

During our incursions to Schouwen Lieutenant-Commander Vernon

would usually be in the command post at Colijnsplaat, together with the military controllers. For some reason he was elsewhere on one occasion, and I was ordered to be the naval director, while Tom Carrick was to take the two boats over to Schouwen. He had an LCP (Navigation) to lead him to his point of landing, with Lieutentant W.E.M. Grint in the LCP designated as the naval force commander. It was an uneventful night so far as that was concerned, but it was something of an education to me. Just who kept me company in that command post, I do not remember, except that I know it included two Royal Marine Commando officers, one a Lieutenant-Colonel, and that 47 was the RM Commando involved. Listening to these chaps chattering away and cooking up all sorts of fantastic ways and means of killing Germans just about made my hair stand on end - especially as all of their mad and unusually quite impossible schemes involved the use of LCAs. They were a bloodthirsty lot alright.

They had seen quite a lot of action and had apparently assumed a rather 'relaxed' relationship with their men which had started to bother them a little, wondering what was likely to happen when they eventually got back to UK and a disciplined way of life again. One of them told me that their steward brought along his porridge for breakfast one morning which he thought tasted 'different'. He said to the steward, "Ask cook what's up with the bloody porridge this morning, will you?" Off went the steward, then "after a few minutes" he said, "Along came our big burly cook, sleeves rolled up, hands on hips, just about filling the doorway with his presence, and stood glaring at me." "Well, so what's wrong with the fookin porridge then?" he demanded. Yes, I could see they did seem to have the makings of something of a problem!

Maurice Jones went off with a couple of boats once or twice on special assignment. He went across to the island of Tholen where he made contact with Dick Ellis and landed patrols once or twice on another part of Schouwen. He did good work and was mentioned in despatches.

It was necessary on occasion to go along the coast to Wemeldinge. I took a boat along one day. That was foolish, I should have pulled rank, as I freely confess I so often did, and sent one of my officers. It was cold, bitterly cold. On the way back we headed into the wind. The spray from the bow of the boat was blowing into and over me at a steady pace. As it landed on me it froze, froze solid. I was wearing an oilskin, and the salt sea water formed into a sheet of ice right down the front of it. But that was not all; it even froze into icicles on my beard.

From where we were stationed in Goes I could see, night after night, German V2 rockets, fired from their launch sites in Holland and Germany, soaring up into the night sky en route for London. Poor bloody Londoners, when was their suffering to end? It was not to be too much longer now. The rocket bases were eventually over-run by allied forces, but not before an awful lot of rockets had found their way to targets in and around London.

My flotilla made several night patrols covering the East Schelde and using just a single LCA - until the Royal Marines in their LCS (M) s had come

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along to relieve us of this. The object of these patrols was just to check for any possible enemy naval movement; one man submarines were the most likely, many were known to be operating in and around the Schelde area, although we never managed to find any.

Bruce Williams took the boat in this patrol one night. The next morning when he had not arrived back at base, we started to get a little concerned. Then, during the forenoon, came a telephone call (from the lock at Sas van Goes) from the missing Bruce. "Where on earth are you?" I asked him. "You're not going to believe this," he replied, "but I'm sitting, or rather my boat is, on a cabbage patch." What had happened was that in the darkness, and a fog, Bruce had mistaken a breach in the dyke wall for the entrance to the Sas van Goes lock - not all that far away. He had gaily sailed in through that breach and got himself stranded by the falling tide on what had once been an area under cultivation until the land had been flooded by the retreating German forces. I must say I had some sympathy for him - but there he had to stay until the tide turned to float him off again.

Bruce fared rather better than one of the LCS (M) patrols did one night, sometime later. The boat must have had awful compass problems, or just simply got lost. It was close inshore off North Beveland. A commando post ashore was not too certain who they might be and hailed them with a call of "Kommen ze here", or something equally stupid like that. The LCS (M) immediately thought it must be a German post and that they must be somewhere off Schouwen. Being a little trigger happy, no doubt, they opened fire. The fire was returned by the commandos ashore, and they had a little ding dong for a brief spell, until somehow or other the error was discovered. By great good fortune (or by some miracle?) no one was hurt and apparently no damage done. I only mention this little incident to make the point of how things can go wrong, disastrously wrong, so easily. And to repeat my point of the need for careful planning and vigilance at all times.

I took a couple of boats away late one afternoon. The canal had frozen over and I was on a makeshift sort of ice-breaking expedition. I had to keep that canal open. All was well until we got as far as Sas van Goes. A passage had been broken through the ice. The lock gates were open so we went in. That was a mistake. I took a line and, stupidly, stepped ashore with it. The casing of the LCA was iced and so was the side of the lock. I was an idiot. With one foot on the side of the boat and one on the shore the boat drifted away from the lock side and so into the water I went. There was nothing I could do to help myself. And I was dressed with seaboots and a heavy 'arctic' coat. The whole thing happened so quickly, but in the event I was so very lucky. Air ballooned up into my arctic coat which helped to keep me afloat while I grabbed the lifelines on the side of the boat. Those, and my quick acting crew, bless them, saved my life. I heard my coxswain shout, "Bloody 'ell, he's in the ....g 'oggin, grab hold of him." They did, and they hauled me aboard. The cold soon started to seep through, needless to say. The lock keepers took me into their house to await a car which they had phoned for. On return to the hotel I found a large brandy waiting for me, and a hot bath. That was a real bonus. I was alright, no damage done, only a huge dent in my pride. I hadn't planned that one very well, had I?

And so the days slipped by. Mid-March the Queen of the Netherlands paid a visit to Goes. It was quite an occasion; just about every house had found a flag to fly to greet their queen. The following week we, the navy, received an

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official visit by Vice-Admiral Sir H.M. Burrough, the Allied Naval Commander of Expeditionary Forces (ANCXF). More bullshit than that!

When they went down to the boats one day the lads had a bit of a shock. A little Dutch boy tried to flog them some cigarettes! That seemed to signal the end of the black market so far as cigarettes were concerned. The market must have been just about saturated.

550 Flotilla (Dick Ellis) joined us at Goes some time during March. Soon the warmer weather came around and life became rather more

tolerable. Soon, also, it became apparent that the war in Europe was reaching its fantastic climax. I could not help but remember those dreadful days back in 1940 when I could only watch helplessly as huge formations of German bombers passed overhead along the Thames estuary to plaster London. Now I was able to watch the situation in reverse, with even larger, much larger, formations of our own, Allied bombers passing overhead in seemingly endless procession en route for targets in Germany.

These were heady days; full of hope that now it was all nearly over.

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VIII – VE Europe

On the 5th of May I took six LCAs to Kortgene. I do know why I went there this time; it was to embark Royal Marine Commandos and take them over to Schouwen to, hopefully, negotiate the surrender of the German garrison there. The timing was obviously not right and we did not go. At least I took the opportunity to go along, overland, to Colijnsplaat to have discussions with the military, and to have a look across the water to Schouwen. I could only look, through my binoculars, from behind the shelter of the dyke wall. The war might well be nearly over, but the Germans were very much still fighting. Anyone foolish enough to stand on the dyke wall would soon have been picked off by enemy machine gun or rifle fire from Schouwen.

I set out again the next day to make the trip across to Schouwen, but the weather was too bad and I had to return again to Goes.

The following day, the 7th of May, I managed to make the journey across. I took the six LCAs through the lock at Sas van Goes and thence round to Kortgene. I'd had a small flag mast rigged in my boat on which was proudly hoisted the white ensign. We duly embarked the commandos at Kortgene and set off for Schouwen. Our destination was a place called Burghsluis. On our arrival there we had to lay off until we got a clearance to land. After a while we beached, but only a small party landed first of all to clear a passage from possible mines. The Germans had laid mines there alright. A few Dutch civilians had gathered a short distance from us, obviously curious and wanting to watch what was going on. Tragically a child trod on a mine and was, I believe, killed. A small party of our marines, carrying a large white flag on a very long pole, went along the dyke wall and in to Burghsluis to negotiate with the Germans. I don't think they got on very well and found that they themselves were held prisoner by the Germans for a while. Those Germans were obviously still very stubborn, and playing hard to get. We eventually had to return to Kortgene, where we remained for the night, having achieved nothing so far as I could see.

The next day and it was the 8th of May, officially designated as 'VE Day'. We set off early to Burghsluis and landed our commandos, this time to accept the German surrender of Schouwen. Then, for us in the LCAs, it was back to Colijnsplaat where we beached, and embarked Dutch police and various civil authorities and took them over to Schouwen. We took them up the Zierikzee canal and disembarked them at Zierikzee. There I took over a small German vessel, alongside in the harbour, on which I established a small 'base' for us. I installed Tiny Young as the 'resident naval officer, Zierikzee' and left him there with one or two LCAs, to be available as required by the military and civil authorities. I then made my way back to Goes with the other boats.

The scenes that greeted me on my return were utterly breathtaking; there could really be no other word for it. Bunting was everywhere; there could surely not be a house in the town that was not proudly and happily displaying a Dutch flag. Every single inhabitant of the place must have been on the streets,

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all were walking, talking, singing, dancing. All the pent up emotions of the suffering and privation of the long years of war, and of occupation, seemed to be erupting in the sheer happiness of knowing that, for them, it was all over now. Their war was at an end. They could now start to rebuild their shattered lives, and country. For the first time in six years I really felt terribly close to tears, only these were tears of joy, of sheer joy, for those lovely people, and for the wealth of the expression of their emotions. This was another one of so many experiences which was to live in my memory forever.

It was by now evening time as I got back to the hotel. The wardroom party was in full swing, and all was fairly awash in gin. I was feeling tired, very, very tired, and rather hungry, and made my way to the dining room for some supper. After this I had every intention of tumbling straight into my bed. I made the mistake of popping into the wardroom and before I knew what was happening I had joined the other chaps in the celebrations. The party went on until well into the early hours of the morning. One by one the others all seemed to bale out and fall into their beds. Finally there were just three of us left; Maurice Jones, Dick Ellis and myself. We had taken ourselves off to Maurice's bedroom by now. With a bottle. Whilst still talking and drinking, Maurice, sitting on the end of his bed fell on to it and passed out. Dick was still talking when I suddenly became aware that in fact, although his lips were moving, no words came from them. I decided this had to be the end of the party and retired to my own bed.

Early on the 10th of May I took a couple of boats and went over to Zierikzee to take over from Tiny. Not a lot was happening but before he left he just slipped in a little aside to me to watch what we did or picked up as he thought there might be a few booby-traps still scattered around. I did not really believe this but decided that it would be foolish to take any unnecessary chances and warned the lads in this respect.

We were not really required there any more so far as I could see and I got approval from somewhere or other to pack up and go. We left the next day, the 11th, getting back to Goes some time after midnight.

A small victory parade was held one day. Dick Ellis detailed one of his officers to take command of a small naval contingent which, of course, led the parade.

Two flotillas, 506 and 510, had been based at Oosterhout, and somehow managed to rustle up a few goodies and thus organise a dinner at which we, the officers of 'H' LCA, dined our captain - Captain Pugsley - and his staff.

Then the following day, the 16th, we (508) were off and left Goes for home. Before leaving the Hotel Centraal there was one rather important matter to be attended to, however. Quite large stocks of wines and spirits had been accumulated in the wardroom. These had to be 'shared out'. I got hold of a large mail sack into which I must have stuffed about eighteen bottles of champagne, liquors and spirits, which were duly embarked into my boat.

We left Goes quite early, and passed through the lock gates at Sas van Goes for the last time. I then led my flotilla on a happy run along the Eastern Schelde, out into the North Sea and thence south to Ostend. It was quite a long run, and one which would have been utterly out of the question when we first came to Holland and Belgium seven long months ago. How lucky that the weather was kind for this trip. The North Sea can really be most unpleasant with

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any sort of wind to be contended with. For us, then, there was very little wind and the sea was quite a reasonably calm one. That was a nice bonus.

It was late afternoon when we arrived off Ostend. There we were joined by 509 Flotilla, and together were taken aboard HMS Oceanway, another Landing Ship Dock. The ship sailed from Ostend very early on the 18th and arrived in the Solent that afternoon. Here the two flotillas were disembarked and made their way to HMS Cricket, arriving during the late evening.

I had just one little worry nagging me. How on earth was I going to get my sackful of swag through customs? That thought hadn't occurred to me when I gaily brought the stuff from our hotel. To say that I was lucky would be a masterpiece of understatement. We slipped into Cricket without a customs officer in sight. How did customs manage to trip up on that - or had they just simply turned the proverbial Nelsonian blind eye?

A couple of days at Cricket and it was off home on leave. Three whole weeks of lovely leave. Getting my swag home was quite a major operation. Once at Slough Station I got a taxi to take me home. As I struggled into the house with the heavy sack my mother looked at me aghast. "Why on earth didn't you leave that at the station left luggage for the night?" she said. "You wait until you see what's inside it," I replied. She had to agree that it certainly was better here, at home, than at Slough Station.

1 Dad‘s flotilla 2 This could have been I Vaughan 3 I Vaughan must have been with him

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Scotland June 1945

Leave13, even three weeks of it had a habit of slipping by oh so quickly. Doesn‘t time itself? This was a leave with such a difference though. The war in Europe was over. It was a lovely really relaxed occasion. However it came to its end, inevitably of course and it was back once more to HMS. Cricket. Alright the war in Europe was now over. But the war was not over. There was a war still very much in existence in the Far East. So what now? How long before shiploads of servicemen were to be on their way East? Certainly I knew that our (ex?) squadron officer Jimmy Vernon had already received a posting to India. Could this in any way be significant? Oh well, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, as the saying goes. I was still in Britain; my flotilla was still in Britain. We must make the most of it all and enjoy it while we are still here to do so. I had made up my own mind, I would make the most of every second that might still be available to me here in this country.

So, it was back to HMS Cricket from my leave on the l2th of June. The next day the whole of my flotilla personnel were off - on their way to Scotland. I had to remain at Cricket for a couple of days. Presumably this was to deal with the formalities of handing over my boats, equipment and armaments, and tie up various other loose ends.

I. left for Scotland on the 15th of June, arriving the following day to rejoin my flotilla. Officially so it seemed we were now to be on record as a personnel flotilla. And so, once again, I was ―grounded‖ and we became the 21st Personnel Flotilla. Our base was now at HMS Brontosaurus. Its main building, which housed most of the officers, wardroom, etc, was in fact a castle. Yes, a real castle. It was yet another place which had been taken over by the Royal Navy. Castle Toward was beautifully situated, at Toward point, standing in very large grounds, and looking out over the Firth of Clyde, and also across Rothesay bay to the town of Rothesay, on the island of Bute. The castle grounds had, needless to say, been dotted with the inevitable Nissen huts, but in spite of this the setting was truly delightful, and even the weather was lovely. To me the very name Scotland had become rather synonymous with a preponderance of bad or doubtful weather conditions. But now even the weather was kind, and Scotland, when the sun shines, boasts, in my humble opinion, some of the most spectacular scenery and beauty to be found almost anywhere.

508 and 509 were the only flotillas to be accommodated here, with a comparatively small base staff. There was little doubt in my mind but that our destination, in due course, would be the Far East. The days slipped by however, and very pleasantly, with no immediate sign of any movement for us. ―Great‖. I was in no hurry to move, and I‘m sure nobody else was; but bitter experience had taught me that anything might happen, at any time, and with little or no warning.

I played some hockey, there were some lovely

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Country14 walks. On the 29th of June I went to Largs, with Maurice Jones. Combined Operations pay accounts were centered here, and after our sojourn in Holland the pay situation for the flotilla needed a bit of sorting out. We stayed here for a day or two, returning to Brontosaurus on the 2nd of July. Quite soon after this the wardroom organised a dance, to which the W.R.N.S. ratings based here at Brontosaurus were invited. This provided the opportunity at one fell swoop, so to speak, of meeting and chatting up the young ladies. A number of associations developed from this, and I was not an exception. I made the acquaintance of a very charming and attractive girl with whom I kept company during the coming few months. There was not a lot of the ‗high‘ life in the vicinity of Toward, but we got around. Dunoon was accessible, and we often went there to a hostelry or a cinema, or both. Unfortunately this only lasted a few months before my little ‗Wren was one of a number to be demobilized - but it was lovely while it lasted.

On the 6th of August the first atomic bomb was released on Japan at Hiroshima. Then on the 9th came the second bomb, this time on Nagasaki. Japan, so I learnt later, had been very much on the defensive and retreat for some time. The advent of the atomic bombs was obviously the decisive factor and on the 14th they submitted to unconditional surrender. The 15th of August was designated ―V.J.Day”. The war was over; we would not now have to go to the Far East.

Most of us had gone to bed on the 14th when we were awakened by the sounds of ship‘s sirens, car horns; virtually anything that could make a noise was making it. Thus we received the news of the Japanese surrender. I suppose everyone was by now awake and out of their beds. Somehow or other a couple of cars appeared, as if by magic, and were filled with nine or ten officers. And yes, would you believe, I was one of them I had hurriedly pulled trousers and a jacket over my pyjamas, but some, as I remember, were still in just their pyjamas. The two cars set off, horns tooting, in the general direction of Dunoon. I don‘t think anyone knew quite why, or what we expected to achieve, it just did not seem to matter. In the event we made for McColls Hotel - THE hotel in Dunoon. They opened up and let us in. Many of the residents were already settled in at the bar tipping back the whisky and we joined them for an hour or two of celebrations.

The drive back to Brontosaurus was a little hairy to say the least of it. The one thing that I remember, and quite vividly is of seeing ―Snowy‖ Davis (of 509) standing up in the car ahead and firing a revolver rather wildly into the air. Now where on earth had he got THAT from?

So15 - now it was all over. Instead of waiting for an unwelcome visit to the Far East, we should now be waiting for a much more welcome journey home.

The first thing to happen was the break-up of my lovely flotilla. The officers remained, but drafting of the ratings started on the 10th of August and within a matter of just ten days virtually all of them had gone, posted, in most cases, to other Combined Operations establishments. I don‘t know why, except maybe that many of them were young, had probably not been in the navy all

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that long - some two or three years maybe? - And thus would not be eligible for a very early demobilisation? Whatever the whys and the wherefores this was all very sad. They were such a wonderful bunch of men. I can think of no other way of expressing my feelings other than to say simply, and very humbly, that I felt so very proud to have served with them under my command. Every single one of them. But what can one do? Nothing can go on forever. All things, everything, must come to an end sometime and here I was witnessing the end of yet another eventful era.

My own time in the service would not now last very much longer. My age and length of service were such that I would certainly be in a fairly early release group, with maybe up to another three months to go before my demobilisation. Having no flotilla now had few if any responsibilities, so I suppose that could not be bad? I determined to make the most of the time now remaining to me in the Royal Navy and, hopefully, to enjoy it all to the full. I believe I managed to do this even though at times it may have been not wisely but too well.

Twice I got myself home for a weeks leave. After this the most enjoyable times were spent in the anti-room bar, dirking and chatting, both mid-day and in the evenings. I found a lovely secluded little spot in the castle grounds to which I would so often repair in the afternoons to stretch out and sunbathe. Just fancy that - sunbathing, in Scotland. I well remember one afternoon, or perhaps it might be more truthful to say that I don‘t remember all that much of it? I went to my little spot in the grounds, after the usual mid-day noggin at the bar, and took off my shirt to sunbathe and to relax. What I must have failed to notice was that the sun did not happen to be shining that afternoon, or if it was then it went in soon after I got there, in any case I unfortunately fell sound asleep, and roust have slept for two or three hours then eventually I awoke I was shivering, absolutely shivering with the cold. I returned somewhat hurriedly to the castle, soaked in a lovely long hot bath, dressed, and returned to the bar which was by now well and truly open again of course.

Just a short drive, or walk, from the castle down to Rothesay bay there was a small group of LCTs, at a little base called ―Hoppers Pier‖, it did not take us long to discover this and to realise that they were all well stocked with liquor. Some of us were invited to join them occasionally. These were evenings of drinking into their. stock and or singing bawdy songs. One of our small party was Paymaster -.Lieutenant Cliff Trattles RNVR a member of the base staff at HMS.

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Brontosaurus16. He seemed to know the words of just about every dirty song there was, so usually led the singing. If, by any strange chance, someone produced a dirty ditty that Cliff did not know it was almost possible to see his ears flapping as he strained to pick up and remember every word of it.

Tiny Young had got hold of a car. Somehow or other Tiny usually managed to get hold of a car wherever we happened to be. And it always seemed to be an awful old banger. Goodness only knows where or how he got hold of the things. This one was no exception. I remember returning from an evening at Hoppers Pier on one occasion. Tiny was driving, and I was sitting in the rear seat, behind him. He passed something over his shoulder saying ―look after this for me will you‖. I took ‗it‘ and then nearly jumped out of my seat - he had only passed me half of the steering wheel.

That was not quite the end of this little episode. The next morning Tiny took the car along to the garage to try and get it repaired. Just before he got there the other half of the steering wheel fell off.

Four of us, including Tiny - he had the transport, however dodgy it might be — decided that we should get ourselves away from the bar now and again. So we joined some evening classes being held in Dunoon. I remember that one subject was ‗motor mechanics‘, but that is about all I do remember now, its title. It was not too long however before some of the novelty of all this started to wear off. oh yes, we continued with the evening classes, but soon found ourselves tearing back to Brontosaurus afterwards to try to-get in a quick round before the bar closed.

The CO of one of the LCTs had to make a. brief sea trip for some reason. He invited Cliff Trattles and me to join him. We both accepted with great pleasure and alacrity of course it was really only around the vicinity of the Clyde estuary, .but it was a truly delightful two or three day trip. Even the weather was still marvellous. I reckoned that this would doubtless be my last ‗sea-time‘ in the Royal Navy and I had made up my mind, that I would soak up and enjoy every single wonderful second of it. I did just that. There were one or two great sessions of liar dice in the anti-room. There must have been ten or twelve in the school, including the two W.R.N.S. officers on the base staff. They were great sports and great company. Some idiot (no it was not me) decided that at the end of each game the loser should order a round of drinks (half pints of beer). Well games of liar dice are normally of comparatively short duration of course, and in next to no time our table would soon be littered with half pint glasses of beer. So, from then on the ‗penalty to the loser was to drink one of those half pints. After one of these sessions I must have lost rather a lot of games, and therefore ‗won‘ quite a lot of beer. Before going to bed I decided that I should take a little corrective action, but took the wrong action. All I wanted to do was to ensure that I awoke the next day without a hangover. What I actually did was to take the requisite action to sober

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me17 up. Idiot! I soaked myself in a deep bath of hot water. Fortunately I did not come to any real harm, but, oh yes, it did sober me up. AND it also gave me the biggest attack of hiccups I have ever had in my life - either before or since. On the 1st of November it was decided arrange a little special dinner, in the wardroom, to mark the first anniversary of the attack on Flushing. This, then, became the basis for an annual reunion of ―H‖LCA officers, which has continued to this day although, sadly, the passing of the years has taken its tragic toll of our membership.

The time at Brontosaurus seemed to slip by so very quickly. On the 19th of November the time arrived for my demobilisation and, together with Bill Cross, I left for HMS Roseneath to go through the routine of leaving the navy suppose could have elected to stay on in the Royal Navy. A number of R.N.V.R. officers did. But it would only have been on a temporary basis. My company, in Slough, had always maintained their promise to take back all their ex-servicemen, so that I did have a job to go back to. One way or another I could not really imagine myself in a peacetime navy. It seemed to me that it would lack a purpose now somehow. Anyway as I have already said all things must come to an end sometime.

On the 20th of November my day was spent going through the leaving routine, and in collecting bits of paper. One of the latter was my ‗Release Document‘ - order for release from naval service class ―A‖ officers. I still have that piece of paper. It told me, amongst other things, that my release date was the 16th of January 1946, and that I would be regarded as on leave until that date. I would by then have completed six years and four months in the Royal Navy since my mobilisation in September 1939. My Release-Document also informed me that ―you will be regarded as being in reserve and you will ‗be liable, until the end of the present emergency, to recall to the naval service by the revocation of this order at any time‖. This seemed to me a lovely and typical piece of service bullshit and I did not really anticipate any likelihood of actually being recalled.

The next day I left Roseneath on my way home. I stopped off in Glasgow to visit my brother. Ken had been appointed as Commanding Officer of a personnel base. It was a transit base. I always referred to it as his ‗block of flats‘. Actually it was a block of tenement buildings. He, with another Lieutenant R. N. V. R. as his first lieutenant, was the only officers. They did not have a wardroom, but the base staff did boast a Petty Officer‘s mess, complete with a beer bar, to which the two officers had .a more or less open invitation at all times. I stayed the night there with Ken, and enjoyed the P.O‘s invitation to me also to join them.

On the following day I caught the night train home. The next morning, in London, I again broke my journey. Very briefly. Just long enough in fact to find what was reputed to be the best barber‘s in Town, Simpson‘s in Piccadil1y. Here I took my seat and ordered a haircut and shave. The barber looked at my beard and .looked at me. ―What, all of it sir‖ he asked rather incredulously. ―Yes please, all of it‖.

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EPILOGUE.

The18 objective which I set myself to achieve in June 1988 has been completed, and on schedule.

My six plus war service years have still been crammed into such a pitifully few pages; so much, inevitably, had to be omitted in the hope that I would not make it all too boring. It can hardly be claimed as a masterpiece. After all it was never intended as anything more that a record, or sequence of events. To me though it is a masterpiece, it is the end result of two years of tedious although fascinating effort. At the end of it all however I am still left wondering whether it might not have been better to have ―let sleeping dogs lie‖? It has often revived so many painful memories, memories which might otherwise have remained just locked away for ever right at the back: of my mind. Yes, and I have found it to be somewhat emtiona1 at times.

All the names in my narrative are names of real people. All that I have written actually and truthfully happened. I have made no attempt to conceal my own blushes, but have tried very hard not to embarrass anyone else. To that extent much of what might otherwise have been written I have therefore refrained from so doing. Again I have refrained from putting in some names at all, not necessarily because I have forgotten them but to avoid any possibility of embarrassment to such people.

Whilst writing my narrative I have constantly been reminded of so many of the men with whom I was privileged to have served, it is difficult to express, and probably difficult to understand, the difference in associations and friendships between war and peace. In normal times you meet people from whom you are able to select your friendships. In times of war, in my experience, men are thrown together, wily nilly so to speak, yet with so very few exceptions they are real men, men with whom you are happy and proud to serve, and to regard as your friends. Why does it take a war, or other calamity to do this?

Having said that, it is my hope that no one will attempt to delve too deeply into my writing looking for hidden moral implications. Such was never my intention, although rather inevitably have at times expressed my thoughts and my feelings. Basically my story is simply intended as an account of events, as they happened, when they happened and where they happened. At no time have I consciously attempted, I hope, to embellish upon sordid detail. I have really simply tried to tell my story.

The ‗forbidden‘ notes that .I. managed to keep were such that they could never have been a lot of use had they perchance fallen into enemy hands. In some cases they were not even of much use in my own hands. Many of the abbreviations that I used to indicate place names or ships were not even apparent to me, so had to he omit from my research whenever any doubts at all existed in my mind.

I do not believe that I could ever claim to have been much of a sailor really, but I did try very hard.

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I19 imagine the war would still have been fought and won, in spite of me and yet I like to believe that, with millions of others such as me I might, in a small way, have made a contribution, albeit a very modest one. Certainly I was proud, so very proud, to have been privileged to have had the opportunity to serve in the Royal Navy. That pride extended, naturally enough, to my uniforms, and I use the plural quite deliberately. I was always terribly proud of my uniform, both as a rating and then, later, as an officer. Those uniforms, yes both of them, were kept with loving care for nearly forty years until ―Anno Domini‖ eventually and rather inevitably caught up with them, or at least the moths did. So, sadly, I then had to part with them.

Whilst contemplating and writing my story was staggered to realise just how many times must have cheated death. Dame Fortune had kept her smile on me without any shadow of doubt. Cats, with their reputed, nine lives, can surely have had nothing on me? How could I possibly have been so lucky?

At the outbreak of war I was twenty-three years of age. A young man by any standards really. Most of my ―twenties‖ were thus spent, first with year in the reserve, and then on war service, it just must not be assumed from this that I complain or that I regard any of it as being wasted years. On the contrary I learnt so much of life, yes and of death, that I could never otherwise have experienced. And, as I hope my narrative may have indicated, there were more often the many good times to offset the few bad. My initiation into the navy most certainly came the hard way. Life in the trawlers was quite tough, living with tough men, although men with hearts of gold. And although my time in trawlers did not take me to the fishing grounds of the Arctic it did enable me to appreciate the sort of conditions under which the men of the fishing fleets had to live their lives.

Oh yes, I was able to learn such a lot about people, although you never do stop learning about people - or anything else fur that matter.

By the end of the war I must have been something of an old man already? At nearly thirty years of age I was five or six years older than my junior officers, probably six or seven years older than a few of junior men? I know that on the lower deck I was referred to, somewhat irreverently - and most certainly not for my ears - as the old man, or old Brownie. Old? Surely I could not have become THAT old? It just had to be the beard? Just then what is age?

After the war I joined the R.N.V. (S).R. It, a reserve of officers, and thus retained my association with the Royal Navy for a good many further years.

This then is my story. I often found it very tempting to deviate, even more than I have in fact done, and thus to delve into additional background. This I have tried very hard to refrain from doing, except where it appeared to me absolutely necessary to do so to complete my picture.

I cannot resist one last thought. Why has the sea always seemed to hold such an incredible spell over so many men? Aright so they spend much of their time cursing it, well why then do they go? It certainly extended its apparently irresistible fascination to me. But all that was a long time ago now.

June 1990

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Force T Holland 1944

1 Rear Admiral Anthony Follett "Force "T Pugsley RN (1901 - 1990) B: 1901 in, D: Jul

1990 in Somerset ...... 2 Lt. Commander Stuart Jimmy H" LCA" Vernon (1910 - ) B: 1910 in

............ 3 Lieutenant E. J. "LCA 510" Langford (1910 - 1993) B: 10 May 1910 in, D: Dec

1993 in Ross, Gloucestershire .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Lawrence Graham Murray "LCA 510" Hall (1922 - 1944) B:

1922 in West Linton, Peeblesshire; Possible, D: 01 Nov 1944 in

WALCHEREN .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant A.J. "LCA509" Rutherford (1923 - ) B: Jun 1923 in

Willesden, Middlesex, United Kingdom ............ 3 Lieutenant Cyril William R "LCA 509" Cross (1910 - 1995) B: 23 Jul 1910 in

Barnstable, Devon, D: Jul 1995 in Bodmin, Cornwall .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Robert Bobby "LCA 509" Webber (1922 - ) B: 1922 in .................. 4 Lieutenant Islwyn "LCA509" Vaughan (1920 - 1989) B: 1920 in, D: 1989

.................. 4 Lieutenant Ross Osborne Spencer "LCA509" Salmon (1922 - 2004) Mil:

1945 Distinguished Service Cross, B: 1922 in Harrow, D: 14 Apr 2004 in

Plymouth .................. 4 Sub Lt Snowie "LCA509" Davies (1920 - ) B: 1920 in

............ 3 Lieutenant Robert Dixon "LCA 506" Lund (1911 - 2001) B: 26 Feb 1911 in

Kingston, Middlesex, Surrey, United Kingdom, D: Dec 2001 in Sussex .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Ivor John "LCA506" Pidden (1921 - 1987) B: 16 Nov

1921 in Chepstow, Gloucestershire, D: Feb 1987 in Newport, Glam .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant D. William "LCA506" Yuill

............ 3 Dennis Fredrick "LCA 508" Brown (1916 - 2003) B: 21 Mar 1916 in, D: Feb

2003 in Buckinghamshire .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Ray "LCA508" Graham (1922 - ) B: 1922 in

.................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Maurice Arthur "LCA508" Jones (1921 - ) Mil: 1945 in

Holland; Mentioned in Dispatches, B: Mar 1921 in Durham, United

Kingdom .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Bruce "LCA508" WILLIAMS (1922 - ) B: 1922 in .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Don Tiny "LCA508" Young (1922 - ) B: 1922 in

.................. 4 Sub Lt Thomas "LCA508" Carrick (1924 - 2004) B: 1924 in, D: Mar

2004 in Cumberland .................. 4 Petty Officer Petty Officer "LCA508" Ratcliffe (1915 - ) B: 1915 in

............ 3 Lieutenant Richard J A "LCA 550" Ellis (1918 - ) B: Mar 1918 in Croydon,

Greater London, Kent, and Surrey, United Kingdom .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Hugh Carter "LCA550" Blackhurst (1922 - 1945) B: 1922 in

Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, D: 20 Nov 1945 in Halsar Cemetery, Gosport

.................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Norton Ralphe "LCA 550" Lee (1922 - ) Mil: 1945 in Holland;

DSC, B: Sep 1922 in W. Ashford, Kent, United Kingdom; 2 a 1654 ............ 3 Lieutenant R. E. "LCA 552" Dobson (1918 - ) B: 1918 in .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Roger "LCA552" Lyles (1922 - ) B: 1922 in .................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Richard Dick "LCA552" Sargent

.................. 4 Sub Lieutenant Richard Charles "LCA552" Wiles (1922 - 1994) Mil: 1945 in

Holland; DSC, B: 09 Apr 1922 in Wallington, Greater London, D: Nov 1994 in

Tunbridge Wells, Kent

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Significant Photos

Figure 6 Flushing Nov 1944

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Index

1

12th Canadian General Hospital, 25 16th of December, 31 17th of November, 29 17th of October, 17 17th of September, 16 1st of January, 33 1st of November, 24, 49

2

20th of November, 29, 49 21st of December, 30 22nd of September, 16 24th of October, 19 26th of October, 19 26th of September, 16 28th of October, 22

5

506, 16, 18, 22, 24, 26, 29, 43 508, 16, 18, 22, 29, 32, 35, 43, 45 509, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 32, 33, 35, 44, 45, 46 510, 16, 18, 23, 29, 43 550, 14, 16, 17, 18, 23, 29, 41 552, 16, 17, 18, 23, 26, 29

A

Antwerp, 22, 27, 30, 33, 34

B

Bobby Webber, 23, 33 Breskens, 22, 23, 24, 26 Brian Sargent, 8 Brontosaurus, 45, 46, 48, 49 BRONTOSAURUS, 1, 3 Brown, 1, 16, 18 Bruce Williams, 17, 40

C

Calpe, 4, 9, 10, 11 Canadian Second Division, 21 Castle Toward, 45

'

'Chateau Rouge, 19

C

Colijnsplaat, 36, 38, 39, 42

Cross, 16, 18, 35, 49

D

Dieppe, 1, 3, 4, 6, 11, 14, 15 Dobson, 16, 18, 26 Dunoon, 46, 48

E

Ellis, 16, 18, 39, 41, 43 ENSA, 29, 30

F

Flushing, 22, 23, 24, 26, 49 Frascatis, 19

G

Ghent, 19 Goes, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

H

Hansweert, 32, 34 HMS Cricket, 16, 17, 18, 34, 44, 45 HMS Northway, 18, 19 HMS Warspite, 22 HMS. Brocklesby, 8 Hotel Centraal, 32, 43

J

Jim Allison, 14

L

Lieutenant Cliff Trattles, 47 Lund, 16, 18

M

Maurice Jones, 17, 26, 31, 39, 43, 46 Montgomery, 35 Mountain Brigade of the 52nd Division, 22

N

NAAFI, 29, 33 Newhaven, 11, 12 No. 4 (Army) Commando, 22 No. 60 Transit Camp, 19

O

Oosterhout, 43 Ostend, 19, 30, 33, 43, 44

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P

Pidden, 26 Prince Charles, 4 Prince Leopold, 4 Pugsley, 29, 43

R

Ratcliffe, 17, 31 Ray Graham, 17 Red beach, 8 Rotterdam, 20

S

Salmon, 21, 29, 35 Sas van Goes, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 43

'

's-Hertogenbosch, 35

S

Snowy” Davis, 46 South Beveland, 21, 30, 32, 33

T

Terneuzen, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32

Tiny Young, 26, 42, 48

'

'Tiny' Young, 17

T

Tom Carrick, 17, 24, 26, 39

V

Vaughan, 1, 44 Vernon, 17, 23, 39, 45 Verricot Hotel, 30 Vlissingen, 22

W

Walcheren, 1, 3, 22, 26, 27, 29 Wemeldinge, 32, 39 West Schelde, 20, 34 Westkapelle, 22, 27 White beach, 8

Y

Yuill, 24, 25

Z

Zierikzee, 37, 42, 43