When did you sign up with the armed forces?
I joined the Royal Navy in December 1942 and was sent to HMS Collingwood in Fareham for a signallers course. I spent three months there before they shut the signalling school and I was transferred to Skegness. It was here that I became a signalman-trained operator until a draft came for combined operations on landing craft, and I was sent to an LCG (Landing Craft, Gun) ship for close-in work on beach landings. I joined a flotilla at Glasgow and we did gun-firing courses and then moved to the south coast to do full-scale landings at Studland Bay, aiming at on-shore targets with live ammo.
How were you involved in D-Day?
We loaded the armoury to its full extent and took on army gunners and wireless operators. On the morning of the landings we were assigned to Gold Beach, where the opposition wasn’t at its strongest.
We all took off from the south coast and, although everyone was fully aware that the landing was on, we only got the official sealed order when we were at sea. We’d practised for so long, D-Day felt overdue. I was on the flotilla leader so we gave signals to all the other craft using flags and Aldis lamps.
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