Australians at War Film Archive

Yeah. I was borne in Broome in 1921, I mentioned my father was one of several pearling masters there, he had five pearling luggers. And I had a brother who was two years older than I, and unfortunately I never remembered my father because he died when I was about twelve or eighteen

months old and my mother had to bring the both of us up. We moved down from there and went to Leederville in Western Australia, stayed with my grandmother, and then the next thing I remember is we were living in Swanbourne. I went to school there, primary school and then from there to Claremont School.

I left school in 1935 when I was fourteen years of age and I started work with Mortlock Bros. in Perth, who were distributors for Hudson Terraplane cars and BSA [Birmingham Small Arms] and Harley Davidson motorbikes. I was with them about twelve or eighteen months and then decided to join the West Australia State Ships and I went to sea in the MV Kangaroo

which was one of the first motor ships ever built. And I was in the Kangaroo for about twelve months and then it was sold. We took it up to Saigon and delivered it to Moller & Company and it was renamed the Nora Moller. I came back then to Fremantle and joined the Kalinda which was another one of the State Ships. And the Kalinda used to just ply up and down the west coast, up as far as

Wyndham and those places. And then I stayed with them for about twelve months, didn’t get on too well with the first mate there. But I left then went ashore and got a job with William Adams and I stayed with them ‘til war broke out. And then March, twenty-fifth of March, 1941 and I joined the Navy under the Yachtsmen’s scheme.

And what it meant was that we would undertake to serve with the Royal Navy for a period of three years, or the duration of the war, whichever was the longer. And we did our initial training at, in Australia and left Sydney in the Largs Bay two months after joining, which was about the twenty-something or other of

May. We went down to Wellington in New Zealand, picked up some Fleet Air Arm chaps there, and then across to South America, travelling solo. And then up to the Panama Canal, Panama Canal up to Nova Scotia, Halifax where we waited several days to, for a convoy to form up. And then we went across the North Atlantic

in convoy and arrived in Glasgow in about mid-July, so it took us two months to get across from Sydney to Glasgow. We went by train down to Portsmouth which was to be our home depot while we were in England. And we then went to HMS Collingwood to undergo our, try and

re-training again which didn’t please us very much, but we weren’t there long and we realised that we’d done the right thing because we were working with the British. And we found them very nice, they were very kind to us and we were glad then that we had gone there to do our initial training all over again. The end of that we went back to the depot, was there a short while and then I, my first sea going appointment was with HMS Whitshed, an AMW [Admiralty Modified W class] destroyer

which was based in Harwich, part of the Sixteenth Destroyer Flotilla. We used to ply up and down the east coast doing E-boat patrol and convoy work. I served in the Whitshed until the sixteenth of March in 1942, when we were coming back from a night at sea and we struck a mine which blew a hole in the

engine room, and the ship was no longer able to proceed under its own power. We got two tugs from shore that came out, came alongside and towed us back to Harwich. And I was transferred from there to the Cotswold, which rather surprised me at the time, I won’t go into details now. But I was interviewed

by Caption Deeres, he was called, captain of the destroyers who was in command of HMS Mackay which was our flotilla leader. And he said, “Don’t despair Nelson.” I must have had a look of horror on my face when he told me we were going to the Cotswold. He said, “Another couple of months at sea,” and he said, “and then you’ll be right to go down to college.” And I had to travel by train late at night, got down to Chatham, she was down in Chatham Dock having a boiler clean.

And as I was walking along the dock there was an air raid siren sounded and I ran into a couple of Dad’s Army blokes. And they wanted to know who I was and where I was going. And fortunately I met them because they directed me to the Cotswold which wasn’t far away. I went aboard there and we left there next morning, and went back to Harwich and we carried on doing the same work as we were doing in the Whitshed. And I had the same

appointment on the bridge as the communications number. During action stations, defence stations or cruising stations I was one of A Gun Crew in the, on the fore deck. I served with her until the twenty-first of April and we were returning home this particular morning and we struck a mine which blew up the forehead magazine,

completely gutted the ship with fire. And I was one of eight lucky people who was still able to get around. It was, there were tragic deaths and everyone was burned dreadfully. So then I was transferred, went on long service, ah, survivor’s leave then for three weeks and awaiting a recall to

Portsmouth, to be interviewed by an Admiralty Selection Board. And I’d been on holidays, on leave for two weeks and I got a recall. So I went down to Portsmouth and was interviewed by the board there. And then returned for the balance of my leave, and then was ultimately called to

go to Lansing College in Brighton and I was commissioned as a first lieutenant, as a sub lieutenant in RANVR [Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve], in August of 1942. I then changed to, transferred from general service to combined operations because I was interviewed by a lieutenant commander, who was an ex-destroyer chap, who was in a terrific state

of shell shock, why they had him working I wouldn’t know. But he asked me then what I wanted to do and I said, “I’d like to go back to destroyers, sir.” And he flicked through the pages of my folder and he said, “I’m sorry Nelson but,” he said, “with your record in destroyers,” he said, “I’m sure they wouldn’t have you back today.” And that confirmed my belief that there was still a strong sense of, in the navy, that there was

you know, suspicions and things like that. So anyhow I thought about it for a while and after I’d left Greenwich Royal Naval College where I was doing a celestial navigation course, I joined Command Operations which hadn’t long been going then. And the founder of it was, the, oh crikey, the,

Lord Louis Mountbatten. And he was up in Troon where there was their headquarters, and I went up there. We did all sorts of training with various troops, British Army, Marines, the commandos and in various types of landing craft. And after a couple of months up there, I was then sent across to the States with a couple of hundred others, officers and men

to commission some LCI’s [Landing Craft Infantry], Landing Craft Infantry which were being built or had been built by the Americans for the British. They were a British design and it was part of the Lend Lease or Lease Lend organisation, operation that they called it in those days. So we went over in the passenger ship and spent Christmas in New York, and then after Christmas went up to Newark in New Jersey where these ships were being built.

We commissioned LCI 2-7-1. The CO [Commanding Officer] was a very senior Royal Naval Reservist, he was a lieutenant and I was a sub lieutenant and there were two officers and we had a crew of about sixteen or seventeen. And we went from there down to Norfolk in Virginia where we stayed for a few days until a convoy built up. And then twenty-one ships to-

gether with a destroyer escort left this particular day on our way across to the middle east. We had to return to port after several hours at sea because we ran into a gale and the command ship had sprung a leak in the forehead block or somewhere other, so we went back to port. Stayed a few days while it was fixed up and then set sail again. We went to Bermuda and then stayed overnight there and then from there to Gibraltar.

We stayed overnight there and then moved on to Oran in North Africa, Algiers and then to Dellys [ports in Algeria] which happened to be our base there, where we worked as a base from there for several months before going to Malta and then on to Sicily. And after Sicily eventually got back to the UK [United Kingdom], I went to a commanding officers course up in Troon and in February of 1943 commissioned LCT [Landing Craft Tank] 10-

38 up at Alloa up at the top end of the Firth of Forth. And then went down to Portsmouth which was to be our base, and there we started training with the British Armour division, night and day, in readiness for the D Day landings.

Normandy landings. We arrived off the beach of Normandy an hour or so before we were due to go in, which was a good thing because we were line, we were hove to about a half a mile off shore. And we were able to witness the gunfire pattern. They were old guns at that neck of the woods, and whilst they could vary the distance up and down they couldn’t

move the guns that way, they were fixed. And we realised there was a channel which was a couple of cable lengths wide which enabled ships to get down without being hit with shells. So it was a good thing that we arrived early. We unloaded our crew, we were carrying the headquarters division of the signal section of the British Armour division, there was a colonel in charge of them.

And we got them in ashore safely, we were only on the beach for a very short while and when we were going out from the beach, we saw some bodies laying in the water, and one thing and the other. So we pulled out of the channel and went to see if we could pick up some survivors. And we got two bodies aboard and then the next thing we got struck with a, or we struck a mine, object, which blew a hole in the engine room and

the pumps couldn’t cope with the inflow of water. So we had to hasten out to the anchorage, we didn’t get very far, we passed the headquarter ship which, HMS Kingsmill, and a mate of mine happened to be the only Australian aboard and he was on watch at the time. And we called for assistance, well they said they would send out a vessel to tow us. So not long after we had run out of power, sealed off the engine room, the engine room crew got out

the escape hatch onto the main deck. We, an LCT came alongside us, they took the two bodies aboard and then took us in tow and towed us out to the anchorage where we dropped anchor, and we stayed there for the rest of the day. And ships were coming and going. Later on that afternoon or evening, it was coming on dusk, and the first air raid of the day was expected. And a general

signal came out that all ships should proceed to the main anchorage, we were not at the main anchorage. The main anchorage was about twenty miles further west. So we couldn’t do anything about it because we couldn’t get our anchor up, we had no power. A Canadian LCI came by and we called out to them and sent ‘em a signal, and asked them whether they would take us in tow to the main anchorage. They agreed to do that, we slipped our anchor, they put a

tow rope aboard, we secured that and got underway. And no sooner we got underway and the air raid started, and that must have panicked them a bit because they clapped on speed. We yelled out to them through the loud hailer to reduce speed or the tow line would snap, but they took no notice. And the next thing we knew the tow line had snapped, so we were left and they disappeared into the dark, and that was the last ship we saw that day. And we were just there. And whilst

I was debating, wondering what in the devil we were going to do, a coxswain came up on the bridge and he always had a bit of a wry look on his face. And I said, “What’s wrong with you Coxsy?” He said, “The anchor, sir.” And I said, “What anchor?” He said, “The kedge anchor in the forward locker.” And this was one that our crew, who were on leave on the second of June in Portsmouth alongside, together with some of the other crew members of other

LCI alongside it, pinched a kedge anchor from the, a celebrity gardens or, it was hundreds of years old, it must have weighed two tonnes. Any rate how they dragged this back aboard, and it was high tide of course, so they just slipped it onto the guard rail onto the aft deck. And it wasn’t until first light next morning that I got up and nearly fell over it. And I said to the first lieutenant, “Where’s this come from?” He said, “I’m just trying to find out, sir.” Any rate

it finished up that, found out that they’d dumped it there aboard the ship. So I said to them, “Get the crew,” and it took the whole crew to move it along the deck to, via a locker we managed to get it in. And I said, “And I’ll find out later who did it and look at, find out what we’re going to do about it.” And I’d forgotten all about it because I had so many other things on my mind. So anyhow that saved us that night. The destroyer next morning was visible, the hole down in the main anchorage.

And I said to the signal man, “Send a signal to it asking for help.” So they got the message, they said they’d be down, and they came down. And they came alongside, they gave everyone who wanted a hot breakfast, course no-one had had anything to eat for twenty-four hours, we had no power, we had nothing. So anyhow they took us in tow then back to the main anchorage. And they’d

sent a signal to headquarter ship telling them basically what damage had been done to us. And then the signal came back to say that there was a salvage ship on it’s way over from the U.K. and would be there about lunch time, and we would be first cab off the rank, which we were. And they were very good, they came alongside, spent the night there, they put pumps aboard, a quick drying cement block on the hole in the bottom plate and got us partially

re-floated. They then sent a diver over next day with gear and they patched up the hole. And it was three days later that we left there under tow by an American LCI with another LCI as escort, and they were towing us back to Portsmouth. We didn’t want to go to Portsmouth because of the fact that the crew had pinched this anchor. So I said to, I found out in the meantime that the main

offenders were our engine room crew, and I said to them, “Well if you blokes don’t want to finish up in jail, the best thing you can do is to get some power in those two engines so that can we go to Weymouth,” which was to be our home base once we’d been to Normandy, for the land, initial landing. And an hour or two later they got power in one engine, part power. And I said, “That’s not good enough, we want more than that.” And by the time we got to the Isle of Wight which was night fall,

we had got enough power in both engines to get us underway. So I sent a signal to the LCI towing us, asking whether he’d mind if he slipped the tow and stood by while we tried the engines out for a mile or two, which he did.

Yeah, and anyhow we finished up at Weymouth.

We got down there at nightfall off the, in Portsmouth and waited there and went in first light next morning. We finished up going to the dock yard, got two new engines in there and then a week later, so we were assigned to the Americans who had LCI’s there. And they wanted some LCT’s to cart their

tanks and armed equipment across to Omaha and Utah beaches [codenames of sites for the Allied landings in Normandy on D Day, 6 June 1944] we worked with them. And then we’d been with them probably a few weeks and I was then relieved of my Command there and I was transferred back to Australia.

Oh, then when I arrived in Fremantle I was sent on six

week’s Foreign Service leave. I’d been home three days and I was recalled. Next morning I had to fly from Perth up to Cairns in a DC-3 [Douglas Dakota plane], not non stop but stopped every second town on the way. Got up there to join the Beach Group. And I wasn’t particularly happy about that, I wasn’t feeling particularly well, I went to the medical

naval bloke and he said I should go back on leave, and he referred me to a specialist army bloke who was there, and he confirmed that. But our commander said, “Unless he’s dead or dying, in view of pending operations, he can’t go.” So we went shortly after that to Moratai, from Moratai went to Tarakan, Tarakan was a complete cock up. And after a week there went back to Moratai and then the next call was Balikpapan, we were there when the Japs

declared the war’s finished. And the day after, went across to Macassar in the HMS Inverell with the occupation troops and there with about a dozen naval chaps to set up Port Directorate there. I was there for about ten, twelve days and then went back to Moratai, and then from Moratai went down to Sydney, and from Sydney back to Perth.

And then on the fourth of January I was retired.

Well since the war I went back to William Adams in Perth and I stayed with them for eighteen months. And Lorna came from Sydney and I was a bit restless, I couldn’t settle down and I thought, oh well, I’ll leave there and move across to Sydney.

Which I did in early 1945 and, or ‘46 it was. And there I joined COR [Commonwealth Oil Refineries] Limited which became BP [British Petroleum] Australia, and I spent the rest of my working life with them.

And that was basically it.

I retired in 1975, early retirement. I then bought a business down in town, a picture framing, no, it wasn’t a picture framing business then, it was a restaurant, was in there. And my

daughter and her husband operated there for a while until she was getting her first infant and she gave it away. And then I leased it out, and then eventually got sick and tired of restaurants there, so I took it over myself and set up a picture framing business and an art gallery. And I ran that until five or six years ago when I leased it out. And then

finished up selling it and it’s today is an art gallery still.

Well my earliest memory of childhood was when I was with my grandmother

and my mother, living in Leederville and then down to Swanbourne. And my mother re-married, a gentleman by the name of Len Lovegrove, was a well known name in Perth in those days. He was, worked in some government department, I don't know just exactly what he was doing. That was

probably the clearest vision I had of my childhood and I was probably what, nine or ten or eight or nine or something like that, in those days so that was it. And then went to school and ...

Alright. I don’t remember having any major problems at school.

I think that the training that I’d had in the navy was probably of great assistance because you know, we carried, covered a lot of aspects of tutoring which we had at school. And I think probably it helped me more than some of the others who hadn’t had that experience.

I went to

school initially at Swanbourne, that was only within walking distance of home, and then when I finished there I went to secondary school at Claremont, and that was not far away. I used to travel there by train. And we were within walking distance of the station either side, and it was no great problem.

And I stayed there until I was fourteen years of age and in sixth class I think it was, and I graduated there at that level and then went to work with Mortlock Bros. Stayed with them and then went to sea with West Australia State Ships.

Well not that I, I can’t recall that it affected us in any way, really. My mother was lucky that my father had left investment or money, which enabled her to bring us up. And she sold the five pearling luggers in Broome. And I

don’t know what sort of money she got for them, but in those days was probably quite an appreciable amount. And my step father, Leonard Lovegrove, he had a very good position in the Government and I don't think he was short of a pound. But I don’t remember any great

problems with the Depression. But I had, once I left school I was working myself, all the time, non stop and whilst I wasn’t earning a great lot of money, I was earning enough to sort of keep, help keep myself. And it was the same with my brother, he was working from an early age.

Well yachting was my main sport, main past time, I was very keen on golf. And we lived not far from the Cottesloe Golf Club which was just up the road from where we were living in Swanbourne. And I caddied for a friend of ours who lived further up the street from

us. And he was a very keen golfer and he used to play golf every weekend, and I would caddy for him. And I used to get two and six a round for carting his bag around, didn’t have buggies in those days we had to carry them. And it was very good, it was quite entertaining so far as I was concerned, I enjoyed it. And he used to play in a lot of tournaments and took me along.

And he also had brand new Ford cars because he was the head Ford dealer in Perth or in Western Australia at the time. And whenever a new model came out he took one, and I used to have the pleasure of being driven around in this, to and from the golf courses. I was also a member of the North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club for quite a few years. And

I played football with Claremont, I enjoyed that. I played a bit of cricket but they were my main sports, golf, football, Australian Rules, that is. And I did play tennis for a while so, but I was always involved in sports of some sort.

Well,

mainly because I think that, well so far as the yachting’s concerned, I had two cousins, brothers, who had a twenty-one foot yacht, and they asked if I would like to join them in their crew, we had a crew of twelve and I said, “Yes.” And we used to race on a regular basis up and down the Swan River. And quite often had Fremantle to Rottnest Island yacht races.

And I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was also, you know, made me feel that I want to go to sea afterwards, I suppose.

Yes, we had, we used to pull up at Fremantle and load up there

and we had no ballast like some of the other ships. It was a keel, shallow draft yacht, timber built, very fast, a racing yacht. And my cousins who were quite a few years older than I was, and their crew, used to enjoy a drop of beer. So a cask of beer would come down and it was my job to unpack this and put it below the

decking in the, instead of ballast, see. And this particular day there was a mate of theirs came along and wanted to know whether he could get a ride to Rottnest. And anyhow the elder one of the brothers said, “Oh I don't know,” he said, “we’ve got twelve now,” he said, “you’ll make thirteen,” he said, “that’s bad

luck.” Any rate the rest of the crew said, “Oh yes, take him.” So any rate he came aboard. We got out and we were racing down the coast with a sou’ westerly blowing, and we had the spinnaker up and he was leaning over the side with his back against the spinnaker rope. And a puff of wind came and it flipped him over backwards and he fell over into the sea. The skipper didn’t see him,

we yelled out to him, “Have to put about, John, he’s fallen in the water.” So anyhow we were in lead then, in lead, in the lead, we had quite a good lead. We had to put about, go and pick him up, and it finished up we that we got in about third instead of winning that particular race, so that’s one time I remember when thirteen was an unlucky number.

Well mainly because I felt that

I wanted to get out and do something other than school. And I think through the years, having spent so much time being lectured to and doing this. And I mean a month at Greenwich Royal Naval College was probably one of the most tedious and arduous jobs because we were just going day and night virtually,

being instructed. And everywhere we went we were involved in work like that which I think started to have an affect on me, and that’s when I was glad to get to sea and away from it all. And then when I decided to leave and go out to work it was basically the same reason I think, that I’d had enough of

being taught. Not that I knew that much, but I’ve never had any great problem, touch wood, with being able to cope with things, in every job that I’ve had.

I had no, nothing in mind at that time. There was job, this job available at Mortlock Bros. so I thought alright, it was

just office boy. I used to just take the mail and help the office staff clean up their desks, and things like that. That’s all I did… was to collect the mail from down the Post Office and take mail down and post it. And I suppose that got a bit boring after awhile because, as I say, I was only there about eighteen months or something or other, gave that away. But I enjoyed it at sea until

I’d joined the Kalinda and the first mate there was, oh, I don't know, he, I just couldn’t get on with him. And I was on the bridge this morning scrubbing the deck and he was walking around smoking and just dropped his butt on the, scraped it into the timber deck you know, and I had to turn around and clean it up. He said to me, “How do you like

working for a living Nelson?” I said, “I’ve been working for the last couple of years, sir,” I said, “I don’t mind it at all.” He said, “You mean swinging the lead don’t you?” And I said, “Well I’ve done a bit of that too.” Anyhow just as I was leaving the bridge they’d had a problem with one of the halyards on the main mast, the, and it’d got tangled up. And he said to me, “Nelson,” he said, “how would you untangle that?” And I looked at it and I said, “Well I think

the thing, the way I would go about it sir, I’d get a shackle or something heavy like that, tie it onto the end there that’s caught up and hoist it up and let it swing around, and with the ship swaying from side to side,” I said, “it’d probably untangle itself.” “Oh, what a lot of rot.” So I turned and walk off down there, and as I was walking down the forepeak I looked around and what had happened, someone had tied a halyard onto the rope and

inside two or three minutes the thing was free. And any rate the next time I had a little encounter with him was, we were up in Wyndham. And this cousin of mine, who I used to go sailing with, he was with a shearing team up there and they’d been up there shearing. And we were anchored overnight waiting for the tide to come in next morning to get out. And he and I are standing alongside the,

the ship’s side and just talking away and the lead anchor was over there, line, lead line, and I was pulling this up and just letting it go again. The first lieutenant the chief, first mate came along and said, “What are you doing Nelson?” And I said, “I’m swinging the lead sir.” John, my cousin looked at me like this, the mate turned and walked off,

and I’ve never forgotten that. Anyhow the strange part about it was that when I left there and went and joined William Adams, one of the first people I saw after being in William Adams after a few weeks, was this first mate. He happened to be a mate of the managers. And he said to me, “What are you doing here Nelson?” I said, “I’m working here sir.” “Oh, good.”

Anyhow next thing I knew the boss said to me, “I had a friend of yours visit me the other day.” And I said, “Yes, the first mate, McLinder.” He said, “Yes.” He said, “He was glad to see that you were working here,” and he said, “and he wished you all the best and he said that you’d done a very good job on the...” I said, “You’re joking,” and I told him what had happened. And he said, “No,” he said, “that’s fine.” Anyhow I stayed there until

war broke out.

We were carrying mainly stock from north, down to south, down to the abattoirs, sheep and cattle. We used to take supplies up to the northern ports, north western ports, food stuffs and things like that, but that’s all basically it was that we were carrying.

Oh it was, the main ports were busy, because a lot of the pearling luggers were operating from Broome and from the other places. Wyndham was always a busy place because they had a lot of cattle and sheep up there. And I never ever saw any there but possibly some overseas ships went in. But they were tidal ports

where you had a thirty, forty foot rise and fall, the water. And we would get up there in the hours of daylight at full tide, when it was full tide, then we would stay overnight and it was a full time job because you had to ease off the cables onto the wharves as the tide got down and then take ‘em in as they came up. I’m going to cough.

Well it wasn’t the best, unfortunately. My brother and I used to do all the work round the place, the gardening, the mowing the lawns. And then

when our step brother was old enough to do these things he didn’t do them. But I just didn’t get on with him at all and my brother didn’t either, so it was sad in a way I suppose, particularly from my mother’s point of view. But he died when I was oh, what,

I don't know, probably in my early twenties or something like that, middle twenties. But no, he wasn’t anyone who we had any great liking for, unfortunately.

Yes, yes, my step sister’s still alive, she’s over in Perth and we speak to one another on a regular basis. My step brother died some few years back now, he was in Melbourne. But his wife rings, she was talking to Lorna only the other day for her birthday. And oh, we’re in constant touch with them.

But he was just, and not only us but a lot of people who I knew who just didn’t get on with him.

Well in the Kangaroo which was the first ship I was in, we used to travel up and down the north west coast

and also go over to Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Saigon. And I would have had probably oh, four or five trips over there and the last one was when we took it over to Saigon to hand it over to Mr Moller who was in charge, in command of the flotilla of ships. And

it was renamed the Nora Moller. We came back to Singapore in a French liner, the Compte de Lille, Le Compte de Lille and then one of the Blue Funnel liners back to Fremantle when as I say, I joined the Kalinda. The Kalinda didn’t go over to Java, Sumatra or Singapore, it just went up and down the coast. And

I think this probably had a bit of a bearing on the attitude of the first mate because I heard on one or two occasions that he regretted that he didn’t have the opportunity of serving in the Kalinda, in the Kangaroo and going over to these ports so that was it. But it wasn’t as enjoyable in the Kalinda as it was in the Kangaroo.

Well it was the camaraderie of the people aboard and our bosun particularly, I learned a lot from him. And my degree of seamanship was revealed later on when I was in the navy because people remarked on it, you know. And it was of great benefit to me ultimately,

particularly for my service in the navy. Because it gave me a lot of confidence and some of the jobs that I undertook on my own virtually, without the approval of the powers that be, proved out, proved in the long run to be the thing to do. And the,

a couple of occasions there the, out on the Mediterranean, our CO, I used to spend most of my time on the bridge, because he was a bit ‘if-y’ and ‘but-y’. And this particular day we were coming into the port and we were heading straight for the rock wall. And I just said to the engine room,

“Stop engines and full astern.” And in the LCI’s of course one of the problems with it, they were the first ships built for the American or British that had high speed diesel engines in them. We had two banks of four engines, four engines driving each propeller. They didn’t have any reverse, they had a transverse pitch on the propeller blade and it took

what seemed like minutes to go from full ahead to full astern. And this was one of the problems with them and one of the problems that my CO at the time had, so I wasn’t game to leave the bridge when we were entering or leaving harbour. And he never objected to it at all, and I virtually took over the reigns. But we had

another problem with the LCI’s out in north, with every, at the time, very, very few people in general service knew anything about them because they were something new. And I had heard on a couple of occasions that some of them had been identified as U-boats [German submarines], surfaced in poor light.

And I hadn’t thought much about it until this particular occasion and we were out with a group of commandos, commando unit we dropped off on a special exercise at midnight, or just before midnight, along the Algerian coast. We had to go ashore, take them ashore and then go back to sea and we hove to off shore about a mile and waited until we got a signal from them to go back and pick

them up. And whilst we were there, a British destroyer hove to, to seaward of us and signalled us wanting identification. And I said to the signal man, “Go down to the wheel house and get the code and send him a signal,” tell him who we were. I didn’t realise that it’d just gone midnight, the code changed at midnight, so the code we sent them was the previous days, and then they didn’t accept it.

They turned the search lights on and the two guns, forehead guns swung round on us. I picked up the loud speaker and I yelled out. “Put those lights out you dopey bastard.” The lights went out, the guns swung round and then a reply came back, “Sorry Aussie.” And it was then that I thought, well they had obviously thought that we were a U-boat surfaced in the dim light, of course, it was,

midnight, pretty dark. So that was one occasion when the CO, he didn’t say a word at all, he just sort of stood there and said nothing. And there were other occasions when I had to sort of virtually take over. But it was getting back to my previous experience

as a seaman with the West Australian State Ships and then in the Whitshed and Cotswold. We were trained there by, you know, experienced personnel all the time, it was a learning process right from the very outset. And when I was commissioned I had no feeling of fear or doubt or

anything, I was just confident that I could just do what I was supposed to do.

Well I actually, when war broke out, went back to State Ships and I saw the first mate there, to see whether I could rejoin there. And he said, “No.” He said, “You stay with William Adams.” And I said,

“Well I don’t want to stay with William Adams particularly, I want to go back to sea.” And then my mates, several of my mates were joining the navy so that’s, you know, made my mind up that I would join the navy too. And they were twelve months older that I was. And when we were being interviewed down at Fremantle, the chap who was interviewing us was a lieutenant

and he said, “How old are you Nelson?” And I told him, I was only nineteen at the time, about to turn twenty in July. And I said, “Do you think I should put my age up?” He said, “Yes.” So I put my age up to join these others so that, you know, as we went on, progressed, we wouldn’t be sort of one down and one up there, sort of. And it stayed that way until quite recently, and even

now Veteran Affairs or the navy or someone or other, comes up with my birth date which is 1920 instead of 1921, but I got tired of telling them that it’s ‘21 so I just forget it now.

Well I was horrified at the way the Dutch

people treated the natives in Java and Sumatra. They were like slaves, they were bullied and kicked and belted and one thing and another, and that didn’t impress me at all. I always remember that, I regret that, having seen that, that was one of the... But other than that we got on quite well,

particularly in Singapore, we were well accepted there and most of the other places. And we were accepted alright in Java and Sumatra too but it was just the way in which these dockyard workers were treated, that didn’t impress me at all.

Well we went over to Melbourne for, to Flinders [naval base] to do our initial training there. There were about a dozen of us went over by train and we were at Flinders for the best part of a month and then we returned to Leeuwin. And it was

two months after we joined that we actually set sail from Sydney in the Largs Bay which was one of the Aberdeen Commonwealth liners that used to ply between the U.K. and Australia. There were a couple of hundred army chaps aboard, there were a few passengers, there were a few prisoners of war, aliens who were here at the outbreak of war. And they were

being sent back to Britain, they came from different parts of Europe and round about. And I don't know why they had them, they weren’t chained up or anything like that, they were just passengers going back to Britain to be, I suppose, treated as people who might be of a problem, security wise. But

when we left Sydney we went down to Wellington in New Zealand, picked up half a dozen Fleet Air Arm chaps, they were very friendly. We went across then to South America, our first land fall was the Galapagos Islands, whatever you like to call it. They call em the Galla-pay-gos in those days. And then we went up to

the Panama Canal, we stayed overnight there and then moved up to Halifax in Nova Scotia.

Oh they were with us as passengers, they were all quite respectable sort of people. I mean some of them were business people of some sort, but

they just came from Austria, Germany or somewhere like that. And I suppose Australia wanted to get rid of them, I don't know the reason for it. ‘Course in those days everything was so secretive that no-one knew exactly what was going on or who was what. And even now when we were working with the commandos and dropped them off in various raids, we didn’t have the faintest idea what they were doing, we didn’t ask them because

we knew that they were sworn to secrecy. And that’s the reason why even today very few people know about what happened in those days because the degree of secrecy was greater than ever. And when I look at stuff on TV today and see how they’re going on about these terrorists and all the rest of it, and broadcasting what they’re going to do to eliminate it, it’s ridiculous. And if it hadn’t of have been for the

degree of secrecy in those days, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.

It was very good. The weather was quite good except going across to South America, we were way down south and it was very misty. We didn’t see anyone else, we didn’t have any problems

with that and it was, we were engaged in doing exercises and one thing and another like that, aboard ships, so we were kept motivated. And whilst it took two months to get across there it wasn’t boring.

We went up there

to the Panama Canal, we stayed in port there over night one night and in British, ah, some American army chaps heard that there were some Australian service men aboard. So we put on our civilian clothes and we went ashore and they entertained us for the night, and brought us back to the ship, and wished us well and sent us on our way

next day.

Well they had a concert going and things like that, and it was just virtually a canteen set up. Those who drank had drink, but it was just an enjoyable night, out amongst other people who were very friendly and

we were only there probably ‘til midnight or something or other, probably there about three hours or something like that, four hours. And it was a bit of a relief to get aboard, I mean it was the first time that we had left the ship. When we were in New Zealand we didn’t go ashore so we were virtually aboard the ship for what, a month and a half. And

we went ashore when we got to Saint John, New Brunswick, or Nova Scotia. And then course it took us about, oh what, from memory I think it was about five, four or five days or something or other to get across the Atlantic. We weren’t travelling at any great speed, I think we were doing probably about ten knots or something like that.

And there were a lot of different ships, cargo ships and there, immediately astern of us there was a brand new tanker which was loaded with fuel and they were having a problem maintaining a low speed. And every now and again we’d look astern and see the ship as if it was gonna ram us, but it was an uneventful trip across there. There was reported U-boat

attack when we were twenty-four hours out of Glasgow but it never eventuated, the destroyers were racing round and dropping some depth charges so they apparently, obviously scared them off. But then we didn’t have any time in Glasgow, we left the ship and boarded the train and then down to Portsmouth.

Pardon?

Well it was just a mob of ships you know, I don't know how many ships there were, a hundred or more in the flotilla, in the crowd that we went across with. And it was difficult to see any distance,

I mean only time we saw the destroyers when they left the outer reaches when they came down through the lanes of shipping. And they were doing that all the time, I mean just up and down, round about, they didn’t just sort of stick on the same course as we were on. We maintained a steady course and a steady speed and they were just circumnavigating the whole flotilla of ships. And

we didn’t see a great lot of them really other than just whizzing past.

It was quite pleasant, I forget how many, it was only two or three hours I think, something or other, three hours, I forget now but it was an express train down there. And it didn’t seem to be too long at all. And when we were, we got down to

Portsmouth we were greeted there as colonials. I remember the first morning at division there and the petty officer said, “colonials fall out to the right.” And anyhow we’d got sick and tired of hearing this colonial business so we just stood still. He said, “I’m sorry gentlemen, would you Dominion gentlemen please fall out to the right.” And from that day on

he referred to us as Dominion gentlemen and not colonials. As we told him afterwards, we said, “We haven’t been colonials for many years.” And ‘course he was one of the British who probably didn’t know that anyway and couldn’t care. But we found they were very friendly down there but they were also very watchful, no loitering around. If you went from one

side of the depot to the other, which was quite some distance, we used to carry a piece of paper with us and walk briskly as if we were carrying a signal. Because otherwise we’d get pulled up by someone, you know, “What are you doing? Where are you coming from? Where are you going?” And I found this experience later on when I was called down there for an interview with the Admiralty Selection Board. I arrived down there a

couple of hours before I was due to go and front the Board and I wondered what I was going to do to keep out of harm’s way. And then I remembered that there was a theatre where they used to have films on there, instructional films for cadets and also the likes of us, as early seamen. So I went down and got in the back of the theatre and sat there. And the first hour there was some cadets

came in and they were being instructed on the quartermaster’s duties at sea, this film was. And the officer in charge on the film said to the quartermaster, “Steer 2-7-0 degrees, 2-7-0 degrees is due west, due west is 2-7-0 degrees.” And this kept going on and then he said to the quartermaster, “What’s due west?” “2-7-0 degrees sir.” Anyhow I had an hour of this and then

another lot came in. And lo and behold if they didn’t have the same film on again. So I had another hour and then I got out of it and I walked briskly across to the head office, went up the stairs and I was only there a couple of minutes and I was called in to front the Board. There was a Royal Naval captain who was in command of it, there were two commanders, one was an executive commander the other was an

instruction commander. Anyhow the captain said to me, “Where do you come from Nelson?” and I told him. And he said, “What did your father do?” I said, “My father was a pearler.” “Oh,” he said, “you’d be a pretty wealthy sort of a chap.” And I said, “No, I’m afraid I wouldn’t because he died when I was very young and my mother had to bring my brother and me up, feed us and clothe us and everything else.” And any rate as we progressed there he said, “Do you ever smile Nelson?” And I said, “Yes I do, sir.”

He said, “Perhaps you don’t think this is an occasion for smiling?” And I said, “Well that could be the case, sir.” And any rate he told me a yarn then. He said, “This commander,” he said, “he had a daughter who married a sub lieutenant and the sub lieutenant used to say, yes sir, no sir, three bags full.” And any rate it finished up, the commander said, “Good God man,” he said, “you’re my son-in-law, call me ‘Dad’.” Anyhow the instruction commander threw his head back and opened his mouth and laughed like mad. And I took one look at him and started laughing

too. And he said, “That’s right Nelson.” Anyhow that’s one part I’ll never forget and then he said to the commander, the instruction commander, “Have you got any questions for Nelson?” And he said, “Yes.” And he said to me, “Have you done much navigation Nelson?” And I said, “Not a lot but,” I said, “I’ve done a bit of navigation.” He said, “What’s due west?” I said, “2-7-0 degrees, sir.” And they were stunned, they looked like this, one another. Any rate the captain said in front,

“Any other questions?” “No,” he said, “that’s all, sir.” And I thought well that two hours in the theatre didn’t do me any harm at all. But anyhow I went down below then and I was talking to the officer of the day about the rest of my survivor’s leave. I’d had two weeks and I was recalled for this and I had one week left. And I told them in the first instance that I’d be prepared to forego the leave if they wanted to get me in earlier. Any rate whilst we were there the captain came down and he said,

“My young Australian rating,” he said, “what are you doing here?” And the officer of the day said, “We’re negotiating the balance of his survivor’s leave.” “survivor’s leave,” he said, “what are you a survivor from?” I said, “HMS Cotswold sir.” “Cotswold,” he said, “who was the captain?” And I told him and the captain happened to be a friend of his. “Oh.” And anyhow he tapped me on the shoulder, he said, “Well good luck Nelson,” he said, “and all the best.” Anyhow away he went. The officer of the watch came back he said, “Nelson,” he said, “forget about the two weeks you’ve had,” he said, “we’ll take another

three week’s leave.” So I walked out of there thinking that was the best day I’ve had for years, which it was.

Yes, we were doing drilling work, we were put in charge of units for parade work and things like that. We didn’t have any sea going experience, it was all land experience there but

it was part of the traditional training that we had. Morning divisions, you know, everyone fell in and they went through the process of identifying their unit and one thing and another and then marching off, and it was just parade work virtually. And we didn’t have any sea going experience until such time as we went to sea. But I was lucky that I’d had

a couple of year’s sea going experience beforehand and a lot of the others I was with didn’t have any at all.

Very good, yes. Yes, we were well looked after there and it was, although it was a very strict place it was excellent really because you couldn’t wish to be trained in a better place. And you couldn’t wish to be trained with

better people. I mean they were very friendly towards us and we learned a lot about the British while we were there. And I remember then, later on my Fiftieth Anniversary of Normandy when the then Prime Minister Paul Keating was over there and he said to me, “How did you become involved with the Poms, Nelson?” And I told him. And he said, “How did they treat you?” And I said, “Well sir, if I put it this way, if war broke out

tomorrow again and I was fit and able and eligible,” I said, “I’d have no hesitation in joining the Royal Navy.” “Oh, is that so?” And I said, “Yes it is.” And I’ll always remember that and I think he will too. That, no, they were very, very helpful and I can’t say that I got the same, would have the same experience

when I came back here with some of the Australians. I may become, might have become too much of a Pom by then, I don't know.

Well in the Whitshed, our first lieutenant who was Lieutenant Longbottom,

he was a permanent Royal Navy chap, he was one of the strictest persons I’ve struck. Even on the coldest mornings he would be on deck in his Number One Uniform, no duffle coats, no scarves, no woollen gloves or anything. And he served his time as a midshipman in the HMS Hood and then he transferred to destroyers. But he would have been the

strictest person I met but the fairest person. And the other one was the first lieutenant in the Cotswold, Charles Dickens. He was a great, great grandson I suppose he’d be, of the Charles Dickens, he was a direct descendant. He was a permanent navy chap and he too was very strict but he was probably one of the greatest tutors, and I learned a lot from him.

And I often look back and think about it, and unfortunately, I wrote a letter to him just after I was commissioned, to thank him for all that he’d done. And the day after I’d posted it, it was announced on the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] news that he’d been killed in action in an E-boat attack. Because when he left the Cotswold apparently they wouldn’t accept him back in destroyers and he

became a Flotilla Leader of motor torpedo squadron and operating on the east coast of England. They got involved in an E-boat attack and a lot of them were killed and he was one. And I was very sorry about that. But they were, two of the officers who were, but the leading hands and the seamen

were, and the gunnery instructors were the same, they were all well trained. And we had one particular chap who was a leading hand, he had been in the Navy for thirty years. He hadn’t been commissioned because of different things that he had done but he was a gunner and he was one of the greatest gunnery people that you’d ever wish to meet. And with people

like that train you and in charge of things, it was absolutely magic because they made life so much easier. And when later on when I was serving with the Americans off the Normandy coast I found that their degree of experience was far, far less than ours. And even, excuse me, the

commander of the LCI flotilla who we were working with a week or so after Normandy, he invited me round to lunch one morning, when we got back from France. And I went round to join him at the LCI and we were the only two there at lunch. We had a very nice lunch of Spam and ice cream. And then he said to me, “Nelson, what is it that you guys say about our navigation, it’s as poor as piss.”

And I, like this, and I thought, gee whiz, what am I going to say. I said, “Well sir, I have heard that mentioned on a couple of occasions.” He said, “Well I agree with you.” And I was quite relieved. He said, “Unfortunately a lot of our younger officers today have had little or no sea going experience. They qualify at the academy and then appointed to a ship,”

and he said, “and that’s probably their first sea going experience.” And he said, “And a lot of them aboard the LCI’s here today are in that.” So that confirmed the general belief of the British that the ability of the Americans there in those numbers were nowhere near as good as the British or the Australians. And that revealed itself on the

beaches of Omaha and Utah. When I first went over there to Omaha Beach I was surprised at every stage of the tide there were nothing but tanks, armoured vehicles all the way up the beach, for a quarter of a mile, most of them seemed to be undamaged. But they’d been dumped there, broken down or something and they just deserted them. And then later on I found on the Fiftieth Anniversary talking to

Andre Heinz who was in charge of the French Underground Resistance at Cannes. I said to him, “How come that Cannes has been restored and the buildings are so beautiful today?” This is 1994. He said, “The Americans paid for most of that.” And I said, “Yeah?” He said, “We salvaged all the equipment off the Omaha and Utah Beaches and the money from that went a long way

towards refurbishing the City of Cannes. And I thought good God, well I can remember, I told him then that I had seen all these things. And he said, “Well they were all retrieved and,” he said, “some of them were in good condition, just been submerged in water.” But there was another instance of how they neglected, didn’t seem to worry about things like that.

I was, excuse me, a Communications Number on the bridge, I joined the same time as a Newfoundlander and we were both given a test for speech. Without saying, I could be understood far easier than the chap from Newfoundland because he spoke with a terrible accent.

And we were hooked up to all the guns, all lookout positions, the wheel house, the engine room and also another particular area which was only just recently installed, was a Dutch man aboard the ship. And he could speak German and understood German, and he was there because the E-boats in those

days, their main communication was by word of mouth of radio. And somehow or other they knew exactly when the convoys were leaving from the northern ports and the southern ports, where they would cross at what point and they would hove to there and wait ‘til they crossed and then fire the torpedoes at them. And they would get, give the directions to their E-boat commanders via radio. And the

Dutch man would interpret it and he would pass it on to me in English, and I would pass it to the CO in English, as would be the case with all the gun crew and everything else. The people in the lookouts, if they saw something there, they would pass it on and I’d pass it on, and I was doing this non stop. And I didn’t mind it because it was pleasing work and I could see what was going on, I was doing

lookout work as well on the bridge and I could, you know, envisage just what was going to happen or what might happen.

Well every night we were subjected to E-boat attacks, there were probably two air raids a day, usually one at dusk and one time later on in the night. There was

activity on all the time and every morning the English Channel would be lined with ships that were sunk. There would be more ships sunk there than probably in the Atlantic. And the sea going tugs were forever towing them out of the Channel which were only quite narrow and towing them over on to beach them on the sand bars. And we would be picking up survivors, RAF [Royal Air Force] fighters, people whose

planes had been over bombing and shot up and probably didn’t make it and had to jump out of the plane, or crashed into the ocean or something or other. There was hardly a day went past when there wasn’t a casualty, an airman.

Those that were injured were quite seriously injured, but those who weren’t they were quite happy once they got out of the water

and got dried up and had something to eat. And yeah, they were quite talkative and they seemed to just accept that as part and parcel of their daily routine, which is what it was. Because they would be back in the air again that night probably in another plane, those that were capable.

Only when

at cruising stations, I’d get relief then, someone’d take over and I’d be able to go down below and have a cuppa or something like that. But there’d be a minimum of twelve hours, and sometimes longer than that, because we went to sea every second day, we were supposed to but we were always recalled, hardly a day went past.

Well because of an unexpected E-boat attack or more problems at sea and they needed extra escort vessels, and the whole flotilla of destroyers was working virtually non stop. And it was that way for, well the six months that I was on the east coast of

England in destroyers.

Communications Number on the bridge.

Hooked up by ear to all the guns, all the lookout positions, the wheel house, engine room and this particular Dutch man who was

intercepting verbal signals from the E-boat commanders or operators.

It was one of the old destroyers.

It had four point six inch guns, forehead and aft, it carried torpedoes. Some of the more modern destroyers like the Cotswold, didn’t carry torpedoes. But it wasn’t an updated model, it was,

I don't know when it was first designed but it had been operating for some years, the Vand W class-destroyers as they called them. The Cotswold was a more recent one. But they were quite capable and had good speed, thirty knots would be our top speed. Not that we use that very often but

sometimes it was necessary. But they were very stable ships, and by and large I think it was probably one of the more comfortable ships. But there was nothing unusual about the design, the design was much the same

as they accept today although they, the design of some of them today have become a bit ‘if-y’ or ‘but-y’, I don’t like them particularly, but that’s neither here nor there.

Well we used to sling a hammock, didn’t happen very often because we didn’t spend much time in bed.

And quite often I’d just doss down on some low lockers like that with a pillow or something, and go to bed fully booted and spurred. And it was like that the night that, at three o'clock in the morning, when we struck the mine.

Yes, we used to leave Harwich probably about mid afternoon and, excuse me, go north or south depending on which convoy we were to hook up with. And there would be oh, several convoys a day going north and south, it was just as busy as a main street. And

this is where of course the E-boats had a good time because they were able to get in and fire their torpedoes without taking aim at any particular ship, because they would just aim at the convoy and they’d hit something. But we would pick them up probably as far as Flamborough Head to the north or down

to Dover in the south, and then proceed either south or up north depending on which way the convoy was going. And be in constant contact with the lead ship, and if anything undue happened well everyone knew about it and could take whatever action was necessary to

combat the E-boats. Or at the same time fire a barrage for an air raid. Some of the merchant ships, most of the merchant ships had some sort of anti aircraft guns, much to the dislike of the RAF blokes. Because quite a few of them were shot down by

the merchant service. And it was not long after that that they introduced the aircraft recognition course. During all my training

in the early years aircraft recognition courses just didn’t exist. And the first one that I remember or the one I went to, was in 1942 after I was commissioned and was up in Saint Christopher, Fort William, in Scotland. And when I got up there I was amazed to find the chief Instructor was none other

than Alan Villiers. Alan Villiers was a lieutenant at that time, he was Australian, he came from Geelong but he joined the Royal Naval Reserve, and he was a part owner of the Joseph Conrad, one of the grain ships that used to sail in the grain races between Australia and England. And at that particular, in that era he would have been regarded as one of the

greatest navigators and seamen that existed in the world, and yet there he was ashore teaching aircraft recognition. But it didn’t take long for me to realise why he was there, because he could identify an aircraft by the noise of the engine, without seeing it. And after doing two courses with him I was in much the same position.

From, if it was a north-bound convoy we would go down to, say, Dover, just off Dover, wouldn’t go into port, we would wait out to sea and then take it up as far as Flamborough Head. And it would, they’d probably be going up to Alloa or somewhere like that in Scotland and or maybe some other port and

another convoy would take over, probably one based in Scotland.

Well it would be probably six hours if, providing you didn’t have any hold ups and depending upon the speed of the convoy, because they weren’t fast moving ships. And because of the fact that they were so closely placed in line

and there would be two or three lines ahead. And particularly when they were passing, the lines would interlock like that and you could virtually put your arm out and touch the guard rail. And course speed was reduced at those points, and that’s where of course, the E-boats had a great time because they were sitting ducks. But it would take, well we would spend twelve hours

at sea. If we left say, mid afternoon and we had probably eight hours to midnight and then in the early hours of the morning, four o'clock, five o'clock something like that we would return to port.

Well we were supposed to be twenty-four hours on, twenty-four off. We didn’t, we still had duties while we were in port because there were things to do.

Ship had to be re-ammunitioned and re-fuelled and all sorts of things like that but there was hardly a day went past when we didn’t get re-called mid-afternoon to go and help the escorts on duty. And the same thing applied to them too when we were out on patrol.

Well not

really, they were fast moving, they were high speed diesel engines. And at that particular stage the British Government had an offer of two thousand pounds, from memory, for one E-boat that was captured intact because they wanted to find out what made ‘em go and what made them such formidable things, because they were very hard to catch. I mean the motor torpedo boats

couldn’t catch them because at full speed they would probably be doing another four or five knots more than the motor torpedo boats or the gun boats. But I don't know of any one that was ever caught in act, there were plenty of them damaged and one thing and another. And I think that when they abandoned them they probably blew them up rather than, because the Germans knew that the British or the Americans

didn’t know. And the closest they got to, were the high speed diesel engines they put in the LCI’s. But I don't know, I never ever went aboard an E-boat, I saw them at close range but they were going at such speed when they saw us that it was hard to, I didn’t get any photographs of any. I got photographs of other ships but never an E-boat.

And they caused more havoc, particularly on the east coast of England than anything else.

Well all we could do was to open fire at ‘em with the four point six inch or four inch guns. Or if we were close enough, with machine gun fire. But very seldom were we close

enough to come into close, you know, into contact with them in point of view of shooting at ‘em. ‘Cause what they used to do is hove to at a point where the convoys were going to meet. And this was something we never ever found out, how they knew just what time the convoys left Dover or what time they left Scotland. And they worked out if

they said that, alright they leave there at eight o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the morning up there, they will meet off Harwich or they’ll meet off Lowestoft, or Whitby or somewhere or other else, at a certain time. And the E-boats would be out laying in wait for them and generally it was in darkness, in the middle of the night and ‘course no-one knew they were there. You could pick ‘em up on radar but by the time we picked them up on radar they were in close enough to fire their torpedoes and then get the

hell out of it. And they presented the greatest problem ever on the east coast of England. And as well as mines, but, they used to lay mines too, so.

Well it didn’t really affect us that much except that it made you more aware. I mean the degree of awareness

was greater in that particular area than anywhere else I served. Because you had to listen, if you heard a noise that was a bit strange you’d report it and if you saw something was a bit odd, such as one day, this was aboard the Cotswold and I was on the bridge. And we were expecting

an air umbrella of Spitfires, which was normally six Spitfires, they were to join the convoy. And out of the cloud just ahead of us, I had binoculars up, I spotted what I thought were a couple of aircraft, it turned out to be two seagulls came out of this cloud. And I said to the first lieutenant, “There’s two aircraft bearing port 1-0.” He looked up, he said, “Where have they gone Nelson?” And then he shook his head like this,

two seconds later, out of that cloud came one, two, three, four, five, six Spitfires. He turned around to me and shook his head as much to say, ‘you’ve done it again.’ But there was a degree of awareness that I’d never ever experienced before, and mistakes like that were made and they just had to

be accepted. So it was interesting and it didn’t become boring, as it might seem but because things changed so quickly, you know. Other destroyers or patrol boats could signal about something that they’d picked up and then that, that would create a bit of a, a greater awareness and the other ships in the convoy would be

keeping an eye open or ears open for whatever was going on. And it was very silent, people on the bridge were not talking, not unless they were passing messages or something like that. It was almost forbidden to chat or even smoke and the degree of discipline was, you know, as strong as you’d get anywhere. And the efficiency

was too.

No. No, we never ever had time to be frightened because your mind’s occupied on other things you know, you’re trying to foresee what’s going to happen or interpret what’s going on. And it’s an amazing thing, it’s only afterwards when you sit down and think about, and you

think oh gee whiz, you know, that was a bit scary, perhaps. But during the actual thing, no. And I found that throughout the war in any particular predicament or situation that I found myself. But because of the fact that I had a job to do that it kept you pre-occupied.

He was very good. He was a very experienced destroyer skipper, he was highly decorated. He wasn’t greatly liked by Captain Dee, who was in command of the flotilla, I found that out. But he was, he was a very experienced chap,

he was very strict. And I always remember one occasion this Newfoundlander he finished up on one of the guns, one of the Oerlikans or machine guns. And he came on the air one day and said that there was a ship bearing so-and-so. Anyhow we had a look out there and it was a ship alright but it was a light ship marking the Channel you

see. And anyhow I just called out to the captain, “Ship bearing so-and-so.” And he turned round to me and said, “Tell that bloke Nelson, not to be so bloody wet, that’s a light ship.” And I had to tell, word for word, exactly what he said, I couldn’t serve anything else. So I said, “From the captain, don’t be so bloody wet, that’s a light ship.”

Any rate this Newfoundlander didn’t like me, he thought I’d done that. And the first lieutenant, who was not sleeping but he was sort of away with the fairies perhaps at the time. When he heard me swear like that he turned around and looked at me and then realised that that’s what the captain had said and didn’t say anything about it. But there were several occasions when if people in their own language gave a signal, that the captain

had said to pass on to so-and-so, he gave them a roasting. And I could understand too that, I mean he expressed something as he wanted it to be expressed and understood and acted upon. And anyone who didn’t do that, well they copped it.

Well,

mine sweepers were on the job on a daily basis, and quite often after stormy weather we would see mines floating, ones that had broken their moorings, and they’d be floating on the surface. There were ships mined oh, I suppose every other day. I mean the cargo ships as well, I mean they were subject to mines and the E-boats’d get out there

and know where the convoys were going and lay some mines. And the mine sweepers would be out, not on a non stop basis, but they’d be out there night and day, you know, doing the channel. And if they got up to the northern end of the channel and started from the south and someone went along and laid some more mines, well they’d be there ‘til the next mine sweepers came down. So the mines were thick

and plenty there. As I say after storms you had to be careful that surface ones, and quite often we would get the machine guns or the Oerlikans gunners to shoot these mines to take the, tear the top off them so they’d sink, when they were floating. Because in the darkness if you hit one of those well, it’d be just the same as hitting a submerged mine, could be worse. So they were a big threat,

and course the east coast of England was a major spot for them because of the amount of traffic that was there, I mean ships going up there night and day. And, as I said earlier on, that there were more ships plying up and down there than probably across the Atlantic.

Well the Germans, they were all German mines. And they knew just exactly,

see the channels there were very narrow, and it wasn’t difficult for them to run up and down the channel and drop a mine off here and there. And if you were outside the channel in shallow water, which we weren’t, you were probably free of mines, unless one had broken loose or something like that. But

it wasn’t difficult for them to lay them. And particularly with these E-boats dropping them over the side, they might only carry a couple each but they could drop them and then high tail it out at high speed and without anyone knowing about it. So, but I would say that on a daily basis the mine sweepers probably swept up more mines than a lot of people believe.

And some of them of course they missed, but they used to work in pairs and go up and down the channel.

Well it was aboard the Whitshed and it was three o'clock in the morning, oh-three

hundred hours and I’d just gone down low, off watch. And I dossed down on the fore peak, on one of these lockers, about that high, I had a duffle coat on and sea boots. I just grabbed a pillow and I lay down on top of the lockers. And I’d barely had time to go to sleep when there’s an almighty explosion and the stern went up like that and the bow was buried in the water.

I was thrown from one side of the ship to the other. This mine was a magnetic acoustic mine, which meant you didn’t have to hit it but if you passed over the mine you’d set the rotator going. And then after the second or third ship it would explode. So without striking the mine, these magnetic acoustic mines with ships passing over would go off automatically at a set thing. So I mean if you were lucky you might be

the first or second ship over it, if you were unlucky you were the third one that blew up, and that’s what happened to us and it hit us in the engine room. Fortunately there were only a couple of minor casualties in the engine room crew. We weren’t many miles off Lowestoft at the time and a signal was sent ashore, and before we knew where we were, there were two very fast sea going tugs came alongside, one either side. They put big pumps aboard

and started pumping out and reduced the water level. They took us in tow and towed us back to Harwich Harbour where we arrived and all the crew bar myself was sent on survivor’s leave. And I was sent to see Commander Dee of the, who was in command of the Mackay, the destroyer commander. And

he said, “Nelson, we’ll send you to sea for another couple of months.” And I could see then that the Whitshed captain was starting to have some affect of how he treated the crew and I was one of the crew. Because he had no time for our captain at all. I don't know what problems they had but everyone I spoke to said the same thing that... But anyhow

I went that night by train down to Chatham where the Cotswold was, was down in dry dock having a boiler clean.

Yeah.

Well I don't know that I had any fear, my greatest problem was to get on my feet because the deck of the ship was like that and there was a foot or two of water in there and I was

slipping, sliding. But I got out on the upper deck and there I stayed until such times as the tugs came and... But obviously it wasn’t going to sink because we still had some pump power from our own pumps, although the main engines were not operating. But if the two tugs

hadn’t of got out as soon as they did, we probably would have had more major problem.

None whatsoever on that occasion. The only thing would’ve been if I was on the bridge, I would have been passing messages or signals from the captain or whoever was on watch at the time, to whatever positions was

necessary to find out damage control, and things like that. But being off watch and they didn’t call us back to action stations or anything like that, we just sort of stayed put. So I had no particular job or duty to do under those circumstances, in this instance.

Yeah,

yeah, and anyhow he said to me that he would send me to the Cotswold. And I must have, “Oh,” gone like this because I’d had a bit of a run in with the first lieutenant of the Cotswold only a couple of weeks prior to that.

When the Whitshed and the Cotswold were out on patrol and we called in at one of the, excuse me, the smaller ports along the east coast about midday. And

we were allowed ashore for about an hour and I went ashore with a few of my mates and the jetty was covered in ice, still snowing a bit and it was bitterly cold. And I had my duffle coat on and I had gloves on and my hands down in my duffle coat, through my duffle coat pockets into my trousers. And who should come along none other than a six foot four, red bearded Royal Naval lieutenant, coming in the opposite direction and I failed to salute him. And

it was our friend Charles Dickens. He said to me, “What’s your name?” I said, “Nelson.” He said, “That’s a bloody good name Nelson,” but he said, “it’s no excuse for not saluting me. I’ll see your first lieutenant about this.” And I thought good God, what’s Lieutenant Longbottom going to do. And course being as strict as this other bloke, I thought I’m gonna be in big problem. Anyway he must have thought twice about it because some days went past and nothing happened. But

then when I was transferred to the Cotswold I didn’t tell the captain of destroyers the reason for it. Anyhow when I got down to Chatham about midnight, there was an air raid signal on, siren on, and I ran into a few of Dad’s Army blokes and they wanted to know who I was and where I was going. And I told ‘em and they directed me to the Cotswold which wasn’t far away. And I went

aboard and some of the blokes on watch, I told them what had happened and they laughed and they said, “Well he’s a very strict bloke for saluting. At sea he’ll quite often wear an old sea boot stocking rolled up on the top of his head. So long as he’s got something on his head you salute him.” And they said, “He won’t forget about it but,” he said, “he’ll probably remind you one day.” He said, “If he was gonna do something about it he would have done it by then.” So I felt a bit relieved and

I was up bright and early because we had to leave at first light out of the dock yard, and I’m walking along the iron deck and who should I run into none other than the first lieutenant so I saluted him. And I dived round of aft the funnel and looked around like that and there’s this six foot four, red bearded lieutenant standing there with his feet astride stroking his beard like this as much to say, where’ve I seen that bloke before. Anyhow everything went smoothly, I had much the same job in the

Cotswold as I had in the Whitshed. And I’d been aboard there a couple of weeks and I thought I’ll apply for promotion to able seaman from ordinary seaman which I wasn’t supposed to do anyway, but I was gonna get an extra sixpence a day in my pay, so.

Well because when we joined up they said, “You’ll remain an ordinary seaman so long as you have to, until such times as you’re commissioned.” So anyhow I went up before the

captain, and the captain turned round to the first lieutenant and he said, “Well Number One,’ he said, “how long’s Nelson been with us now.” He said, “Oh, two or three weeks sir.” And he said, “And how’s he going?” He said, “From all accounts sir, he’s doing very well indeed.” Oh, I thought this was terrific. So the captain said, “Grant it, back date it two months.” So I got an extra sixpence a day back pay for two months you see. The petty officer said, “Salute Nelson, about turn and double march.” Which I did and I tripped head over bloody turkey out onto the iron deck over the

storm step. I picked myself up but from that day on I thought well lieutenant Charles Dickens and I are mates, which we were. And I got on very well with him and it was sad that I found out not so long after that, he was ultimately killed when he got involved in motor torpedo boats. But he was a great chap and

life aboard there was very enjoyable but unfortunately it only lasted until the sixteenth of March.

It was a more modern ship, crew wise, it was no different I was the only Australian aboard both ships. And

the, there was no difference really in the feeling that one had, serving in both ships. The crew were very friendly and the captain and the first lieutenant and the Navigating officers and the other officers they were all the same. Cause they were all permanent Royal Navy blokes and had a wealth of experience. So

they were all tarred with the same brush, so’s to speak. And going from one ship to another was no great hassle because there was no change of routine or character of the people aboard the ships.

Because I had to complete six months sea time before going down to

college. And captain destroyers felt that I didn’t deserve to go on survivor’s leave as the others were because it was probably more fitting that I should go and complete my sea time. Which I agreed with at the time, I wasn’t unduly upset or perturbed about that. And I was the only one who didn’t

have survivor’s leave but I don’t regret that at all.

Well yes, yeah, after completing six month’s sea time I’d go down to the Naval College at Brighton and undergo training there. And eventually

if you passed, get your commission. And in August of that year commissioned a sub lieutenant Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve and carried on from there.

Very well. Matter of fact we were probably spoiled because I mean, the instance where I think that

Charles Dickens didn’t report me to our first lieutenant was the fact that I was an Australian. Had I been a Pom he probably would’ve said, “Oh, yeah,” but. That was just one instance that I can think of. They used to give us preferential treatment, not excessively or anything like that but if we wanted some particular thing or wanted something you know, they would probably say, “Yes”. Whereas if one of the others asked them or put it

to them… but at the same time I never took advantage of it, and this I guess they were aware of but I always found that they were very good. In fact not only those aboard the ship but all those in the depots and the shore establishments with the exception of some of these passed over commanders, as I call them, we got very good treatment.

Well I think that the British like the Australians as we, in turn, like them. Probably doesn’t apply so much today or anything like that. But there were so few of them and I don't know of any ship where any of our personnel were

engaged had two Australians aboard. Some of them had one New Zealander, one Australian. We had this Newfoundlander bloke, he was the only other non Englishman. And in numbers well we were just one drop in the ocean compared with the thousands

and thousands of British troops and naval personnel. And for every thousand or two you might have one Australian or New Zealander, something like that.

Well they were quite keen to find out, you know, my background, what we did, and

how we lived and things like that so, I mean they obviously were interested in what went on. And in many instances it was identical to their way of living you see and this is probably another reason why we were compatible, the fact that, you know, we weren’t foreigners or aliens. As this bloke down in Portsmouth said we were, “colonials.”

They were a little better, excuse me, than the Whitshed. But there again we didn’t have bunks, we used to sling a hammock and quite often we had these low laying lockers again. And if we had just an hour or something or other to lay down

by the time you got your hammock out and slung it up it was time to get out again, so they were basically the same. And ...

The food in the Cotswold was a more update kitchen and the cook we had there was probably a bit more up to date. But I can’t remember much about the meals in the Whitshed but I remember that in the Cotswold

that the meals were particularly good. And the chef used to you know, go out of his way to ask people you know, what they thought of it. And I remember he did that on a few occasions. He said to me, “Oh is this the same as good Aussie tucker?” And I said, “Yes it’s better,” you know like that and he probably thought that was good.

Not very much at all.

Excuse me, because the only time we had any news was probably on the ABC at nine o'clock at night or midnight, and that didn’t happen very often so we were not aware of what went on. We might go for days and nights without hearing any news at all.

No. No, and when I look back on it with the news that comes out today I think that they reveal too much today. And had they revealed some of the facts that they come out with today in its stupid manner, that

things wouldn’t have gone the way they did, not favourably anyway.

Well because I was the only one aboard who was to complete six months at sea and then go ashore for training for a sub lieutenancy. There was no-one else aboard, so that was obviously the reason why

he thought, well, instead of me going away for a few weeks I’d be better off getting established in another ship and in the same flotilla so that I would just be continuing on basically the same as I was doing in the Whitshed. So he was right, I wondered in the first instance why I didn’t get leave but I didn’t particularly want it but, you know, after having served my time then in the Cotswold

I realised the reason why.

Quite easily, no problem at all, particularly when I realised that lieutenant Charles Dickens had forgiven me for not saluting him. And from that day on we became good friends and particularly the morning that the Cotswold was mined, which was about

mid morning and we were on our way back to Harwich after having been out all night. And I, who was at cruising stations down on A Gun in the forehead deck, and it was a nice, warm, sunny morning and we’d been sitting out in the sunshine on the deck. And then all of a sudden we ran into a bit of a fog, and it started to get chilly and dampish so we went back in protection of the gun. And no sooner had

we moved in there and bang, we hit a mine which blew up the forehead magazine, gutted the ship with fire. I was knocked unconscious and I don't know how long after it was, but I was over on the other side of the deck trying to pull myself up. At the same time trying to blow up my life jacket and spewing my

heart up. I heard a voice from over the other side of the deck and it was another one of our gun crew, he was getting up on his feet. And he came over to me and said, “How are you?” And I said, “I’m alright I think,” but my right side was completely numb. And I eventually got up on my feet and he told me then what had happened. He said, “You were obviously unconscious.”

But he said, “One of the fifty pound shells and the ready use locker,” which was above where I was laying, became dislodged and fell down and landed on my stomach. And fortunately I was out to it and I didn’t feel it but I was feeling it then. And anyhow we got up on our feet and then we heard a call from the fore peak, went over to the escape hatch and opened it up, and there

was a poor devil standing at the top of the ladder covered from head to foot in fuel oil. All I could see was the whites of his eyes. We got him up and I’ve never seen anyone in such shocking condition. He’d been burned from head to toe and the skin on his left arm was hanging on his fingernails and dragging on the deck. And how he was still conscious and able to get on his feet, I don't know. But immediately below

him, a couple of rungs down was another one, so we got him up too and we took the both of them down onto the main deck. And at this stage there must have been fifty or sixty bodies and people down on the deck. I don't know how long after it was, but then the first lieutenant came along and at that moment two mine sweepers appeared out of the mist, right alongside. They’d been sweeping the channel and if we’d,

if they’d been an hour sooner we wouldn’t have got mined. But anyhow we had no means of communication, our mast was down the radar and radio was out. So the first lieutenant asked them to contact shore and get out some vessels to pick up the injured and dead, and also sea going tugs. And we’re again off Lowestoft, almost the

same spot as we were a month earlier when the Whitshed was mine. And it wasn’t long before a flotilla of motor torpedo boats came out, they came alongside, took the dead wounded off. And in the meantime the first lieutenant said to me, “Nelson, come down below, we’ll go down to the petty officers quarters and see if we can find anyone down there.” So he went down the ladder first,

and said to me, “You stay there, I’ll go down.” And just as well because he was six foot four and he was standing in water and oil up to his arm pits. He took a deep breath, covered his eyes and ducked down under the water, he had apparently felt someone down there and he managed to get this chap by the shoulders and lift him up. And I went down a few more steps and helped him and the both of us got him up onto the upper deck, he was dead. He looked round for someone else or anyone else there and

he apparently realised that there were a couple of petty officers missing and this chap was one of them. So anyhow we went from there up to the deck, and at that stage two sea going tugs arrived, one either side. And they put powerful pumps aboard and got them operating and reduced the water content and lifted us out of the water, our bow was right under the water. And

he said to me, “Nelson, get four of the other chaps,” there were only eight I counted who were still alive out of a hundred and something. He said, “And lower a lifeboat over the side and secure it to the bow and stay there for the rest of the journey.” He gave me a big machete knife, he said, “Get someone to sit up forehead there with this in hand and if the ship looks like breaking in

two, cut the rope immediately so that it doesn’t drag the lifeboat under.” So I sat up in the bow myself with this machete. We stayed there for, I don't know, six or seven hours or whatever it was, eight hours before we got back to port. And we got back, and it was coming on dark, we went alongside, they started to de-ammunition the ship. And then as the ammunition was taken out, shore

crew were helping us because there was no-one else to do it, we couldn’t. And there started to be signs, showed up signs of something cracking and they thought the ship was going to break in half. So they got everyone out ashore, left whatever ammo was still there and they got the tugs to tow us over to the Ipswich side and beached the Cotswold on the shore there. We went to

headquarters aboard there and they provided us with clean clothing and a bath. It was only then that I realised, I’d started to get feeling back in my right side and it was starting to ache. And after having been in the bath and washed all the furnace oil off, my stomach was still black and I thought, good God, and it was bruising. And anyhow we stayed there that night and next day we went down

to Portsmouth and then from Portsmouth we went on to survivor’s leave for three weeks.

Well physically, I say I was, my whole right side was numb and I was still, I’d got hit on the head and I was still sort of dazed. I could still, I could think

straight but I didn’t have time to worry or think about anything else, it was just a matter of trying to help these other poor devils who were in a far worse state than we were. And I don't know to this day how many of them, if any, survived because the fire was absolutely shocking, everything below deck was completely burned. And there was even

one body alongside the funnel which was a favourite spot for, particularly the engine room staff, crew, coming off watch. They would get up alongside the funnel on the open deck because it was warm and rest against it. And the flame apparently had gone through the ship in the engine room and shot up through the funnel and down along the deck and it hit him as it went down. And he was just a smouldering mass when we saw him and got these, a

petty officer out of the quagmire down in the thing. But you know, you just didn’t have time to think about things or contemplate your, just busy coping with things as they cropped up. And you know, they could change from minute to minute.

Well it was mid morning when we were mined and we didn’t get back to harbour until dusk, so that, probably eight or nine o'clock at night.

Well after cleaning up, just slept, cause everyone was exhausted, I mean we hadn’t been to sleep for probably

twenty-four hours. And I don’t remember anything at all that night, I don’t remember whether I slept well or whether I dreamed or what it was, but it was probably just a relief to be there. And there were only half a dozen of us there apart from the shore crew who were very good because

they brought us completely new gear, any gear that I had was blown up with the ship. And I did have some other gear in, down in the Lincoln Arms in Cotswold where I used to go and spend a bit of leave whenever I had it. And ‘mein host’, Don Russell down there was very good and most of my main gear was down there. And course when you went aboard a ship you just took enough to see you from day to day. Because I thought, well there’s no sense

in taking things like watches or jewellery or anything like that because it could be blown up and lost, so you just lived from day to day and from shirt to shirt and that was it.

Well didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her. Because it was

so obvious what had happened and you know, you don’t like talking about these things and the poor devils who were so badly injured. And you probably felt more sorrow for them than you did worrying about yourself and what was going to happen. And if I hadn’t of had all these other things to do

at the time, I probably would have had more aches and pains than I felt at the time.

Three weeks, and twenty-four hours after that I got conjunctivitis in both eyes and I was down at Cotswold, the Lincoln Arms and mein host got the local doctor in to see me.

And he gave me some Argorol drops to put in my eyes, it was probably the best part of a week before they came good again. Because I was lucky that being down on the gun’s crew I had anti flash gear on which covered right round here, the only part of my face was exposed was this. And when the mine went off and the fire, the flame,

the explosion split the deck, from here to you, and there was a sheet of flame that I can still picture today. And it was only after that I’d had a bath that night that I realised that I had no eyebrows or eyelashes, they’d been singed. And that’s what caused the conjunctivitis and the fact that I got furnace oil in my eye. I had bit of back trouble and this local

doctor down there was very good. He gave me pain killing tablets which were Aspro’s in those days and then he said to me, “You should go down and see the naval doctor at Bristol,” which was the first one down there. And I came up and spoke to him and told him what had happened and made an appointment for me. And mein host, Don Russell drove me down there this day and I went down and he gave me a thorough examination. He said, “Well you’ll be on

light duty for some months,’ he said, “you wont be going back to active service for a while.” And I said, “Well hopefully I won’t have to because,” I said, “I’m waiting to go to Lancing College down at Brighton.” And he said, “Well I’ll give you a letter to say that you’re to be on light duties.” So when I went down there I produced this letter and, not that we had any arduous duties,

but we had to go out and do a bit of sea time in the harbour from time to time. And I’ll always remember one day there that mid morning out of the cloud came two Messerschmitts at zero feet, up the harbour. They had a bomb on either side of the wing tip, they dropped them, fortunately none of them went off because they were at such a low level they dropped them

in the harbour. And as the first one went past I looked round like this and I reckoned it was Hitler in the plane because it was a German with a moustache like Hitler’s. And that’s how close he was, he was at eye level to me and he was only fifty feet away. And anyhow fortunately they’d got in, or unfortunately they’d got in under the radar because of the low flight level. But they dropped off their only ammunition

and they didn’t do any harm. And they weren’t followed up by any others but that was the only day down there when we had any real problems. And it could have been serious because there were several boats out on the harbour at the time, life boats. And we were just crewing, rowing and one thing and another like that and that was just exercise which wasn’t heavy duty so far as I was concerned, anyhow I was rowing and it didn’t

worry me. So that was that. And then after a month there well we were commissioned and then I was interviewed by a lieutenant commander Royal Navy, who was an ex destroyer captain and the poor devil was suffering from shell shock, I’ve never seen anyone like it. His head was shaking, his hands were wobbling and he said to me, “Nelson, what do you want to do?”

And I said, “I’d like to go back to destroyers sir.” Anyhow he flicked through the file that he had there and he shook his head, he said, “I’m afraid with the record you have on destroyers that there’s no way they’d have you back.” And that confirmed a suspicion that I had all along about suspicions they had in the navy. And obviously he wouldn’t have got back to the navy in active service, and he said to me then,

“Why don’t you think about joining combined operations,” they had only just been formed at that stage.

What...?

That, well such as that. Any, now the other thing too was that day I joined the Cotswold, the gunnery officer

came from another destroyer and that destroyer had been blown up. And someone said to me after, I remember that, one of the six survivors said something or other, “You and the gunnery officer are responsible for this Nelson.” And he did it though jokingly, but there was that degree of suspicion or feeling that

you know, if people were involved in these things and this is the reason why probably lieutenant Charles Dickens didn’t go back to destroyers. He was in command of a flotilla of motor torpedo boats, and I would say the reason why he didn’t go back to destroyers because of the fact that he had been aboard the Whitshed, ah, the Cotswold when it was blown up. So,

there were, you know, circumstances that made you think twice about the things that went on in people’s mind. And I suppose this might have been traditional, I don't know, but there were a couple of instances and that was all I struck.

No problems. After the Cotswold had been mined my first sea going experience then was up at Troon or Inverary and places like that, up in Loch Fyne and Loch Lomond in various types of landing craft, working with the British Army, the marines and commando units. And we were just doing short trips here

and there, unloading them, picking them up, taking them over the other side of the loch or something like that, working day and night, we were working constantly. And I remember on one occasion we were working with the commander unit ashore and on the Duke of Argyle’s property at Inverary. And they were using live ammunition, hand grenades, and hawing them, not at one another but over the heads, and

some of these didn’t go off. And some did do some damage, there was a lot of wildlife there, there were deer’s and one particular deer was shot and the person responsible for that was really hauled over the coals. And there was another occasion too when we were crossing through the creek, stream which was full of trout. Someone threw in a hand grenade

and we had trout for dinner that night, it exploded and killed a few trout, so you were in the thick of it. And these commandos were trained that way so that they, you know, something exploding right under their feet or something didn’t seem to unduly upset them. And we found working with them later on and different jobs that they were all the same. But going,

getting back to what you asked about, had no problems at all about going back to sea.

Well I got used to it, the only thing is that I got to the stage where I became intolerant of explosive, sharp noises and things. And over the years I’ve got deaf and I haven’t noticed it so much because

I mean loud, sharp noises, you know, they give me a fright. Or if someone’s talking loudly and shouts out that seems to have an affect on me and I’d say that’s probably part and parcel of it. Because I never had any recollection of any problems before that, but since it became, not a major problem but just an irritable thing to have

that going on.

Well I had a bit of back pain problem and it wasn’t until twelve months later that I found out that I had some internal injuries. But because I was so busy and so active and I was in pretty good nick I must admit, I was

healthy otherwise. But it was after serving in North Africa and after Sicily that I had to have something done but prior to that it was no great hassle except that I’d get backaches particularly if I was standing on deck in the one spot. Because you weren’t moving around, not as if you

had a path way here and there to walk up and down, you were just sort of standing on the same square foot or two for six, eight or twelve hours at a time. And that became...

Yeah, it wasn’t an on, well it wasn’t a constant thing, it was, if I was standing on, and if the sea was rough and the ship was rolling and things like that,

it would mean, it would be... But I put up with it for twelve months or more and it was only after we’d finished in Sicily that I went and saw the doctor who I’d seen when I arrived in North Africa. And he was a British specialist surgeon,

a Harley Street specialist, he was an Australian. He served with the Light Horse in the First World War and after the war he stayed on in England and finished his medal, ah, his medical degree there and became a Harley Street specialist surgeon. A colonel Pinnick was his name, and he had an off-sider with him, Major Racker, who was also a Harley Street specialist. And he had carried out tests and examinations and he said, “Well

look,” he said, “there’s something inside that’s not right, some veins or something or other that are probably damaged,” as a result of this fifty pound shell hitting me. But he said, “I daren’t operate on it out of here because,” he said, “you’d have to go back to the U.K. because the wounds break down in this temperature.” And he said, “Just keep going,” and he said, “there’s, it’s not really serious as far as I can see, tell,” but he said, “sooner or later something

will have to be done.” Which was the case after Sicily and he said then, “Well we’ll have to do it here,” but he didn’t want to do it. And I can understand why because I was a month in hospital, the wound had broken down, it took two months for it to heal, I had a hole in my stomach the size of a billiard ball. And it wasn’t ‘til

I went back to England, I’d been there about three weeks and it healed up. So he knew what he was on about but he said, “Well you’re obviously, it’s starting to annoy you.” Well it was and I’d got, reached the stage where I’d had enough of it you see. And anyhow that was that. And after a month in hospital I was convalescing in

Bougie [Algeria] in North Africa for a month and then I was transferred to the base where I was working on light duty there. And this particular day who should come in none other than lieutenant commander, who was the, oh, what was, Alan Villiers. He recognised me and he

said, “Nelson, what are you doing here?” And I told him briefly what the problem was. He said, “Do you want to go back to the UK?” I said, “Yes I do.” He said, “Can you type?” And I said, “One finger I can, why?” He said, “Well look,” he said, “we’ll be in port here for a few days,” he said, “I’m trying to sort out a lot of paper work and one thing and another,” he said, “and I’ve got a bit of typing, would you come aboard and do that and I’ll see the Base commander here and get the okay?” So he did. So I went aboard and spent a few days aboard there

doing a bit of typing and filing and one thing and another for him. And then he said, “We’ve got an appointment as a first lieutenant in LCT 10-30, in the LCI 3-0-5,” and he said, “would you take than on?” And I said, “Yes I’d be pleased to.” Anyhow they’d had a bit of a problem with this ship, apparently some of the

crew and crew from some other ship had raided an American canteen in North Africa and pinched a lot of gear and foodstuff from there and they were a pretty wild lot. And he said to me, “The CO’s no better,” and he mentioned his name and he said, “do you know him?” And I said, “Yes, if it’s the same chap I’m thinking, I went through Lancing College with him and he hasn’t changed any.” And anyhow he said, “Well when we get to Gibraltar,” he said, “if you’re not happy let me know,” and he said, “and I’ll appoint you as commanding

officer.” And I didn’t want to take command of a ship at that stage. So anyhow we got on alright but from then on our meals were out of rusty tins. What had happened, they’d come, they’d sent the Red Caps [British military police] aboard to check the ship out looking for gear and they’d put it all down below in the bilge pumps, all the food stuff. And you didn’t know whether it was a tin of beans or tin of pineapple

or something or other, they didn’t know what it was until they opened it up. And that, you might have got it for breakfast, lunch or dinner, depending what they got out. And anyhow we had several other officers aboard there and I only had one watch, used to do the midnight watch, middle watch from midnight ‘til four a.m. And we had a engineer officer who was the flotilla engineer officer and I found out when I went aboard that he was a doctor, and just as well because he used to dress my

wound on a daily basis. And he was a Medical officer as well as an engineer officer but when he joined the navy he decided to join as an engineer, and he went over and spent a few months doing work over in the States on these special engines that they had fitted in these LCT’s. And anyhow he and I became good friends and we were held up in Gibraltar for about

three or four days because there was a gale on out in the Atlantic and when we eventually left, it was still very cloudy, the wind had abated but there was a big swell on. And we travelled for three days and three nights, didn’t see a sign of the sun, moon or stars, and the fourth morning the sky cleared a bit and out of the cloud came a Sunderland flying boat. It flew around the convoy, Aldis lamp

flashing, calling up our headquarter ship. And I said to the signal man, “Keep an eye open on headquarter ship because there’ll be a signal shortly from them, I’d say that he’s giving us an update on our position.” Because we’d been three days and three nights without having any stars, moons or anything like that to get our bearing from, we’d been going by dead reckoning. Anyhow some time went past and nothing happened so I said to the signal man, “Call up the headquarter ship and ask whether a

position was received.” A reply came back, “Yes, position ‘ceived but neither good for man nor beast.” And I thought, that’s Alan Villiers, because that’s the way he talked. And I found out when we got back to England, Southampton, that the position that he had received from this Sunderland flying boat was a hundred miles out on what he had dead reckoning. And he said to me then, he said, “Look Nelson,” he said, “if we’d taken any notice of their reckon, position,” he said, “we would have been in Brest [France] today instead of Southampton.”

And I’ve never forgotten, that was the last I saw of him when I left the ship, but he was one of the most capable persons I think I’ve ever... He went away later on after the war in command of the Mayflower and the re-enactment of the Pilgrim Fathers. And I often regretted that I wasn’t in England at the time because I probably would’ve got a guernsey and gone across with him, as part of his crew. But he died not long after that and

it was a great pity, he was a great chap.

Beg pardon?

Well north bound and south bound have got to pass and because the channels were so narrow the ships had to pass between the

lanes like that, and they were only a few arms length away it would appear, you know, they were further than that of course. But that’s how close together they were and that’s why it was such a dangerous situation, because the speed was reduced and everyone had to be very on the alert and very watchful. And course the E-boats knew about this and this is where they let fly with the torpedoes and this is why so many ships

were not only sunk but damaged and the casualty rate was very high. And the main sufferers of course were the merchant ships and there was nothing we could do about it virtually. But when we discovered that their means of communication were by word of mouth and we had a position, we were in a position to grab those

signals and have them translated by the Dutch men. The other ships had Dutch, I suppose they were Dutch but they could speak and understand German, so this was just a new development something that had happened in a matter months. And it was the greatest thing that ever happened, and from that day on the casualty rate on the east coast of England

was reduced, oh, probably by fifty percent or more.

I don't know, it was top secret. We didn’t know, this chap had been aboard for, well, I don't know a week, probably, before I knew about it and I would say before most of the crew knew about it. He was just secretly installing the equipment that

the British Admiralty had got from somewhere or other, I don't know where, and we were one of the first ships in our flotilla to get it. And ultimately as far as I know, most of them if not all of them got it but at least there was sufficient numbers to enable them to get these signals through and then let the rest of the flotilla know. So that on escort duty we could send ships out then ahead of

the convoy to have a shot at these E-boats that were lining up to let fire with their torpedoes. So it was the greatest thing out. But the degree of secrecy in those days affected everything, even things like that. We didn’t know, we weren’t familiar with any of the radar equipment and how it worked in those days. And if you’d asked the

question of someone, they just simply nodded their head, didn’t know, wouldn’t tell. And I have found out since, and I found out after the war, that I endeavoured to get a lot of the information that was sent out from England to Canberra, got lost. And I got in touch with the British Admiralty and they said that everything went under code name. They couldn’t

tell you what ships were in that, except that when I started to mention specific things they said, “Yes, LCT 1-0-3-8 was in that, LCI 2-7-1 was in that.” And it was absolutely dumbfounding, it has been since, to realise how stupid things are today when they reveal what goes on at every drop of the hat. And it’s little

wonder that these terrorists know where to strike and when to strike because it, they watch it on TV and they get a plan of the particular city. They only have to tape it and they’ve got on tape a plan of a harbour, the Opera House or wherever else. And this Government is like any other Government today, they’re bloody nuts.

I don't know that you could ever say that we were ever frightened because we were trained to sort of cope with these things. And the situations were such that you didn’t have time to think about, I mean

I never ever thought about what my mother might be doing at home or my brother might be doing, or my sister or anything like that. They just never entered my head because you had to be so active and you had to be so alert and the degree of alertness was one of the most important things that was necessary during the war. And I hate to think what might have happened if we hadn’t of shown that

and acted upon that when we did

What time?

Very little, very little, nothing but ships. I mean we had no time to, except when we were returning to port or something like that, but then we were usually that tired but.

There wasn’t, the White Cliffs of Dover were something that you saw once or twice, yes, they were fascinating. But by and large the scenery would be, the only things that recorded in mind were landmarks. So that when we saw that we knew just exactly where we were on the coast, without checking a map, a chart or anything

else. We knew just exactly where we were and could estimate within, probably, a couple of hundred yards just how many miles off the coast we were.

Well Dover, you had the White Cliffs of Dover. Up the, further up north where it flattened out a bit there wasn’t much except when you got up to the Flamborough Head,

where you started to get a bit high country. As you went into the Firth of Forth and then you could see the mountains in the backdrop and things like that. When you’re at sea level, when you’re looking ashore, I mean all you see is the beach, if you’re close enough and perhaps one or two tall buildings, so I mean there are not a lot of land marks. And the

the Humber River of course, the entrance to the Humber was a particular land mark and there are others that are just, can’t, don’t come to mind at the moment. But there was no scenery of any sort that you know, would say, oh take your mind off something and stop and watch it. You’d just look and say, “Oh we’re off Lowestoft or something now,” or, “we’re off Flamborough Head or we’re off the Humber.” And that’s was all and you

activate the old brain and say, well, you know, “We’ve got so many miles to go now before we get to Harwich or wherever we’re going.

Well exactly as the name says, Combined Operations, ever operation was combined. Not only your ship or the ships in your flotilla, it was all the rest of the ships whether they were the same sort of ships or whether they were other types of landing craft or whether they were escort. And the same thing with any air attacks.

And when it came to co-operating or working with the army, you knew exactly how they were, would expected to be landed on the beach and it was just as it says, a combined operation. And it worked one hundred percent as a combined operation.

To Troon which was the headquarters and then went from there up to Inverary and operated, exercised on Loch Fyne and Loch Lomond. And then after a couple of months of that was transferred over to the States to...

We were using

LCT’s and smaller landing craft, mainly Infantry ones that would carry about forty or fifty troops, at the most. And they were usually lowered over the side from an LST [Landing Ship Tank], not up there but in an actual operation. And they went ashore with troops only with just their rifles and that was it, they didn’t carry any machinery or any gear at all because they were packed in there like sardines.

Well the main thing was, course I never operated one of those in the sea, in the lochs, so Forth, the water was calm. But one of the main problems with them in the sea, coming in, in the surf was you had to make sure you didn’t lose steerage and broadside on and capsize.

And I never ever had control of one of those at sea, only an exercise up in the Lochs. But having worked alongside them it was pretty obvious that it was a testing sort of a job, particularly on D Day when we landed in quite big, heavy seas they were for miles out. And while these weren’t launched miles out to sea, they were probably launched half a mile to sea.

And landed in surf and then had to land on the beach so they were tricky and some of them did capsize. It meant that the soldiers got wet before they got ashore, most of them anyway got wet because they stepped out into a foot or two of water, didn’t land on dry land.

Landing Craft Tank, well we carried six tanks,

commensurate with the size of the large tanks and that was the load. If they weren’t tanks, as in the case of when we went over with the initial landing, I think we were carrying armoured vehicles with all sorts of high privacy, security

equipment, like communications. We weren’t told what they were, we didn’t ask because we knew that the army wouldn’t tell it. But it was the headquarters signal section of the British Army division that landed in France.

It was about two hundred foot in length, I don't know what tonnage it was.

The main deck was, took up most of it and the six tanks were two abreast, three deep, so there was three port side, three starboard side. And the equivalent to that if it were, if they were trucks or other vehicles as well, wherever they fitted in.

The ramp and the, used to beach,

generally speaking at high tide wherever possible and the tanks would then come across from dry land, across the dry beach into the vessel and then the tank, the ramp would be lifted and the ship removed back to water from the shore.

The bridge was at the stern. There was a small quarter deck and then a bridge and then immediately below that was the start of the iron deck, which went forward and where all the equipment was berthed and then landed.

Well nothing, really, much

at all apart from facilities for the crew. When it came to the army, well they were only aboard for a matter of hours. I mean they weren’t on any long haul. And they would probably have some sort of sleeping quarters if they had a truck or something like a vehicle where they could doss down, or even in a tank. But

going from say, Malta to Sicily we left there at mid afternoon, we travelled all night and then unloaded them at first light next morning. So they were virtually on duty or in a position where if need be, they had to do something, but not that there was anything they could do because they were just passengers.

But they didn’t have any bunks in which to lay except in an LCT, an LCT accommodated two hundred, ah, an LCI sorry, an LCI accommodated two hundred troops and they had berths down below, but the LCT didn’t.

We had about fifteen or sixteen, depended upon at times, a couple of occasions we had trainee midshipmen aboard. And

there might have been some extra crew depending upon the availability of members when you were on an operation.

Armament. We had Oerlikon guns and probably a couple of machine guns, that was all. And they were only used for aircraft or something like that.

No, flat bottom

and they drew only a matter of a few feet of water and the LCI’s were a bit difficult to negotiate. I remember when we had to return to port after leaving Norfolk over in Virginia, we ran into a storm. It took us an hour or more to turn around into this head sea. It was an enormous swell, they were thirty, forty foot waves and

you had to be very, very careful in putting about. And it took us a couple of hours for the whole flotilla to get around.

Well we been up in Troon a few days and I happened to be officer of the watch on this occasion, and he came round to inspect the new

troops, and both naval personnel and army personnel. And there were, I don't know, probably a thousand or two of them because he spent most of the morning just walking around looking at them, talking, he didn’t say anything to me. But he went into the main hallway in the main building there and he gave an address

and welcomed everyone to Combined Operations and briefly told them the meaning of it, which was just a matter of co-operating with the other Forces. And I remember too that he marched off the dais there, the platform, and he was followed by a few of the naval chaps. And then there was some smart alec came along

with his cap in his hand and he bowed as he went out like this, and any rate everyone roared with laughter. And Lord Louis Mountbatten was round the corner at this stage and he turned round to see what was going on and everyone was laughing. And I don't know whether he saw this young chap or not, anyhow that ended that day. And that was the last, the only occasion when I saw him because from then on we were involved in things that he didn’t get involved in.

British armoure division, soldiers, the military, the marines and then those that were in the commando units.

Oh they were well, like everyone else they were very efficient. But I say, they were a bit wild, and

when I was saying they were practising with live ammunition it made me a little wary of how, but... later on out in the Mediterranean was the only other time when I was working with commandos and took them ashore for special landings. We didn’t know what they were going to do, they didn’t tell us, we weren’t told and we didn’t ask. Because they were top secret but we had very little contact with them, verbal contact.

We just took them aboard, took them to particular landing spot, landed them there and then picked them up at that spot or some other spot later on when we got a signal from them, and that’s basically what it was. And you know, they blew up things and got involved in scraps here and there with the Jerries. But we never bothered to ask them how they went or anything like that.

I never had anything to do with the German Navy. It was usually the airforce or the German troops. When on one occasion when I was working with the Americans and we went ashore at Omaha or Utah Beach, a couple of weeks after the initial landing, and behind the barbed wire

entanglement were several hundred German soldiers. There were a couple of SS [Schutzstaffel - German Special Service] blokes there and I told the Channel Nine people about this. That as I walked past two of these blokes spat at me through the wire you see. And they said, “What did you do?” And I said, “Nothing, I just kicked a bit of sand over them.” But that was the only contact we had with them. The only other contact was when

they were shelling us or bombing us and they, out at North Africa we had night raids. They reached a stage where our port of Dellys, the commander said that we would have to do something about getting out of the port and those who weren’t involved in night exercises. We went to this bay which was a few miles further along the coast and the land fall was very steep,

there were rock cliffs like the White Cliffs of Dover fight down to the water, and deep water. And it meant that we could get in there and anchor close to the shore. We had to get in there before dark and no-one was allowed in after dark or anything like that, where a wake from the vessel would attract the attention of a bomber. Because the bombers’d come over on a nightly basis, bomb Algiers and Dellys and other ports along the coast. And we

got away without any bombing for several nights before some coot came in one night. And one bomber on his way back from Algiers or something or other happened to spot him, he dropped a couple of bombs, but from then on we had bombers coming in. But we mover further, closer in to shore, and we were moored as close as that wall there, to these rocks. And it was very calm so we had no problem but we had to keep alert all the time to see

that we didn’t get ashore.

We were sent there to commission these Landing Craft Infantry that were built by the Americans. They were a British design, the Americans built some of their own but they weren’t quite the same design. They had a higher turret for the bridge than ours and they were built under this Lend Lease arrangement, whatever it was.

And there were several flotillas, a squadron or so of LCI’s, because there were several hundred officers and men sent over to commission these.

We went over by ship, by passenger ship and we landed in New York and spent Christmas there, the Americans were very good to us they gave us a terrific Christmas. And then we went up to Newark in New Jersey where we commissioned

these LCI’s and then proceeded down to Norfolk in Virginia where we assembled to go across to Gibraltar.

Well we didn’t see much of it, they were, didn’t seem to be under any stress. And the British didn’t either

until I was in London after the first of the [German] V2 rockets had landed and there was a terrific change in the atmosphere where you could sense a sense of fear amongst the people in the street, which wasn’t there before. And this was immediately after D Day that this happened. The buzz bombs used to come in but they were accepted, but these V2 rockets, radar

wouldn’t pick ‘em up until it was too late. And you couldn’t tell that they were there until such time as they landed. And a few of them hit the centre of London. And it made the people there very nervous and I don’t blame them either, because I’m glad I didn’t spend much time in London.

Yes, they were, they were aware of

the fact that, they, well put it this way, they weren’t, if they were aware they didn’t do much about it because Omaha and Utah Beaches were the, in the worst position that they could possibly be for landing, because they were directly in line with the armed forces up on the headland. And when we went up there on the Fiftieth Anniversary

and saw these guns and looked down on Utah and Omaha Beach it’s little wonder that there was so much damage done. Because the guns just pointed straight down at the ships as they were coming in. And I think that they could have found another beach better than that or safer than that to do their landing.

LCI’s yes.

I was first

lieutenant. Our commanding officer was a, turned out to be the most senior commanding officer in our flotilla, he was Royal Naval Volunteer Reservist and he had been in the reserve for many, many years. He was twice my age and he was a very quietly spoken, very decent sort of a bloke.

But he, there are times when I felt I had to take over control of things and he had no objection at all. And I found that my sea going experience was better than his. ‘Cause he was a, in peace time, out in

the Middle East he was a, not a banana grower, some sort of a grower out there of tropical fruit. And where he put in his sea time I don't know, but he had been a member of the Royal Naval Reserve for twenty odd years. And he was forty-two or forty-three then, so from the time he was my age,

he had twenty something years experience with them. But I don't know to what extent he did sea time, I never asked him. He was very hard to get an answer out of you know, and we would go for hours without speaking or anything like that.

LCI 2-7-1.

It wasn’t that bad, they were good sea going vessels although they were only shallow draft and we had water tanks that we could fill to help with the ballast. And then when we had two hundred troops aboard with a bit of equipment, I mean their guns

whether they’re machine guns or rifles or things like that, hand grenades. They travelled very well and we had a top speed of round about seventeen or eighteen knots, which we didn’t do very often, I mean we usually cruised at about ten to twelve knots. But even in this high sea that we struck after we’d left Norfolk in Virginia we were head on into the

sea. And I’ve got some photographs of it, the waves, they were enormous waves but as I said earlier, you, if you had to alter course and you had these seas on your beam, it could be trouble. Because I found not so much with them but with LCT’s that in a storm we had on one occasion coming down from Scotland to Portsmouth.

We were in a gale and our engine oil was, tank was only half full and we got air locks and we had engine problems. So these were things that you had to watch. But our fuel tank was full, as a matter of fact when we got to Malta we had to discharge some of the fuel oil because we had too much, and reduce the quantity before we went over to Sicily.

Gibraltar, it was an interesting place. We had one night there, I stayed aboard, I said to the CO, and we had another West Australian with us who was our navigating officer. He was, we brought him over from

Norfolk in Virginia, he had been in motor torpedo boats over in the Caribbean and he had a hearing problem and was being repatriated home. And they shipped him across to Gibraltar with us as a Navigating officer, we had another officer aboard who was a watch-keeping officer. And when we arrived in Gibraltar, the

CO said he would like to go ashore, so he and this Bill Brown from Western Australia and this other officer went, and I stayed aboard. And just as well because they came back about midnight, and just before they arrived back some army soldiers came aboard, they were police. Wanted to

know whether there was anyone ashore, and I said, “No, not now.” I said, “There’d been someone ashore earlier.” I said, “Why, what’s the problem?” He said, “Well they came down Gibraltar in a jeep.” And what happened was the blokes with us, and there were some others too, there was a jeep full of them. This jeep was laying outside some army place there with the keys in the ignition.

So they got in there and it had a horn that was working. Vehicles, taxis and things like that weren’t allowed horns in Gibraltar because any noises like that upset the listening devices, all this highly sensitive secretive gear they had, and it was an absolute no-no. Any rate they made the mistake of blowing the horn and these police, army police,

heard them, spotted them, they dropped the jeep outside the harbour gate and got in and a couple of them were aboard, the others had gone aboard one of the other ships. And I said to them, “Oh well it couldn’t have been anyone from here because...” and they were lucky that they weren’t pinched. But from that day on of course, I guess that this jeep didn’t have a horn in there.

We were, there were two that I remember. This one where, I think I mentioned to you about the British destroyer that pulled up alongside. The others were exercises more

than actual active invasion jobs and there again, we weren’t told what they did ashore or anything else. We landed them, went out and hove to off shore and waited there until we got the signal from them and there again we had to

keep an alert watch all the time. Because quite often it was just a flash of a light to indicate just where to go in. And then the moment we saw the light we had to take a bearing as to where it was and get underway and go in. And usually they were down on the beach waiting for us when we berthed. And they came straight aboard and then within a matter of minutes we

were back off again, and took them back to shore base which was usually Dellys. And there were only two occasions that I can recall there where we took in commandos. There were probably other occasions where the two ports of Sousse and Sfax in Tunisia, after the Germans or when the Germans left,

they sank ships in the harbour to prevent cargo ships and bigger ships from getting in and out. And we were detailed off on our own on this occasion to go and, in daylight, go into these two ports, this was forty-eight hours after the Germans had gone. And the second port we went into, from memory, which was Sousse, we went alongside, both ports were

smouldering, the damage to the buildings was horrific. And we went alongside the port and out of the rubble came oh, a hundred or more women and kids. They were of French origin and apparently the damage done to this port on this occasion was done by the Americans twenty-four hours after the Germans had gone. They had

ransacked the whole place, bombed the guts out of it. And it brought back to memory then, probably the same guys who mock dive bombed Dellys harbour on several occasions. Mid morning, out of the sun this particular day came two Lightning’s, dive bombed the harbour and then shot off. It was reported to the base commander, and he reported it to the American Air Force

commander at the air base not far from where we were. A day or two later they came back and did the same thing, they’d obviously taken no notice. And the next thing we knew there was a chief gunnery Instructor aboard one of the LCI’s in our flotilla. He was strapped into an Oerlikon gun and instructing the crew how to handle an Oerlikon gun. Out of the

sun about ten o'clock in the morning came one Lightning. I’ve never seen such fire as this, Oerlikon tracer bullets going up within feet of the nose of this Lightning. The Lightning turned round and shot up like that and the bloke coming in behind him nearly clipped his tail off. That was the last we saw of them, but I reckon that they were the same guys probably, or same blokes who come from the same squadron who bombed these two ports twenty-four hours after the

Germans had cleared out.

Not much at all. They were not within miles of the place because when these air raids started they had search lights and they moved them up to the edge of the mountains. And of course this meant that the farmers or graziers or whatever they were up there,

the locals, they had to move out of, because the Germans were dropping their bombs in accordance with the arc of search lights which they thought was closer to the harbour than it was. And we didn’t see many locals at all, very, very few because they would have been miles and miles away and it was a pretty mountainous country at the background. And

they were lucky probably because they could shelter and protection up in the mountains or in the valleys, that they wouldn’t have got down on a normal beach.

Well we left Sicily about mid afternoon and it was one of the roughest days we’d had in the Mediterranean, there was quite a sea

running, the wind wasn’t quite as strong as it might have been. But we travelled all night and at midnight we were off the south east corner and aircraft came over, they were American aircraft carrying British Airborne division. They landed the troops and we didn’t realise this until next morning,

we went in at first light, it was barely daylight when we went in and landed our troops. And when we left the beach our headquarters ship called us up to come alongside. We went alongside and there was a British Airborne commander there who was complaining that the Americans had dropped at least two plane loads

of Airborne Division chaps a mile or two out to sea. They had retrieved some survivors, so we were detailed off together with a couple of other LCI’s to spend the day up and down the coast, mile to sea, two miles to sea. We felt a bit of, we found a bit of gear but we didn’t find any body, anything else, so I don't know to this day how many were lost. But that was the American aircraft game, dropped the...

out to sea when they should have dropped them a mile or two inland from the beach.

No, no. No there was no air activity at all the night before and there was no air activity the next day. And we left later on that day with our

flotilla and went back, and we were in Malta for several days before, we didn’t go back again until about the seventh day.

We landed the 51st Highland Division of the Black Watch, our flotilla. And that was the main British division that landed there. Apart from...

We landed them east of the south east, at least west of the south east

point. No particular town there, it was just a beach and we had no problems at all. We got in to shore, landed them without any problems, there was no sign of activity at all, gun fire or bombing or anything at all. And it was very peaceful and then we spent the day up and down that stretch of beach where the American Air Force had gone in

with the troops. And as I say we didn’t find any but there was evidence that someone had been dropped there because there was bits of gear floating around, berets and things like that. But when we went back again, it was to take or land troops in the port of Ragusa and this was seven days or so after the initial landing. We’d been ashore to a briefing

and the base commander had said there were six LCI’s. Five of them had two hundred British Marines aboard each one and we, as the lead ship had two hundred Bechuanaland chaps who were in charge of, under the command of a British colonel, they were dock yard workers and we were to land these in Ragusa.

When the briefing was over the commander said to us, “Any questions?” And someone got up and said, “Yes sir. Ragusa hasn’t been taken yet.” He said, “Don’t worry,” he said, “by the time you gentlemen get there,” he said, “it probably will. If it hasn’t been taken,” he said, “you take it.” And we thought good God. So anyhow away we went, we had two destroyers as escort and the six LCI’s set sail. We’re off,

off Cape Passero late in the night which was the south east point. By the time we got to Ragusa it was nearly midnight, it was pitch black and as the two destroyers entered the harbour first, one either side, one full to port, one to starboard, we were the lead ship and we were the next in. And as we were going in harbour I said to the CO, “Did you see a flash of light up in one of those dockside buildings?” “No.” Any rate we had a midshipman aboard

and I said, “Do you?” He said, “Yes,” he said, “I saw one.” And I said, “Yeah I saw it, almost like someone lighting a cigarette.” But anyhow I had an eerie feeling, I’d never ever felt this way before but there was just something that wasn’t right. So we went into the harbour and we went right down to the far end of the harbour and dropped anchor. The other five LCI’s came in, spread out around the harbour and dropped anchor, as did

the two destroyers. Not long after being there and all hell broke loose. There was bombing and shelling, there was light everywhere, there were bombs and shells, I’ve never struck anything like it. Anyhow I could hear then, I thought, anchors aweighing. And I said to the CO, “Can you hear anything?” “No,” he said. I said, “It sounds as if ships are leaving harbour.” He said, “Oh we would receive a signal if we were to leave.”

The midshipman said he could hear them. We were on the bridge and the CO was on the bridge, sitting on his usual seat. And anyhow we stayed there and for six hours it was non stop.

No. There was only one lot, one, when we decided to let fire an Oerlikon at an aircraft. We didn’t know whose aircraft it was or anything else, and he returned some fire but it didn’t hit us

fortunately. But next morning at first light we were only ship in the harbour, everything was ablaze and smoking, we were almost choking with the density of the smoke. And anyhow so we weighed anchor and we moved across to an E-boat pen on the other side of the harbour where we berthed alongside. And as we were berthing half a dozen army, and a couple of

navy blokes came out of the rubble, they were British Special Services blokes. They told us what had happened. They said that Ragusa had been taken earlier the day before by the 51st Highland Division and they handed over to a Yank crew who came along behind them and said, “Look after the harbour while we pursue the Germans.” The Germans backed round and counter attacked and took over the harbour again

and then the British had to re-take it and that’s what went on for six hours non stop.

They were very quiet, very good, they were down below all night. And the colonel stayed down there with them. They had bunks to sleep on but they, not a sound, not a noise. Matter of fact I, at one stage, I’d forgotten they were there because there was absolutely no

indication and the colonel didn’t come up and it was only at first light that they came up, we discharged them. We gave these blokes SAS [Special Air Service] blokes some breakfast and then left harbour. And as we got out of harbour and just down the coast a bit we struck five LCI’s coming up with a destroyer escort of two. Aldis lamps started flashing, they’d given us away, they said that we were either killed or prisoners of war. So anyhow

we waited for them an hour or something or other and then they unloaded their troops, joined us and we went back to Malta.

Because they got the signal. We were first in and we went right into the entrance to the harbour right down the far end, they just went in the harbour and just spread out and dropped anchor. And they’ve got

signal by word of mouth apparently from one of the destroyers to get out. And they had written us off because they thought oh well we wouldn’t survive the bombing of the harbour. But it was more the surrounds of the harbour that were bombed than the actual harbour itself because there were no ships in the harbour to attract their attention. And as I say, next morning when first light came, we were the only ship in there.

And it was after the others had unloaded that they came down and we joined up with them and went back to Malta.

I, excuse me, went on a commanding officer’s course for a month, up at Troon, and then went up to Alloa in Scotland to commission LCT 10-38,

which is what we took over to Normandy. So we left the, it had just come out of the dock yard, we were up there for the best part of a week waiting for it to be completed, or you know, the odds and ends done. And then we went out, she was floated and one of the dockyard lieutenants came out

and, we were swinging the compass and just checking that things were right. And he said to me, ‘Are you familiar with these waters?” And I said, “No, I’m not.” I was familiar with the east coast but not up as far as the Firth of Forth. And he said, “Well I suggest that you get a pilot to take you down to Whitby,” or wherever it was we were going, I forget now, and because there’s a lot of traffic in the

waters there. And so anyhow he sent a signal ashore and a pilot came aboard and we set off and away we went. We got down to the port where we were going to stay overnight and the pilot left and I went aboard to, went ashore to report to the commander, whoever he was, and he turned out to be one of the passed overs. A passed over was a lieutenant commander who in 19-

‘42 or 3, at least, who was forty-two or forty-three years of age in the early 1930s had little or no hope of getting his brass hat and becoming a commander Royal Navy, so they got rid of them. When the war broke out they brought a lot of them back and made them commanders and gave them base jobs. And I found out on this particular day why they were no good in those days, how would they be any good ten years later. Because when I

went in and saw the commander, reported to him, he said, “What did you get a pilot for?” And I said, “Well I was acting on the advice of the lieutenant from the dock yard, who suggested that I do because I wasn’t familiar with the water ways.” “Oh, ra, ra, ra,” and carried on. Anyhow fortunately I left early next morning, sailed down to South Shield where I was to meet up with the rest of the flotilla when they arrived. I reported to the base captain there who was a

very nice gentlemen. And he said, “Well look Nelson,” he said, “if there’s anything you want,” he said, “don’t hesitate to come and see me and,” he said,” and I’ll do what I can.” And I said, “Well thank you very much for that, I appreciate it.” Anyhow a couple of days later more ships arrived and one of them had come from Alloa where I came from, built by the same people, Motherwell Bridge & Engineering. And he’d called in at the same port and I

said, “Did you get a pilot down?” He said, “No I didn’t,” he said, “but I wish I had.” I said, “Why?” He said, “The Base commander blew two tons of what’s-a-name out of me for not getting a pilot.” I said, “You’re joking!” He said, “No.” And I said, “Well the same bloke blew two tons out of me for getting a pilot.” And I thought, he’s one of those, I told him, I said, “He’s one of those passed overs,” and I explained to him what I meant by that, and I met another one of them later on. That was the only thing that

happened there and then the next thing we knew we left early next, the following day, it was still dark and I was first ship out of the harbour. And we got outside and we ran into a fog, and it was very thick, and the sun wasn’t up. So I said to the first lieutenant, “We better pull over here, get astern of this lightship,” that was outside the harbour, and I said, “and wait until the rest of them come out.” Well anyhow we waited there for an hour to two,

didn’t see any sign of any other LCT. And then the fog cleared and the sun started to come up and I called up, signalled the lightship and asked them whether they’d seen any LCT’s and they said, “No,” they hadn’t. So I thought, oh well they’re probably still in port, we’ll go back. So we had to send a signal to enter port, re-enter port, and the reply came back, “Yes, await the arrival of a pilot.” And I thought, this is great. Bright sunlight, you need a pilot

to get in, in the middle of the night when it’s dark you come our on your own and you don’t get a pilot. So when the pilot came aboard I said, “Where were you at five o'clock this morning, still in bed?” He said, “Probably not, but why?” And I told him. He said, “Oh well,” he said, “those are the rules and regulations.” So anyhow went back, reported to the captain in there again and the other LCT’s had gone. He said, “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’ll be more here in a day or two, go with them,” so righto, waited and went

And a lieutenant commander Royal Naval Reserve, chap by the name of Tom Fox, was in charge of the flotilla. He came from up the Humber River, Hull, and he was a reservist, been with the Royal Navy as a reservist for years. He was a fishing trawler skipper who used to fish up in the North Atlantic.

And he was a very interesting bloke. And I said to him, “Where do you come from?” He said, “I come from Ull.” I said, “Ull,” I said, “where’s Ull?” He said, “Up the Umber.” And that was the sort of accent he had. Anyhow when we eventually left there and we got down to Flamborough Head and we had to change escort there. The vessels who were escorting us down, they went back and it was getting late in the evening and a storm came up.

No sign of any other escorts, they didn’t appear. The storm reached, oh, terrific force six or seven or something and there was a high swell. And anyhow we lost sight of the others and I said to Number One, “We’ll go down on our own,” head down towards Portsmouth. So we went all night, and all night, and this was where our fuel tank wasn’t quite full and we were rolling violently,

and we had air leaks in the fuel hose, fuel lines and the engines were stalling and we had problems. The next morning at first light we were outside the Humber and I signalled the light vessel there and asked whether they’d seen anything of any LCT’s and they said, “No,” they hadn’t. So anyhow we proceeded down and hadn’t gone far and strike, ah, saw a mine floating.

And it reminded me then of the two previous occasions going down the coast there and I thought gee whiz, I don’t want to spend another night at sea with crook engines and with these things floating around. So when we got off Lowestoft, sent a signal ashore for permission to enter harbour. And the reply came back, “The harbour’s closed, there’s a gale warning on.” So I sent another signal saying that we were in need of some engine repair, check up and want to get into harbour.

So eventually they said, “Well stand by and wait for a pilot.” So the pilot came aboard and he was full, he staggered up the ladder and got up into the bridge. He got us into harbour alright, very narrow entrance and went alongside. And I went and reported to the Base commander there and he said, “I’ll send an engineer down to have a look, check it out.” I didn’t realise at this stage that it was air locks that were causing it, I thought it might have been some other minor

problem but I wasn’t sure what. So anyhow they said, “That’s what it is.” So next day another LCT arrived and then the day after that the weather abated. And I went and saw the commander I said, “Well thanks very much, we’ll leave now if that’s okay with you.” He said, “Yes.” So away we went and proceeded down to Portsmouth. Got down there and the rest of the flotilla arrived over the

next few days. And the last to arrive was none other than our flotilla leader, Tom Fox. And I said to him, “What happened to you?” He said, “Were you alright?” And I said, “Yeah,” I told him what happened.” He said, “Oh,” he said, “When I got down to the Humber,” he said, “I decided to go up there and,” he said, “and we dropped anchor,” and he said, “and I rode ashore and spent a few nights with mum and the kids.” ‘Cause they lived right on the edge of... and I thought well Fox by

by name and fox by nature. But that was the last I saw of him because we joined some other flotilla then and we started training for Normandy. So I don't know what happened to him but he was quite an interesting sort of bloke.

The LCT. Well it was just a normal LCT, I’ve got photograph which I’ll show you there afterwards and to give you a better idea of

just what they’re like. But as I mentioned earlier that they carried the equivalent, the six tanks and any equipment and things like that, that we could fit aboard, we fitted aboard. We, if we had an extra load aboard, we’d pump the ballast tanks out and take, make allowance for the extra weight. But they were

quite manoeuvrable and they carried quite a reasonable sort of a cargo for their size so by and large they were quite handy. And I mean they beached, you could right, get right up onto dry land with them if the tide was full and basically they did a very good job.

Well,

going down the east coast of England on this occasion, the seas were behind us and we were rolling quite dramatically and this is what was causing the problem. Because the fuel tank wasn’t fuel, the fuel was going from one side of the tank to the other, and ‘course there was air locks coming in and that’s what was causing our engine problem. But they were quite good and even when we left the first day to go over to Normandy,

and it was called off because of the inclement weather or the cyclone that was on at the time, the seas were quite big and the wind was strong. We hadn’t got far, we were only out off the Isle of Wight when we were all recalled, but we were handling it quite well and they were fairly solid, well built. I did hear afterwards that the LCT that I left when I came back to Australia,

just before I left to come back to Australia, it broke its back. But that possibly was due to the fact that we were mined before and probably did some damage that the dock yard workers weren’t aware of, because it snapped in half, wherever it was, I don't know. But that’s what I heard and I believe that it was official but there’s nothing in writing. And course the powers that be wouldn’t tell you because they wouldn’t know anyway, cause everything was so secret.

Yes, when we’d been out, oh, we’re a couple of nights out of Southampton on the way home and I had a bit of a breakdown. I was hallucinating and I still had enough

willpower and brains or something or other to say to the signal man to go down below and get the engineer officer, who was the doctor. And he came up and he took one look at me and he said, “You’ve had some sort of a breakdown.” And I said, “Well I felt a bit queer,” I said, “I’ve never felt like that before.” He said, “Well that’s what it is.” He said, “Well I guess you don’t want your captain and the rest of the crew to know anything about it.” And I said, “Well not particularly.” He said, “Well look,”

he said, “I will do the watch with you for the next couple of nights,” before we arrived in Southampton, which he did. And I was very thankful for him there, I don't know how I would have got on otherwise. But then when we got there he said, “Well,” he gave me a letter to take up to the chief Medical Officer in the British Admiralty in London. And I went and saw him and he said, “Yes,” he said, “you’ve had a break

down.” He said, “I’ll send you on leave for a few weeks,” and he said, “then you’ll be on light duties.” And he said, “What are you going to do?” And I told him I had to go for the commanding officer’s course. And he said, “Well, do you feel up to it?” And I said, “Oh yes, I think I will be.” So after three weeks I went back and he checked me out and he said, Yes,” he said, “You look a bit better,” he said, “do you feel better?” And by this time the hole in my stomach had sealed, healed up and

away I went, so I had no problems after that. But that was oh, what, early in the New Year in 1944.

Well just that you know, my whole head seemed to be just whirling round, and I, it’s hard to explain, it was a most peculiar feeling,

I’d never experienced anything like before, and it just suddenly hit me. Nothing untoward had happened that I was aware of to bring it on and everything was normal. But it was just in the middle of the night that, you know, I started seeing things that weren’t there and this is when he came up and I told him. He said, “Oh,” he said, “Yeah, you’ve had a breakdown.” And well, he said to me then, he said, “Well with the past few months

that you’ve had,” he said, “it’s little wonder.” So he wasn’t at all surprised about it but he just said, “Well we’ll just keep it between ourselves.” “And,” he said, “I’ll come and do the watch with you.” Which he did, and he was very, I was very thankful for that.

Well it’s hard to explain, they were just weirdo things, you know.

You know, they just, I couldn’t describe it, and I hope I never ever have to really.

Well that’s what the doctor said yeah. He told me then, he said, “Well it’s a stress disorder. ” And any rate I got back here and I went and saw a couple of doctors and they said that traumatic

stress and different things would sort of activate it, start it off.

Beg pardon?

No, not really, well if I did know, you know, they probably, I didn’t tell anyone about it, I sort of kept it to myself. And the doctors

didn’t tell anyone. Like this doctor aboard, he didn’t tell my CO, he didn’t tell any of the crew or anything like that. And even my Signalman didn’t know because he didn’t hear what we were talking about on the bridge that night. So no, I don't know, there were others that probably... I mean this lieutenant commander who I, who interviewed me down in Brighton when I was commissioned,

he was suffering from shell shock and it’s probably the same sort of, or similar sort of thing but I mean he was just shaking, he was really traumatised. And that’s what I thought, well the poor devil, why have they got him working, even doing light duties. But he probably didn’t want to knock off work any more than I did want to knock off work, you know. I didn’t feel incapable of working or anything like that, it was just that I had this weird spell, fortunately didn’t last long,

in an hour or so I was sort of back to normal again or got rid of the problem I had, or felt I had. So no, but, there are a lot of people probably suffered from post traumatic stress and different things build up and over the years they don’t appear and then all of a sudden, bang.

Well I just felt better, I felt as if I wanted to get up and go, and that’s when I went back and saw the doctor after three weeks. And as soon as he saw me he said, “Oh yes, you’re looking better.” I must have been, you know, looking crook but not having a mirror to look in I didn’t know how I looked. About all I knew was how I felt, but as soon as he read the letter from this doctor and

he got the background to it he had no, made no bones about it. He said, “Yes, you’ve had a nervous breakdown,” and that’s what it was all about. But it didn’t affect me later on, as far as I’m aware. Except that I probably became a little intolerant of people who, like this commander, Base commander bloke who annoyed me and the one in, down in Weymouth, who was our Base commander there.

When we came back on our, on my last trip from Normandy prior to being relieved and coming back home, we’d left with the Americans this morning, or the day before. And normally what we would do is go over there, unload troops and equipment and then lay at anchor off the coast there over night and leave early next morning. And I was one of the first ashore this particular day and

got out quite quickly to the anchorage. There was no sign of any other ship within coo-ee, and it was a beautiful day, sea was calm. So I said to the first lieutenant, “I think we’ll make tracks back home under our own steam, won’t wait for the convoy to home and go next morning.” So we did that and we got back off the Portland Bill at dark and we anchored in the bay there until first light next morning. And

went in and entered harbour, went alongside, and went up to the commander’s office and asked to see the commander. They said, “Oh he’s still in bed.” And anyhow he was up the first day when I got back after the D Day landing and I thought well he’d be there again. But I don’t think I told you before that when I went in there after coming back from being towed back to the Isle of Wight with the damage

to the ship’s engine and the hull, the bottom plate. He said, “Nelson, where have you been for the last three or four days?” He said, “You’ve been sitting on your bot down there doing nothing,” he said, “and we’ve been working our tails off here,” and you know and oh he.... Any rate he said to me, “Is there anything you want?” And I said, “No, nothing much other than two new engines and some new bottom plates in the engine room.” “Oh,” he said, “what about recommendations?” And I said, “Yes, every member of the crew.” And with that I stormed out of the

place. Any rate shortly after I got back to the ship and the first lieutenant said to me, “What’s the matter?” And I told him. He said, “Oh, sit down and we’ll have a cuppa.” Now while we’re having a cuppa, an engineer lieutenant commander came aboard and he said, “I believe you’ve got a problem.” He said, “I don’t mean with the Base commander,” he said, “with your ship.” And I told him, “Yes.” And anyhow I hardly spoke to the commander after that because I’d had it. And I got in there this morning and he wasn’t up, and I

was, my relief had arrived, I hadn’t met him but I was going to leave the ship that day so I thought well I better go and report to him and tell him I’m going. Anyhow I said, “Well will you go and get him out of bed because,” I said, “I want to speak to him urgently.” So they brought him out, he came out in his pyjamas and he, “What are you doing here Nelson,” he said, “you weren’t due back ‘til tomorrow?” And I said, “I know but it shows you what you do if you get off your fat whatsa name and get motivated.” “Oh.” And I said, “And I’ve come in to say goodbye because

I’m leaving, I’m going back to Australia in a couple of days.” So I just stormed out of the place and that was the last I ever saw of him. I didn’t meet my relief, so I said goodbye to the crew and first lieutenant of the crew and caught the train and went up to Australia House. And there, from there went up to, stayed the night in London, went up to Edinburgh and then up to Methel and next morning joined the Stirling Castle and

that day left to come back to Australia, went via the US and that was that. But he was another one of these passed over commanders I found out. And any, he didn’t know where I’d been, but there again that was another instance of the degree of secrecy because no-one in the flotilla knew what had happened to us, or if they did, they weren’t saying. So he just assumed that we were sitting round on our tails loafing,

instead of waiting to get the salvage ship to fix us up. So that was that.

Prior to D Day? Well we did all sorts of exercises, most of which we’d done in actual practice in the Mediterranean. But we were landing

in day and night exercises working round the clock, landing troops on various parts of beaches and picking them up and landing them again and all this, you know, just an on-and-on thing.

Oh all around the, in the harbour, mainly, at Portsmouth. And as a matter of fact, the night that we were supposed to leave on the third of June,

fourth of June, to get over there for the fifth. And when we got out to the Isle of Wight, the weather was that bad that they abandoned it and we went back to port. And we had to just scamper back and get whatever mooring we could, and we finished up over on the far side of the harbour and dropped anchor there and we still had the army chaps aboard. And the captain,

there was a colonel in charge and then his next in line was a captain. And he came to me and said, this was dark then, he said, “Do you feel like, can we go ashore?” And I said, “Why, what have you got in mind?” He said, “Well there’s a pub along the beach there and,” he said, “I know the Publican.” And I said, “Yeah I know the pub there too.” And he said, “Well do you reckon we could go ashore?” And I said, “Well what do you think, what’s your colonel?” “Oh,” he said, “he doesn’t want to come,” but he said, “I could

go.” So we went, so we lowered the dinghy and we rode ashore, beached it there and we walked up to the pub and the pub was closed but the lights were on in there. Any rate he knocked on the door and out came the Publican, and ‘course he knew him. He said, “Oh, what are you doing here?” He said, “You closed eh?” And he said, “Yes,” he said, “we’re almost out of beer so. But,” he said, “we’ve got a couple of glasses if you want to come in.” So we went in there and sat round the fire and with the family and had a drink of beer with them. He never asked what we were doing

or anything, he knew, because the army had been camped for weeks all along either side of the roadway beyond the pub for miles, there must have been thousands of army blokes parked there. And every day they went passed the pub to go out to get aboard landing craft and go on manoeuvres, and one thing and another. But he never asked a thing or anything else. And any rate when we went, we said, “Well cheerio, we’ll hope to see you

again soon.” He said, “Yes, well all the best to you,” and that was it. So we went back aboard, then we left the next day and the wind and sea had abated and we finished off, finished up leaving round the Isle of Wight late afternoon. And by midnight we were down off the Cherbourg Peninsula and it was absolute mass of light.

The Pathfinders had been down there, the Spitfires and Mosquitos were down there laying flares and the bombers were coming in, they were bombing the tripe out of it. And further along the coast they were doing the same thing, putting an act on to confuse the Germans. Because they would assume that we were going to make a landing, they knew that a landing was on, didn’t know when but, or where. And we didn’t know exactly where until midnight

that night when we opened our orders and found that we were on Gold Beach at Normandy. We knew we weren’t going to land at Calais or the Cherbourg Peninsula or anything like that, but we weren’t sure just where else. And we weren’t allowed to open these orders until midnight, which we did. So then the army was told and the crew was told and orders of the day, which I’ve got in there, were read out to the

troops and the crew [the orders] from [US General Dwight D.] Eisenhower and the different people in command of the various divisions involved in the landing. And it was then that we headed off towards Normandy. We got down off the beach at first light, we were an hour ahead of time so it was very good and enabled us to hove to and watch what was going on. And

we found out afterwards that the guns were very old, old fashioned guns down there, and whilst they could elevate and depress, they couldn’t alter the direction of them. And there was a definite pattern of shell fire and between these patterns was room for, a channel wide enough for ships to get in and out without

getting in the line of the fire, and that was a good thing for being early. So we went in earlier, I spoke to the colonel, I said “Does it matter when you go in?” He said, “No,” he said, “the sooner the better.” So they were quite happy about it so we went in probably an hour earlier than scheduled. And landed them safely on the beach without any problem and then got away from there, we probably weren’t any more than fifteen minutes, twenty minutes

on the beach. And when we were going out, we noticed some bodies floating in the water because some of the smaller craft had been blown up. And we pulled aside to see if we could find any, we pulled two bodies aboard, but there were no live bodies that we could see. And it was while we were doing that, that we struck a mined obstacle which were all round the beaches.

And it blew a hole in our engine room and we had to high tail it out to anchorage as soon as, you know, as quickly as possible. Which, when we passed the headquarter ship, the HMS Kingsmill, a frigate, and one of my mates from Perth, he was aboard that, he was on watch at the time. And sent a signal telling him what had happened and we needed assistance, so they said there’d be

an LCT out shortly to pick us up, so we were just hove to waiting there. And our stern was well under water because the engine room was full of water. We had it sealed, all the doors and hatches sealed off so that it wouldn’t get into any other compartments. And this LCT came alongside, it took the two bodies off and then took us in tow and towed us out to the anchorage where we dropped anchor

and we stayed there for the rest of the day. And, coming on dusk we got a general signal that all ships were to proceed to the main anchorage which was about another twenty mile further west up the coast. And we had no way of getting there, we couldn’t lift the anchor, we couldn’t do anything because we had no power. But a Canadian LCI

came past and we called it up and asked to give us a tow, which they agreed to do. And they put a tow line aboard and we secured it and got underway and then the first air raid that we’d experienced for the day started. And this was the reason why they were moving the ships into the main anchorage because they expected an air attack and an E-boat attack. So they had em all up there where they could

secure them more readily with all the destroyers and cruisers and things round the place. So anyhow we yelled out to them to slow down, slow down, but they didn’t take any notice and the next thing the tow rope snapped and we were left there just paddling. And while I was, you know, chewing over this, the coxswain came up onto the bridge.

And he always had a wry look on his face and I said to him, “What’s the matter with you Coxy?’ He said, “The anchor sir.” “What anchor?” He said, “The one in the forehead peak, forehead locker.” I said, “You bloody beauty.” It was the anchor that they’d pinched from the dockyard in Portsmouth and was put away, I’d forgotten all about it. So, I said, “Well get the rest of the crew out and get the wire ropes, we had two coils of rope,

wire. We shackled those together, shackled the anchor on, and they manhandled it and dropped it over the side and secured it and because of that we stayed fairly much in the same position overnight. We were dragging anchor but the sea abated and the wind dropped too. And next morning at first light we could see the ships at main anchor, they were holed down. And through binoculars I picked out a destroyer,

what I thought was a destroyer and I said to the signal man, “Get your Aldis lamp onto him and short message for help.” Which he did. Anyhow the reply came back, “We’re on our way.” And it was the destroyer, it was a Polish destroyer under command of a Royal Naval lieutenant commander and his officers were British and some of the crew were Polish. But anyhow they came alongside, secured, gave us a hot breakfast,

and anyone who wanted a bath could have a bath, cause no-one had had anything to eat for twenty-four hours, or drink, nothing. We had no drinking water, no way of cooking or heating anything. And then he took us in tow, we slipped the anchor and that anchor today’s probably still off Ouistraham. And I don't know how old it was, probably a couple of hundred years old, it was a relic out of the dock yard garden. And anyhow

he towed us back then to the main anchorage and a salvage ship. We were the first cab off the rank for the salvage ship that arrived from the UK a little later that day, and they put a diver over the side and he had a look at it. And then they put pumps in and managed to pump a lot of the water out of the engine room and they were able to stem the flow of water in there, which was a good thing.

Any rate next day at first light they were over again and they had some quick drying cement which I’d never heard of in those days, and they put a big cement block. The actual block was probably about two foot six cubed, great big thing that they put on there and it dried quite quickly. And that enabled them to do some extra work from the inside, ah, from the outside, and

by the end of that day the ship was fairly stable again. The engines weren’t running but I found out that the engine staff together with some of the crew from another LCT alongside us in Portsmouth, were responsible for the anchor being dragged aboard our ship. So I said to them down there, “You get cracking and get some power in these engines, so that we don’t have to go back to Portsmouth,” because Weymouth was to be our home base. But

the American LCI’s who were gonna tow us back and escort us back, they were taking us into Portsmouth. And I said, “If you blokes go in there, you’ll finish up in jail.” And anyhow they worked right through the night and next day, and when we eventually left there, they got some power on one engine. And I said, “Well that’s not good enough, we want some power on both engines.” And by the time we got to the Isle of Wight, which was coming on dark, the, that’d be what,

the eighth of June, ninth of June. And anyhow called up the American LCI who was towing us and I asked would he mind slipping the tow rope and stay with us, until we proceeded for the next few miles under our own power to see how we went. And we were making about five or six knots which was all we were doing when we were being towed by them. So I thanked them very much and I said, “Well we ought to be able to

make it under own power down to Weymouth,” which we did. And we got down there and anchored and went in early next morning and that’s when this passed over commander blew two tons of soot out of me by saying, “What have you been doing sitting round loafing for the last few days?” So that was that. And the Americans, I was very grateful to them

because they didn’t, well they weren’t concerned about us going to Weymouth, and they didn’t say that they had to take us to Portsmouth. I just said to them that Weymouth was to be our home base once we got back from D Day and we might as well go straight down there, which we did. And that was that.

We didn’t know anything about the

planning of it because we didn’t know where it was going to be. It wasn’t until the last minute ‘til we read the open orders, hours before we landed to where they would be. And at the same time messages there from Eisenhower and the others were read out at the same time to our crew and also to the military chaps aboard. And this applied to all the ships

who were taking part in it, so it was highly secretive. And even the aircraft who were bombing were not aware, the pilots weren’t aware of where the landing was to take place. But the general assumption was, particularly by the Germans that we would go to the nearest point which was Calais, or somewhere like that close handy. But instead of that we went further along to probably the furthest point and, at Normandy.

And I don't know whether the British knew that the coastal guns there were not as modern as they were round Omaha and Utah Beaches. Because they’d been put in, in recent years, the others had been in there for years before the Germans even took over France so they were old, and it was probably a good

thing from, well it was a good thing from our point of view. Because they were restricted in just the angle at which they fired, they could fire a mile to sea or two miles to sea but they couldn’t fire to port or starboard because they just didn’t lay that way, they were fixed. And that was that.

We took over the headquarters section,

the signal section of the British Armoured Division. They had, didn’t have any tanks or anything like that, they just had armoured vehicles all fitted with top secret communications and that was their whole, their whole object as I understand it, was when they went ashore that they were responsible for the signals going from headquarters to all the

armoured units and probably some of the other Militia units, taking part in the invasion.

Oh, we probably had, oh, maybe seventy or eighty men. And the vehicles well, I don't know, I didn’t count them but we had a full load, but as I say they weren’t tanks, they were just

armoured trucks and things like that. They had all sorts of antennas and things on them with all this high rated communication gear that they had in those days.

No. No, as a matter of fact I didn’t know anything about that until some time later. There again, things were not made public, the

degree of secrecy, I mean, the shores were littered all the way along the coast from virtually Dover to Portsmouth where there was beaches, with coils, there were great big coils of piping which was the fuel pipe. We didn’t know that, they were there for weeks and weeks and hanging around. And the Germans must have seen them

because they were sending planes over all the time and doing reconnaissance work. But no-one knew just exactly where, and if you asked someone in the dock yard they’d say, “Oh, I don't know, I can’t tell you anything about it.” So you, everyone reached the stage today, they’re not like the people today who, you know, trick you into giving a question and then, you know, you spill the beans.

Because even our commander officers wouldn’t have known. The only people who would have known would have been those who were going to be engaged in the transporting of this across the Channel and those who manufactured or brought the stuff down. But they wouldn’t have been told what they were gonna be used for, they’d just say, “Just drop those on the beaches there.” And this was

when you look back and think about it and compare it with things today, the degree of secrecy was the most important factor in the outcome of the war.

Well we were training for several months, we were training from February through to June,

and we guessed that it would be when the summer months was on with the good weather. And the tides at the time were such that you had to do something about it within, probably a period of a week. And if we had had to wait another couple of days, because of the bad weather, when we did, we would’ve probably missed out until a month

or so later. But it was not the exact date that we knew because it was just the state of the tides and the weather generally, for those who were familiar with it, who realised when it would be. And whether it was their guess was a week before or a week after, no-one would really know. And no-one was really concerned about it, and we were

training with the army right up until the day before we took them aboard to set sail. So I mean, well the only other thing that gave us an indication of when it might be was, we had a sail past by the King. I’d forgotten that. And that was on the, we were alongside for leave on the night of the second of June and that’s when they came back with the anchor.

And next morning we left at first light, to go out to a buoy. There were three LCT’s tied up to each buoy, there was one in the middle, one on the port side, one on the starboard side. We were on the port side and we had to have a repaint. The paint crew came from shore side, where ever they got them from I don't know, but they painted camouflage on our port side. The one LCT on the starboard side got his starboard side painted, the bloke in the

middle, all he got was the drips of paint that the painters dropped as they ran from one ship to the other. And when the King came past that afternoon, he had a great smile you know, and he must have thought, gee these ships look beautiful, but he didn’t know that only one side was painted. And the other side was, it was painted, but it was pretty rough looking probably. And then that afternoon, after that, we had a fly past by, by the RAF

and every type of aircraft that was participating, ten thousand odd in all, they were painted with zebra stripes. And I don't know how many people they had painting them, but the wings had zebra stripes going round that way and the fuselage had them going round the fuselage. And all the bombers that took part in the raid,

the night before weren’t painted, but next day they were, or if it weren’t the same ones it was some more. But I remember on the second, on the seventh of June the greatest air strike that I’ve ever seen. There were twelve to fifteen hundred Lancasters and Halifaxes came over, flying at any level from a hundred feet up to a thousand feet. They were like this, one on top of the other.

And they were bombing a particular spot out of Cannes where, the tanks I understood, found out afterwards, were housed or hidden in the forest. And apparently the British got to know about it and sent these aircraft over. And we could see them through binoculars, because Cannes was only six miles or something or other from the coast.

And we could see them through binoculars, they came in low level and dropped their bombs there. And this continued, this raid, all morning, it went on for hours and hours and there was just an endless stream of aircraft flying in and flying out. And that was probably one of the most you know, not exciting, but one of the occasions when you thought well at least we’re

getting somewhere. And the Jerries, not a German plane was seen until, the first one that we saw was the morning after when we were still waiting for the destroyer to come down to help us. There was a British cruiser pulled up about a quarter of a mile to seaward of it and they trained their six inch guns over us and were firing at ‘em, some

batteries ashore. And that was more horrifying than anything else because the whistling of these six inch shells going overhead. And a Messerschmitt came over with a bomb on either wing tip and dropped them both and they landed between the cruiser and us, we got a splash of water from the second one. But it was a good thing that he did because this put the cruiser into gear and away he went to seaward. Otherwise he probably would have been there for another hour, blasting

away, and he couldn’t care about us. But that was devastating, the scream of these six inch shells whizzing over your head at, you know, fifty, sixty feet or something like that. That’s about all they were at that stage because he wasn’t very far to seaward of us.

We had them loaded up on the fourth of June and went out

to the Isle of White to meet up with the ships from Southampton and other places, and form up in our flotillas and squadrons and proceed. And then the general signal came through that it was abandoned, cancelled because of the bad weather so we had to go back to port.

Oh yeah, oh yes, there was no doubt about that because we were handed sealed envelopes with our orders in. But they weren’t

to be opened until midnight that night. But because we didn’t leave that night they weren’t opened ‘til midnight the next night.

Oh well it was, well I reckoned that whatever they did was a sensible thing to do. Because it would have been stupid, as it was when we landed next day or the day after that, there, and the sea and wind had abated, it was still quite a strong

surf. And because of the high rise and fall, thirty feet or more, it extended quite some distance out to sea, so the surf was virtually a mile to sea, so the, a mile off shore and you were still in surf. And whilst under normal circumstances it mightn’t have been more than a couple of feet high, it was probably four or five feet. And some of these smaller craft

well, they wouldn’t have made it, not into the beach, they would have capsized probably. Because is was just an endless stream of these waves coming one after the other.

Oh nothing but ships, it was congested, it was worse than a car park in the middle of town or city here, they were just everywhere.

And the anchorage, they had buoys all through the harbour, some were tied up to the buoys, others were at anchor, and Portsmouth Harbour is a big harbour and it extended right to the outskirts and was absolutely choc-a-block.

Oh yes, it had to be, mmm, it was well organised.

Well they were obviously told by their commander in chief where they would be. And we were told where our flotilla, by our flotilla leader, where we would go to pick up the headquarters section of the, signal section of the British Armoured Division. And they in turn would know that they would be picked up

by the right people at the right place. And it was well organised and a lot of those finer points were never explained to us, how it happened. But they just said, you berth there and pick up these troops, so in we went and we picked them up, so it was as simple as that really, there was no great problem there And the same thing with the landing of it, because that particular photograph there was

issued to us and gave accurate photographs of the whole of the coast of Normandy. And they were taken in March of that year, that was two months before we landed there. They were taken by Spitfires at zero feet, and they were pieced together

and they form a, oh, something that goes from one end of this room here to the other, longer than that. And they were purely and simply for identification purposes, not for navigational purposes. And we were lucky that where we were due to land there was a dirt road went up right from the beach head up to the surrounding high land. And that road’s still there today

and it’s as plain as anything on that photograph. And we landed right at that and it was good from the point of view of our troops. Because the vehicles went up over the sand hill and on to this road, and they could get inland as far as they wanted to, without having to go across farm land or swamp land or anything like that.

They stayed aboard. They stayed aboard for the night and they, most of them probably would’ve slept in the vehicles or something like that, I forget now. But we could’ve probably made some arrangements for them and obviously did but that wasn’t my responsibility at that, the first lieutenant looked after that and also their own people.

But they could’ve dozed down on the sleeping bags or something on the deck in the shelter out of the weather. There wasn’t any rain or anything like that, it was just wind, but in the port itself it wasn’t that bad because we were protected in there, it was very protected port we were in, fortunately. But no, they were aboard there and they probably had

as good a sleep as they would’ve anywhere else.

They weren’t tied in or anything like that, they were just there, and they were right side by side so I mean there was no movement. If one moved it would come up against some of the other and no, there was no... but it was just the weight because they were pretty heavy vehicles, mightn’t have been as heavy as the tanks. But I mean they were loaded with all sorts of equipment

and the weight alone would keep them pretty well steady. And of course in the harbour there, there was no waves or anything there, it was quite calm and peaceful in there, there was no movement at all to speak of in the ship. It was only when we got to sea that, but it wasn’t that bad and they all handled it pretty well. We didn’t have, I don’t recall

any of the army chaps being sea sick. But one of my mates who was in command of an LCI, he had Canadians aboard and they were dreadfully ill, the lot of them. But...

Oh, they were just placid sort of blokes, they, they were

all so well trained that there was no sense of nervousness amongst them or anything like that. They were quite jovial if you spoke to them or if you had a yarn with them, or something like that. But they didn’t seem to be concerned or really worried about it at all. And I think this stemmed from their initial training because they’d done, I

don't know where else they’d been, they’d probably been out in the Mediterranean too. So that my first encounter with them was when we got back there down to Portsmouth. But they obviously had seen the wartime activities elsewhere because they weren’t fools. And the way in which they got their equipment off the ship when we berthed

or beached at Normandy was a good indication of their ability.

Oh we just, well I suppose we were expecting it to happen some time or other, so I mean, it didn’t come as a surprise or a shock to us. We just thought, well, this is it and now we’d put into action what we’ve been

taught to do or told to do or expected to do, and let’s hope everything goes alright.

Well not really, not really, because when we witnessed the bombing that was taking place the night before and the bombing that had carried on previously over weeks and weeks, different parts. So we felt pretty confident that

you know the, a lot of the equipment and stuff that, guns and things that the Germans had there were going to be out of action . Because the RAF blokes were no fools, and they did night raids on a nightly basis. The Americans were only on daylight raids, they didn’t let ‘em out on nights raids, and

I don't know why but they didn’t. And the amazing part about it was that they would come over at thirty or forty thousand feet in daylight and you could see them up like little birds up in the sky. The Air, RAF’d come over and they’d be flying at all sorts of levels, and the Americans used to bomb from that height, thirty or forty thousand feet.

Whereas the RAF would, if it was a low level bombing job well that’s what they did. And...

There was absolute silence when these were read.

I read out some, the colonel read out some and there were no queries or suggestions or any remarks by either of the crew, our crew or his crew. And they just accepted the fact that these were best wishes from the commanders in chief. And that’s

basically all it was.

We could see them, some of them were close by but we weren’t tightly packed in, which was a good thing. Because at night time particularly and high sea like that, if someone had a bit of an engine breakdown, or something or other, if you were close on someone’s tail you, it could finish up ramming them.

But and there was absolutely no noise, no noise at all, the only noise you could hear were the waves splashing up against the side of the ship. But there was no, course there were no radios or music or anything like that going, nothing at all. And even the army crew aboard, I mean, if they were talking, you couldn’t hear them. So, no there was, it was just complete silence. And the only

noise that you could hear were the bombs being dropped or guns being fired, or something like that. But it was mainly the bombs that were on that night because they really gave them a plastering. I wouldn’t like to have been living in the Cherbourg Peninsula ‘cause they really copped it.

Oh yes we could hear them but nothing else other

than that. And they weren’t that noisy either because they were flying over in a, not in a mass formation, but going in probably, in one behind the other, some going in at different heights and others... and then when they get to the shoreline they’d then branch off and bomb a particular target while the others went on

and bombed something else, so it was a widespread air attack. I’ve never, before or previous or after that, had seen an air attack as extensive as that one was.

Well they just said that we were to land them

at Gold Beach and that was basically it. We were left to decide when exactly to go in, I mean as in the case of when we arrived there a bit earlier, and I said to the colonel in charge of the people we had aboard, did he have any objection. He said, “No, the sooner the better,” sort of business. So they left it

up to us to decide at which particular moment. I mean if there was shell fire on or something or other, there was no sense in heading straight into that. If you waited a couple of minutes and the shell fire stopped and you went through, well that was the logical thing to do. So it was up to the individual ships to decide just exactly when they touched down. And that was all part of the initial training and the training that we’d had right

through over a period of some years. But some of them probably made the wrong decision, I don't know. But these couple of mates of mine who I’ve spoken to over the years about these things, they were exactly the same. One of them who was in command of an LCI they were running a bit late but it didn’t matter because the main thing was that they landed their

troops unharmed, and this is what it was all about. And whether they were landed ten minutes earlier or later is of no consequence really. And because they took time to form up on the beach, and I don’t suppose there was any great delay for any of the units that were landed on the shore to wait for the whole of their Company to arrive.

Oh well there was, there were cruisers, destroyers, mainly cruisers and battle ships. And rocket ships off the coast who were firing rockets, gun fire, six and eight inch shells, whizzing in, all along the coast and this was just going non stop.

Oh, well it was

just, just like a roar of thunder, it was continuous you know, it wasn’t just a bang here and a pop there, it was just like a great thunder storm. And of course on shore you could see these, where the shells were landing in some instances and fires started, and things like that. And this went on for oh, probably an hour, at least, while we were off Gold Beach. And then when

that eased up, most of the landing started, but the shelling was going on, in the main, prior to the troops being landed.

Not a great deal because of the, it was fairly low laying country. And at sea level we were, you know, at eye level, probably just above eye level would be the height of the range,

the high point at the back of the beach which was where they had the gun emplacements. But there were some hills where spots were higher but there was that much smoke and haze that visibility wasn’t very good in that particular area. And it didn’t matter to us because there was nothing we could do about it. I mean we couldn’t see the gun emplacements, we just knew that they were there and you could see a flash from a gun which gave us an idea

of where they were. But you know, the whole area was just much the same as anywhere else. And ‘course even out to sea, I mean there was smoke from the cruisers and battle ships who were firing these shells, and these rocket ships firing these rockets in shore. And it was

well, quite interesting really, to see the way they were going. But they obviously had a timetable to work to because when it ceased, it seemed to cease quite quickly and then the landings took place. So that there were no danger of a shell falling short and hitting our blokes as they were on the beach.

Yes, yeah there were, some ships that, well the smaller boats that had the army chaps in that had struck mines or had been shelled or something like that, they, the wrecks of those things were floating round here and there, or partly submerged. But the rest of it seemed to be fairly orderly, ships were coming and going,

there were obstructions on the way in and out, those that had struck... there were a lot of obstructions in the water.

Oh they were like posts and at different states of the tide they were more visible than otherwise. They were out probably a quarter of a mile out from shore and of course as the tide receded so more of these became

visible. And a lot of them were mined so that if you struck them, well the same happened to us, it blew a hole in the engine room. But so far as the ships were concerned there was very little damage done to our squadron on Gold Beach. The most severe damage was on Omaha and Utah Beaches, which was absolutely lined with tanks and equipment.

No, well there was fire on yes, but because we’d arrived there ahead of schedule, we had time and was nearly an hour I suppose, and we were laying about a quarter of a mile, half a mile off shore.

Oh that was first light, in the morning, before the sun was up. And we were not due in until seven o'clock. But we finished up getting in about oh-six hundred hours

or a bit after that. And we had the opportunity of seeing just the pattern of gun fire which, as I said earlier, was fixed. The guns couldn’t be swayed from one direction to the other, they could be lifted up or dropped down. So that they could fire a half a mile to sea, or a quarter of a mile, or a mile to sea, but they couldn’t alter it left or right of that line. And it was

obvious to us then that there were channels that were completely free of shells, they still had obstructions in them but they didn’t have shells. And this helped us, the fact that we were early and had the opportunity to lay off the beach and this became so obvious. I can picture in my own mind now, and I remember that I set my mind on that. And every time

the shell battery started firing, the shells finished up in exactly the same line so we went in trouble free, and so did quite a lot of the others in our flotilla, because we were one of the first in our flotilla to go in. But it was some of the other ones who were off the channel that were in line with the shell fire who ran into trouble.

No, no, there was no opposition at all on the beach. It was only from the batteries up on the hills that extended the full length of the coast. And of course as you went over towards Omaha and Utah, they had more update guns in there and they were able to switch them, swing them around, and if there,

some ships were over there they’d swing it round there and hit ‘em. But they couldn’t do that, we found out afterwards where we were that they were old guns and we thought well thank heavens for that.

Well that’s a good question. We went in there at full tide and well, I presume it

was, because when we went in we got right up on the beach, high and dry without any problem and because we were only there a short while, the tide hadn’t receded much. There was no sign of any of these obstructions, it was only later on when the tide ebb, started to ebb, that we could see these posts sticking up. And in photographs that I saw later,

the obstructions were all along the beach but they were visible only probably from half tide mark down, above that they weren’t. They might have only been a foot or so under water but they weren’t visible to the naked eye.

Well

we didn’t really realise how bad they were, we knew that there were mined obstructions there but a lot of them we learned or believed had been, you know, shelled or bombed or something or other earlier on, and I think they would’ve done. Because the fact that when they were visible, a lot of them, they weren’t like steel posts, they were just like timber fence posts, a lot of them.

And they were fairly harmless things, but not seeing these until such time as we’d landed the troops and got out clear of the beach, they didn’t, they weren’t a worry or a concern to us . As I say later, when I saw photographs of them, only then did we realise how many there were. And see the photographs that the airforce took in March

of the beaches must have been taken at high tide because there was no sign of any of these obstructions in those. Not at that time, anyway. And they were obviously there because they would’ve been there for a long, long time. And they wouldn’t have just been put in the week or two, or a day or two before we arrived ‘cause it would’ve taken them a long time to do that. And when they were done, I don't know.

It was, well when we landed at full tide, it was fairly flat, there was a sand hill about, oh, what, twenty or thirty feet from where we landed, when the troops got out. And that would’ve only been four or five feet higher than the beach

area which we landed. And then that gave access to a road and, which was running along behind the sand dune, and then there was a road that went up the slight slope through to the farm land up to the hills in the back ground. And that wasn’t particularly high because if you were standing up, it would be just above eye level.

But it was a few miles inland, so you know, it would be... And the road that went up to it was fairly steep in on area, so it would have been just a medium height range, not a mountainous thing at all. And that extended like that along the coast for quite a while, it’s only when they got up to Omaha and Utah Beaches they started to get into some really higher

areas.

Yeah, there were a few buildings there yes, some of them were damaged, some were not. But they were, they didn’t seem to have anyone in them because there was no sign, there wasn’t a sign of a soul or a human being ashore at all. Even through binoculars, there was no sign of anyone there so that you know, they were more like weekend beach cottages. And I don't know what day it was, I think it might have been a

Wednesday, I forget now, but anyhow there were no people there, there was no sign of any lights or anything even before daylight, and I would say that the buildings were empty. Some were damaged, some weren’t. But the guns from seaward were mainly aiming at the shore batteries, which were a few miles inland,

and that was their main target to try and get rid of them.

Yes, we were on the, what’d be the eastern most point, Montfleury was the name of the town, that was on our outskirts and we were

on the extreme left hand corner of the beach, or the eastern corner of the beach. And then beyond that on, further to our right was, some distance along further was Omaha and Utah, the two American beaches.

Oh there was quite a bit particularly from the, but not much to our, on our port side because we were at the extreme end of the beach at that end you see. It was mainly further round to our right but it wasn’t possible to see because, exactly or how far, because of the other ships coming in, I mean they blocked your view. And

it’s not as if you were, even up on the bridge it was still difficult to see because they were blocked ships the same height, same size and probably you could see two or three rows down the beach, that’d be about it.

Not there, no, not on our beach. In fact the Canadian and British beaches were relatively free of, it was

Omaha and Utah the American beaches that really had the wreckage.

No. No, and even on our way out there were no other ships that I was aware of. Out of our flotilla, we were the only one that was damaged of the twenty-one ships. And

I would say that very few of the others were, apart from the smaller landing craft who, and there were a few of those.

Yeah, well there were. Matter of fact when we were going in to the beach a couple exploded, either hit, submerged, obstacles or else were hit with shell fire. But

I mean the bodies were flown up into the air and there were at least two that I was aware of that were almost abeam of us as we went in, that copped it.

Beg pardon?

No, I wasn’t frightened, I was just concerned about these, that’s why we stopped on the way back out to see if we could pick up some survivors. Because there were at least two of these and there were probably others. But

I don't know, while we were in there, probably after, some of them were probably, were picked up by some of the other ships that went in the same channel virtually as they went in.

Oh they were performing well, yeah. Yeah, they performed really well. They were, and considering that they were, well, we were all young, but a lot of them were

inexperienced, this was their first encounter of that nature. Although they had had months and months of exercise, they had not experienced the war-like efforts of the opponents so it was probably a bit scary for them, but they handled it well.

It was a bit rougher than anyone had hoped or expected, but it still wasn’t as rough as the couple of days before when it was called off because of the weather. We didn’t notice it that much, it was only when you got to the beach that it was really noticeable

for some of the smaller craft, and depended upon what state of the tide they went in and came out. Because say, the rise and fall of tide is so great there that, I mean the sea goes some distance out I mean at low tide, and the surf might be oh, a quarter of a mile out to sea and sometimes, you know, from the shore line. But

it wasn’t that bad I mean I’ve experienced worse weather than that, we didn’t have any problems and no-one in our flotilla had any problems with it. But some of the smaller landing craft may have experienced some problems, depending again on the, what part of the tide they went in on. I mean those who went in on full tide were probably better off than those who went in at half tide or low tide. And see

the beach is uneven too because at low tide it was obvious there were channels and canals running through there that might have been a foot or two deep. And you know, if you landed on one of those and they got out, they’d finish up in two foot of water or something. Whereas one, someone alongside would probably finish up with, well not bone dry feet, but certainly not,

wouldn’t have the same depth of water. So, I don't know whether it was just the wind and the sea that, or whether it’s the current that does it, it would vary from tide to tide. But it wasn’t just a smooth sand where the water had ebbed on the, it was corrugated and quite uneven really.

Well we left Portsmouth at mid afternoon and we were off the coast of Cherbourg at midnight or thereabouts. And then when we knew just where we were proceeding to, we moved off to Gold Beach and we didn’t go at

any speed or anything, we got there just, at first light or just before daybreak , and it probably took five hours or something like that.

No, no evidence at all there, there weren’t any fires to speak of. But the bombing hadn’t been, there hadn’t been any bombing in that part, the bombing had been done on the Cherbourg

Peninsula and in the close proximity to that, to fool the Germans. The actual Normandy beaches weren’t bombed at all, they were shelled next morning, at first light. And not the beaches but the back of the beach where the gun emplacements were.

They had cruisers, they had destroyers and they had

rocket ships, and they had some battle ships there and they were bombarding it non stop for oh, I suppose the best part of an hour before the landings actually started. Because when we went in, and we went in probably within half an hour of the first of them, the bombing, the bombardment had ceased.

And there was nothing on the actual beach head that needed bombing at all, I mean there was, there were no gun emplacements there and there was no sign of any troops or anything there at all. It was just up on the ridge a few miles inshore that, where the gun emplacements were and where they probably had some

armoured units, but we couldn’t see them.

Well we had a straight forward run into the beach, and the tide was fairly high and we got fairly well up the beach, and we lowered the ramp down and the army personnel had no problems at all

getting their units ashore. And we unloaded them probably in a quick a time as we’ve ever unloaded, and I don't think we would’ve been any longer than twenty minutes on the beach, probably not that, maybe nearer a quarter of an hour, and everything went very smoothly. And from the army’s point of view it was quite good because they were landed

on the dry part of the beach, and they just had to go up the small sand hill to get onto a road and then if they wanted to go inland they had a road directly in front of them to go up.

Nothing at all in this particular area. As a matter of fact there hadn’t been any bombing on the Normandy side of it, to my knowledge, at any time. It was only the day

after that bombing took place just out of Cannes where the tanks were in a forest area, there in hiding. And there’re about twelve, fifteen hundred Lancasters and Halifaxes went over, spent the whole morning just bombing this area. But prior to that there was no

bombing of the beaches or close surrounds, all that had been further along the coast. So the Germans didn’t have any idea of where they were going to be landed, they assumed that wherever we were bombing was where the troops would be landing. But that was the whole idea to fool them that the bombed areas that, there may not have been any specific targets that they picked out there, I don't know, but that happened

in the middle of the night. And the Pathfinder aircraft dropped flares and you could see them gliding up the whole of the Cherbourg Peninsula, and then the bombers came in and just dropped their bombs. So I don't know what they had in the way of fortresses there but we certainly didn’t get any fire from there during the night. And

I, whilst I did go into the Cherbourg Peninsula later on, didn’t have much opportunity to see what was there, but I don't think there was any great armament there. It was mainly along the coastal stretch where they had these gun emplacements that they had most of it. But the troops weren’t there, the troops were, I don't know where they were. A lot of the

army personnel were on leave, we found out later on, that was fifty years later from Andre Heinz who was the chief of the French Underground at the time, he was a student, language student at the university and he

became the head of the French Underground. And talking to him later, on the Fiftieth Anniversary, he said he was lucky that he was still alive because if the invasion had taken place a week or two later, he was on the hit list, so far as the Germans were concerned. They’d already killed about twenty-odd

of their members, the French members and they had a list, a wanted list of all these others and he was on that wanted list, so he found out. But the landing came at the right time and that diverted the German’s attention from the French Underground, because they were flat out coping with the bombing and everything else that

was going on with the British and American and Canadians.

Well we pulled straight out and stopped to look for some survivors from some of these smaller landing craft that’d been blown up. We retrieved two bodies and that was all, and then whilst we were there we struck one of these mined objects

and we had to call off our search for bodies. And we hastened quite quickly while we had use of the engines before the engine room flooded completely. The pumps we had in there weren’t sufficient to stem the flow of water and we just made it a short distance off the beach. And until another LCT came

along, took the two bodies off and took us in tow and took us out to the anchorage before we dropped anchor.

At the anchorage, probably about a mile, mile and a half.

Well there was nothing much happening there because most of the ships that were, at that particular time in our flotilla,

in our Squadron were inshore. And when we went out there we were the only ship to drop anchor in this particular anchorage.

Oh nothing much from there because of the smoke and the high seas, there was still quite a big swell on. And visibility wasn’t that good but

we could see fires and smoke and sort of shell fire flames, or something like that. But there wasn’t much else to see and the other ships, well they were heading off to the main anchorage when they, because they had their own power you see. But we were towed out to a nearest anchorage point and we finished up being the only ones who anchored there actually. And we stayed there until

almost dusk and then we got a tow to the, back to the anchorage, main anchorage and the tow rope snapped, as I said. This Canadian LCI took us in tow and at the first air raid, the first sight of any German planes that day, started. Not that we could see the planes but we could hear the bombs falling, they were bombing the main anchorage

and they expected an E-boat attack on them too during the night. So that’s why they wanted to get all the ships into the one anchorage where they could protect them with the destroyers and cruisers that they had there. And we, the tow rope just parted, the Canadian LCI slapped on speed obviously when the air raid started, and we yelled out to him to

reduce speed because the tow rope would snap. But he didn’t take any notice and the tow rope snapped and that was it. And we were just laying there and until such times as we found this other anchor that we had, and that’s what I mentioned to you about that. So that was it, there were no other ships there at that particular time at that anchorage.

Oh well that’s a good question. We had opened the inlet valve of some of the forward tanks to let in some sea water to see if it, because our stern was right under water. The after deck

was awash and our bow was sticking right out of the water like that, we thought well if we can get a bit of water into the forehead tanks it might straighten us up. But it didn’t and then I didn’t get any more in there because I thought well, we’ll finish up breaking our back and we didn’t want that to happen.

Oh there was just the normal, there was no firing of, no shell fire coming from seaward in there, there was only the splash of whatever was landing in the water at the time. But it was relatively quiet because you know, when we got about half a mile or so out from the beach, there was little or no activity at

all there. And there was no, nothing going off, no explosives or anything. All that early bombardment in the first hours of daylight, when the ships were laying offshore and bombarding the place, that was the only time there was any real noise on. Apart from what we could hear on the beach, or at the back of the beach when we were on the beach head.

Well they didn’t appear to have any damage to them, matter of, one of them I thought was still alive. The only one who had an injury was the, he had his foot blown off, well it snapped off here and half his foot was in his boot, how that happened I don't know,

might have been direct contact with an explosion. But they were army, British Army chaps and they were obviously going ashore in one of these small landing craft because they were the ones that were mainly damaged and had the greatest number of casualties in that particular area. And they were, whether they were hit by shell fire, or whether he had an explosion from a mined obstacle, and that’s

possibly what did it if he, they were squatting down and it hit the bottom plate and blew it off and would probably snap his foot off at the ankle too. But they didn’t appear to have any cuts or wounds or anything like that. Not that we looked that closely but we just took their pulse and they had no pulse and they had obviously been dead for a while. So they may have actually drowned,

they might have been, you know, still alive but floating in the water and they didn’t have life jackets on too... they were partially submerged when we got them.

Well it wasn’t

noticeable, I wasn’t aware, because we were broadside on to the waves and it was you know, the boat was swinging and swaying, and one thing and another. And with the other noises that were going on round about, it was just a tremor, that was all, almost as if a wave had

hit us or something like that. And it wasn’t until someone came racing up out of the engine room. I was on, not on the bridge at the time, I was down on the fore deck where the, one of our chaps had dived over the side to help get the bodies in. And I went down there to tell him to get back up there because there was no sense in him diving into the water to try and retrieve these people. And anyhow that’s when it happened. And one of the engine room crew came up and said that

they’d had a hole blown in the engine room. So then we straight away got underway while we still had power, and got out to sea as far as we could, or as far away from the beach as we could, because we didn’t want to stay there, we’d be in the road of anyone else wanting to get in or we’d finish up getting into further trouble. So that’s when we hot-tailed it out to sea and then ultimately got it towed further out.

Looking back to where?

Couldn’t see anything there, no. See the, most of the initial landing craft had all, at that stage done their job. Because they came over in one huge

armada. And it was probably twenty-four hours after that, that the next contingent of ships came over with whatever they were carrying, whether it was armoured equipment tanks or whether it was, they were individuals, you know the Milit…, ah, the Infantry.

But there were a few bigger, larger ships that were carrying smaller landing craft and they lowered them over the side with personnel in them and they were anchored further out to sea, so they were out of our vision. But where we, just out from Gold Beach there were a few of those, that’s the reason why some of these casualties happened there. Because they came straight

in from these ships, like Landing Ships Tanks or some of these other ships that were carrying small landing craft and lowered them into the water with forty or fifty people aboard and took them in. But the activity on the beach eased up and

where we were situated next day, after we’d spent the night there drifting down the coast a bit, there was little or no activity at all going on because we had, at that stage reached the last of the British beaches, Sword and Juno, the likes of that. And all their landings

had been completed for the, all the initial landings had and I don't know when the next lot went in there. But for the two days or so that we were there, the main activity going on was the RAF bombers going in and bombing

inland things, like this lot of tanks that were hidden in the trees out of the city of Cannes. There were other areas like that, that attracted the attention of the RAF but the actual continuation of landing probably took place the day after.

I mean we weren’t in a position to see them or know anything about it because we were at, you know, out at sea where we couldn’t see what was going on and we weren’t in touch with what was going on. We were just laying there waiting to be patched up so that we could get away, get back to UK. But when we got back to Weymouth,

some of the existing ships of the same flotilla who had got back unharmed, they were on their way back to Normandy with other troops, follow-up troops. Not necessarily to the same beaches, probably to maybe one of the others, Gold Beach or something like that, or

might have been Omaha or Utah. Because it was not long after that we started working with the Americans and landings were made, follow-up landings were made at two beaches where the Americans went in. In fact I don’t remember, we never ever went in to Gold Beach again with any others. The only other beaches we went to when the ship was repaired was

Omaha and Utah and we worked for a couple of weeks with them, the Americans, at that beach and there were those beaches. And but obviously some of the other flotillas and Squadrons from round the place would be using the other beaches because the troops were all going inland that way, I mean they were travelling in that direction. So no doubt they would have been using those beaches because they were,

they had easy access and they didn’t have the problems with the coastal armament there, the gun emplacements to worry them, like they did at Utah and Omaha.

We had oh, fifteen to seventeen, it varied a bit, we had, for, a

couple of times we had a midshipman aboard, they were trainees. And we might have had an extra hand or two but it ranged from fifteen to seventeen, was the average number of personnel.

Oh they were quite relieved in the main I think, to think that they’d got away from the beach head or getting away from the beach head and it was a bit of a relief. And I mean reflecting on it now I suppose that we considered that we were lucky to have got away with what we did. And the fact that we were, we

got good support and everything and we lucky that we had a salvage ship come alongside us as soon as it arrived from the UK to carry out repair work. So I suppose there was a degree of luck but oh the mood was basically the same, except I suppose there was some relief, the fact that we were

underway again. There’s nothing worse that being at anchor and immobile and you can’t move.

Well it was, oh, I don't know, it’s hard to describe it. There was no sense of panic or anything like that, or no-one was you know, really

complaining. It was just that we were in that particular state and we couldn’t do much about it, we couldn’t do anything about it, we were, you know, waiting on help from other ships to get us out. And we got that, so I mean we were lucky in that regard. But oh no, it didn’t unduly upset the

crew or anything like that.

What news? Well we didn’t have any news because there was no news at all about, when we landed in Weymouth, they didn’t know where we were or what we’d had, they didn’t realise that we had been disabled off the beach. The rest

of the flotilla were unscathed apparently and no-one knew and the Base commander just thought we were sitting on our bot’s doing nothing while they were working. But I soon advised him of the true picture. But no, like everything else, things could happen

to an individual craft and only if someone witnessed it would they know. I mean there was no general signal sent out to say that LCT 10-38 had been mined or anything like that and possibly a lot of them were not aware. So it was the same with everything else that happened in those days,

and if you today try and reflect back on what happened, no, there’s no written evidence or very little of what happened in these things, because no-one was told. And even the powers that be were not aware of the individual things that happened. And all these exercise were done under a code name and they didn’t say what ships were involved in them.

It was just a particular exercise, and this was Operation Overlord, this was the code name of the Normandy Landing, Overlord. And it, no-one would have records anywhere of what ships were actively engaged in that particular, on that particular occasion.

When we finished that operation?

Well after the operation was over, Normandy, as far as I was concerned, I left then and I went up to Australia House, and then proceeded up to Methel in Scotland to catch a ship to come back to Australia, and that was the end of my service with the Royal Navy.

Oh I didn’t mind,

I’d reached the point where I, you know, I’d had enough. And I thought at one stage when the Japs got involved in the war that we should go back home but under the arrangements we had with them that wasn’t likely. Because we had signed up for a period of three years and, or the duration,

whichever was the longer and it was our three years, or my three years was up then. And I was relieved in a way I suppose, to get back, because see my family I had, and friends and see what was going on down in our neck of the woods.

Went back via the States

and went down virtually the way we came over, and went back to Sydney. And disembarked in Sydney and then went over by train from Sydney to Perth, which was my home city.

And went on leave for six weeks, six weeks Foreign Service leave, until I was recalled three days later and flown up to Cairns to join the Beach Group. I wasn’t particularly happy about that, wasn’t happy at all. But there again

out here in Australia they had no idea what was involved in Combined Operations at all. And they assumed that, alright, we’d be doing, we’d know all about working on the beach, which wasn’t that at all. I mean we had probably a better idea of that than anyone else, but our job didn’t include working on the beach, was working to the beach. And anyhow that was... and couple

of my mates in Combined Operations over in the UK too, they were called into the Beach Group and our job there was to go ashore and prepare the beach in readiness for the landing of troops. And the first real thing we had, we didn’t really have any exercises to speak of about, because no-one

was working at all on that and the army, I don't know, we didn’t see anything much of the army at all until it was Tarakan [Borneo]. And I went over with my Beach Group, had about half a dozen personnel and we were in an American ship, an American LST and

we had some Australian Army chaps aboard. We went ashore with the first contingent of them to this beach in Tarakan, where they were supposed to land tanks. And just got on to the beach and the Sergeant who was up on the top of the sand hill called out to me and waved, “Come up.” So I went up there and

you wouldn’t read about it, immediately behind the sand hill was a swamp, I didn’t know how deep it was but it was as far as the eye could see. And there was absolutely no way, and alongside of it, it was on our left hand side, was a jetty which went out. And a tank, if a tank landed there it would have no way of getting, couldn’t get through under the jetty because the pillars, the pylons were too close together. It couldn’t get over the sand hill because it’d be in the swamp. So I said to the signal man, “Send a

signal to the headquarters ship and tell them to close the beach, it’s not suitable for tanks.” Anyhow the reply came back, “Stand by, the first shipment of tanks will be coming shortly.” So I said to him, send another signal and tell him, “Get off his fat arse and come ashore and have a look for himself.” The signal was to whoever it concerned, “Get off your fat arse and come ashore and have a look at the beach yourself.”

And the next thing a signal came back, “Beach closed.” So we wandered back to the other beaches and joined up with the other Beach Groups there, and where they landed the tanks I wouldn’t know. But it absolutely horrified me the stupidity of it, the planning, and they supposed to have known why these beaches were capable of landing tanks or where they could land this and do that. And yet they

had the stupidity to say they gonna land tanks on a beach where they had no hope in the world of getting the tanks off. And fortunately I only stayed about a week in Tarakan and then went back to Moratai, and that was the greatest shemozzle of all times, and but was basically again the Yanks who did all that, [US General Douglas] MacArthur and his crew.

And our next place was Balikpapan and we were there until the war finished doing virtually nothing. And then, twenty-four hours after the Japs had capitulated I went over to Macassar in the Celebes,

in command of a small group of navy chaps in the HMS Inverell with the occupation troops. There were about two hundred troops who were going over to take over Macassar. When we got over there, there was something like thirty-odd thousand Japanese fully booted and spurred, and fortunately they were friendly, we had no problems. And the two hundred army blokes disarmed them and

virtually took over the place. And I was there for ten days and then after that I was returned to Moratai and then from Moratai I went down to, back to Australia.

We didn’t know much at all, didn’t know much at all, only what we heard. The news in those days didn’t tell a great lot about what was happening

and it was only when we got back that, you know, we really found out some of the more detailed things. But no, there wasn’t a great deal about that over there, about the Pacific at all. Of course the British weren’t involved they may have been in

odd spots but only in a minor way, but it wasn’t part of their news or anything like that.

Well I wasn’t impressed particularly, because when we arrived in Sydney, went and saw the Base commander, or there was a lieutenant

commander in the office at the time. And one of my mates who I came home with from Geelong, he lived in Geelong, he said to me, “When you go in there Bernie,” he said, “don’t take your cap in,” because we were wearing black top caps, not white caps you see, because we were still in RN [Royal Navy] gear. And I left my cap outside, and I went in there and he said,

“Yes, alright Nelson,” he said, “ well go and report to the officer of the day and,” he said, “he’ll put you on the roster for duty.” And I said, “Excuse me sir but,” I said, “if you re-read that document there, I’m here to go to Perth on the first available transport.” So what’d they do, they got an armed guard, two armed sailors and they took us both down to the railway station and put us aboard the train. And that

didn’t impress me at all, the Australians. And...

Yes, well anyhow, I got over to Perth and went on my six weeks overseas leave and as I say, three days later, I was recalled. And, I was really irate at this time and

when I got over to Cairns, and one of the lieutenant commander who was in charge of our Beach Group, he was a Tasmanian chappie, and he was over in England in the Royal Navy with us, and I knew him quite well. And he said, “Look”, he said, “I've got a signal to go to the commander

later on in the day,” he said, “you can take it over.” And he said, “If you get the opportunity you can talk to him about this leave.” Oh, that's right, I had already applied and he had said, “No, that unless this officer’s dead or dying, in view of pending operations, there’s no way he can go on leave.” And in spite of two doctors, I went to the naval doctor for a check-up. He said, “You shouldn't

be on duty, you should be off duty.” He referred me to a specialist, an army doctor, who confirmed what he said, and this commander completely wiped that, wouldn't wear it at all. And when I went in there and handed him the signal, I said to him, “While I'm here sir,” I said, “regarding this leave of mine.” He said, “You’ve already had my response to that.” I said, “Yes

I know, you’ve refused it but you haven't said why.” And he started thumping his fist on the table and storming away so I went out of the place. And when I got back I told this friend of mine, the lieutenant commander, I can't think of his name now and he said, “Oh yes,” he said, “that sounds like him.” He said, “I should’ve warned you before you went that,” you know, “something like that might have happened.” But anyhow the long and the short of it was, and then when we went to

Tarakan, there was a complete cock up with the landing there so far as I was concerned, and this tank landing business, I became completely worked up and hostile about it. And when I went back to Moratai, I ran into a couple of mates of mine who were in the airforce. And I went round and had tea with them one night and I told them what had

happened. And they said, “Do you want to go back to Australia?” and I said, “Yes, I would.” Anyhow, the long and the short of it was that I opted to do that and they put me aboard a plane, next morning, first light. And a mate of mine from Perth who was with, he said, “I’ve got to come with you,” because he could see that I was not one hundred percent right. And anyhow the long and the short of it was that,

we flew down to Adelaide, we got a pass on the train to go to Perth, and when I arrived over in Perth, I went down to Fremantle. I went and saw the lieutenant commander there at the base who was 2IC [Second In Command] at the time and I knew him and I told him what had happened. He sort of shook head and he said, “Oh dear,” he said, “that's not good.” And I said, “I know, I did a stupid thing but,” I said, “it’d

reached the stage where I just couldn’t put up with any of this any longer.” So anyhow when the commander came next day, they said, “Oh well, we’ll have an inquiry,” and the next thing I knew after a few days, I was sent back to Balikpapan, and there was going to be an inquiry. And then

this Base commander of ours apparently said that he wouldn't proceed with it. And I found out afterwards that the captain of Reserves in Melbourne, his right hand man was a commissioned Warrant officer who was in England when I was there and I saw him just a few days before I left to come back, and in the mean time he had been sent back to Australia. And

when he heard that, he said to his boss, “There must be something wrong here, there’s something going on, Nelson wouldn't do that,” and they made some enquiries and they found out exactly what happened. And the long and the short of it was that this Base commander was then faced with a, ‘If you go ahead with this inquiry, you’re the one who’s going to suffer, you’ll no longer be a commander in the Royal Australian Navy, you’ll be out, now it’s up to you to make up your mind.’

And this is what this captain of Reserves said to me and I found out this after from his offsider. And it was probably the best thing that I ever did because it got rid of, they moved him into another job as it was, and got rid of someone who was just making a bloody nuisance of himself. But it was the attitude of these people that really made me cranky. And then not long after that I had a letter from the

captain of Reserves wanting to know whether I would like to remain in the navy and become a permanent Naval officer. And I wrote back and I said, “Thank you very much for the offer but no I wouldn't,” and I’ve never forgotten that. But anyhow that was my greeting, home greeting by the Royal Australian Navy. And when you stop and think about

the way, the treatment you got and the hospitality of the British Navy and then compare it with that, there’s no way that I’d ever want to join the Royal Australian Navy again. And that’s why I said to Paul Keating that if I had the opportunity or ever wanted to be called upon to go to war again, I’d have no hesitation in joining the Royal Navy, if I was accepted.

Another nervous traumatic stress, and that what it was diagnosed as.

That came up when I got back here. And it was all brought on by what I had to put up with. first of all the Base commander in Sydney, sending me and my mate off with an armed guard to catch the train. Getting

back to Perth, going on six week’s leave and then being recalled after three days to go up, to put up with all the crap that was going on up there and it was all of no avail. I achieved nothing, I had no opportunity to achieve anything, ‘cause the Tarakan landing was just a waste of time, and it was a good thing that the war finished not long

after that.

Role of a Beach Group was to go in, check the beach out, find ways and means of getting vehicles or troops out, off the beach over the sand dunes to wherever, and that’s what happened with the, at Tarakan there. And this Sergeant was the one who first spotted it because he went up to the sand hills and had a look and I was still on the beach there getting

my blokes organised to get things done here and there. And then when he called me up and saw this, and I thought they must have known that this swamp was there, and, I don't know, absolute stupidity.

Well we went in with the first

forty or fifty Australian troops and they were there basically to see what had to be done. And from the military point of view, I mean we weren’t there from a military point of view, we were there from the point of view of getting the craft, the landing craft to beach at a certain spot, and seeing that they were able to get out again, without any problems. In fact it was a waste of

time for us really because we had little or nothing to do and it was annoying to say the least.

Well, I had, I was a lieutenant at the time, I had a sub lieutenant with me and I had about four

or five ordinary seamen. I don’t know what training they had had because they were complete strangers to me. But I know that some of the other Combined Operations chaps who I served with in England were in the same Beach Group but not necessarily in our section, you see. There were about four or five in the same group and some of them were at the other beaches and that’s when I went along and joined up with them,

for the next four or five days that we were there, to help them out.

Went back in the HMAS Barcoo from there to Moratai and then when I got to Moratai, that’s when I met up with these airforce mates. I didn’t

know they were there and I just happened to run into them and they said, “Oh, where are you living?” And I said, “We’re just camped down the road a bit.” All we were living in was a tent, and they invited me round to have a meal with them that night. And they said, “What have you been doing?” and I told them about it, and they said, “Oh,” and that’s when they said, “Well if you wanna go, we’ll organise a flight for you.” And

that was that. Bluey my mate said, “Well I’ll have to come with you,” because he obviously knew that I wasn’t one hundred percent, and he very kindly came with me.

Yeah, I realised when I did it that I shouldn’t do it,

but I’d reached the point that, of no return you know. I thought, “Well to hell with them, I can’t put up with this anymore.” And, you know when you’re used to such a wonderful degree of oh, what would you call it, you’re working with

a crowd that you can rely on, depend on, and they depend on you, and everything’s done according to plan. And this was a complete opposite to what we had experienced over the path of the previous two and a half to three years. And the others too, who served with me overseas and then finished with me in the Beach Group, they felt exactly

the same way as I did. And well, and I had my support from the chief Warrant officer who was 2IC to the captain of Reserves in Melbourne. ‘Cause he realised straight away that there was something radically wrong. And if I hadn’t of done that, well that commander bloke would have still been in that position later on but, and things wouldn’t have

improved, but fortunately the war ended only weeks after that.

I don’t know, I don’t know that at all, it was just the ill feeling, it may have been. The only officers who I knew in the Beach Group

were Reserves, there were others who weren’t. And the ones when I say in the Reserve, they were RANVR too, but they weren’t away under, in the Yachtsman’s scheme or in any of the group who went over to serve with the RN. They had been enlisted in Australia

and had just operated in Australia and what they were doing before the Beach Group was formed, I wouldn’t know. But the fact that we came back with a Combined Operations experience, they naturally assumed that, alright, we would be the blokes who should go into the Beach Group, which wasn’t the case at all, because that was far from... I mean, the Beach Group had nothing, virtually, to do at all except get ashore and just direct the army or the

troops, the equipment off the beach onto whatever road was available. And I mean any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done that, you wouldn’t need any training for it. But anyhow that’s how that finished and it was a bit of sour end to things but, anyhow I don’t regret, with hind sight. Because if people had done that beforehand I wouldn’t have had to put up with

this tommy rot.

Well there wasn’t the same fellowship in the navy, the people I was concerned with, because I didn’t have much to do with... I mean the only people in the navy I had anything to do with, the Beach Groups. I didn’t have to do with any sea-going people.

Well, we didn’t have anything to do with the civilians, didn’t, I mean, I had no contact with civilians, even when I got home, I barely had time to see any of my mates. And then when we got up there we didn’t have anything to do with the civilians at all, we were just involved with the army and our own crew, so. And in the Islands we had nothing to do

there with any civilians. The only time I did was when we went over to Macassar and my job there was to set up a Port Directorate and to find out where the mine fields were in the harbour, which I did, because I met up with a Japanese captain, Navy captain who knew more about Sydney than I did. Because he was an ex mariner, who during

peace time was in command of ships travelling between Japan and Australia, cargo ships and he knew more about Sydney Harbour and the precincts of Sydney than I did. But he was very good. Of course we went out in the motor launch and he showed me exactly and I was able to plan where these mines were, the mine fields, so that when the ships came in, the mine sweepers could sweep up these mines.

And we took over on the shore side, a building that was the Harbour Master’s building, and the Harbour Master before the Japs went in there, was a Dutch man. He had been arrested and put in prison together with all the others. And when we arrived, our troops, the two hundred Australian Military personnel released all these prisoners, including this Dutch man. And the first thing

he did was to come down and want to take over his premises again and I was a bit taken aback at his attitude about this. And I finished up going to the commander of the Australian Force and saying, “Would you speak to this bloke and threaten to put him back into prison again if he doesn’t behave himself?” Because all he wanted to do was to live there or something or other. And we were to set up, we had to have the place fumigated,

and they sprayed it all out with DDT [dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane - insecticide]. We couldn’t go into the place for a couple of days afterwards until all the cockroaches and everything else had been cleaned up in there. But our job was to see that this was all cleaned up and set up ready for someone to come in. A naval body on a permanent basis or a semi-permanent basis to set up a Port Directorate there so that they could harbour Australian ships and war ships and

cargo ships or whatever, passenger ships, whatever they wanted. And it was one of those jobs that, I don’t know why they picked on me to do it, but anyhow they did. And it was interesting to see the place. Particularly the thing that impressed me was the number of vehicles that were out in the forest, just been

deserted. And there were Mercedes cars, they looked like brand new, and they’d just been dumped by the Japanese out in the forest, and I don’t know what happened to them ultimately or who they belonged to, but they took them over. They also had big junk yards where they had refrigerators, washing machines, house hold furniture,

stacked in acre paddocks. And there would have been tons and tons of this stuff which they’d apparently taken out of all the homes, and Macassar was quite a big town or city. And they’d dumped it all out in the open, it’d been exposed to the sunshine and the rain, and whatever else they had there. And I can still picture that today and I thought, “Well, these poor devils who were there,” many of them were Indonesian, some were Dutch,

because it was a Dutch Colony in those days. And it was you know, a frightening sight really for the poor devils who lived there to have to put up with this. And I don’t know how many years it was the Japs were in there, but they were in there in large numbers and they really ruined the place.

I don’t know, I didn’t take part in that, but they apparently, there were no problems, no hiccups at all. I don’t know what the Australians did with all these arms, but they were dumped everywhere, and I don’t know how many kept firearms, but there was all sorts of artillery stuff there, there were hand guns, there were machine guns. And

the only Jap who I had any contact with to any degree was this Naval captain and he was very good, he spoke very good English and he was very helpful. He took me all round and he had a chart of the harbour, which he gave to me and we marked on there all the points of interest and things that our people would want to know, such as, in particular the mine

field, where they were. And you know, he couldn’t do enough to help and he made my job a lot easier then because I wouldn’t have got this information otherwise.

I think he was probably relieved because having spent a life time at sea and quite, having made quite a number of

trips to Australia as well as other countries, he wasn’t a dyed in the wool Japanese at all, that was my opinion of him. He obviously was a well educated chap and his whole attitude was more of a global one than being confined to any one particular country or area or something like that.

And what happened to him afterwards I don’t know, except that I remember his samurai sword was taken away from him by one of the army officers and it was a family heirloom. And he was most upset about that, very distressed, he didn’t hand that in as part of his armoury but it was taken from him and

he was almost weeping when they took that away. And I’ve often thought well you know, the poor devil, I don’t know how many years he had had it, or who had had it before him, but it had obviously been in the family for generations. It was something that he just couldn’t handle.

Beg your pardon?

Fair? Well, I suppose it was, but knowing him and he wouldn’t have used it. He may have ultimately got it back, I don’t know. Because when I spoke to the Army officer about and I said how upset he was, he said, “Oh I realised that when I took it from him,” or someone took it from him. And I don’t know because

I left there, well I was only there about ten days in all, and he may have ultimately got it back. I think this Army officer would have probably you know, weakened and said that he could have it. But he was just fulfilling his duty because it was part of the armament and their orders had been to disarm them. And that probably included pea shooters,

if any of them had it too, but I mean a Samurai sword was something that they treasured, or he did, and that was that.

In Balikpapan, yeah. And it was twenty-four hours later, that, well when I came back from Perth,

I went to Balikpapan, because that’s where our group was and I was then the next day sent in the Inverell with these two hundred troops. I had a group of half a dozen naval personnel, to go to Macassar to, with the Occupation Force as they called them in those days. And my job was to set up the Port Directorate there which involved... see they had also these

suicide boats there, there were about three of them. They were fitted with Chrysler engines, they had a speed of, oh I don’t know, fifty or sixty knots or more. And I remember one of the army blokes got hold of one that was running and they started to run round the harbour and we had to do something about stopping it. But there were three of them that were intact that were captured when they went in there, the harbour.

And, I don’t know what happened to those, someone might have souvenired them. But they only, they were a suicide thing, they only carried one person and someone your size wouldn’t have got into it. I could barely get in, my legs were too long, so you had to be small. And what they did was just loaded the fore peak with ammunition, explosive,

and then they used to just aim straight at ships and ram them and that was it, blow themselves to smithereens and blow a hole in the ship’s side.

I didn’t. No, I had, I was in no frame of mind to celebrate, I wasn’t in any area where we could celebrate. The,

no, there was no, I don’t recall anyone in my lot who were in a position to celebrate at the end of the war, it just was a relief to know it was over and get out of it, it was from my point of view anyway. But,

I don’t know of anyone who, none of my other mates had any celebrations. And even when they got back, we got back to Perth, there were no celebrations, it was, things were just, you know, quite subdued.

I was discharged on the fourth of January 1946 in Fremantle, and I went

back to work with William Adams, who I was with at the time, and I stayed with them about twelve months and I couldn’t settle down. I was still, you know, if-ing and but-ing, I wasn’t one hundred percent and I finished up leaving them. And Lorna and I were married in the meantime, and

she came from Sydney so I just came home one day and I said, “Look I’m going to leave work, we’ll go over to Sydney,” so we did that.

I just, I don’t know, I was still, you know my mind was still on some of these things that had happened, and this was part of the, I found out from doctors afterwards, that this is part of the

post traumatic stress. It affects people in different ways, and different things spark it off and then it’s hard to shed it, get rid of it and I just couldn’t settle down and do it. So I left there and we came over here in, what was it, 1945 I think, ‘46, came over to

Sydney and I’ve been here ever since, in New South Wales. So I’m no longer an Aussie, West Aussie, I’m a Corn Stalker, no Sandgroper.

Well I had a spell for quite a while when I was fevered, but I was diagnosed oh, only a few years back, with it, again, and... that sounds like wind... but anyhow I hopefully have overcome it,

now. But all the doctors I’ve spoken to about it said that it affects people in so many different ways it, and, you know, it just needs something to throw you out of gear to start it off again.

No it wasn’t. As a matter, matter of fact...

I probably had other periods during the war when I had that problem but was not aware of it. And doctors that I spoke to were not aware of it except of course when I saw this Naval

Surgeon in, doctor in, England after I came back from the Med, and he said, “Yes you’ve had a nervous breakdown,” which is probably part of the cause of these things, I don’t know. But it’s only in recent times or years that people have become more conscious of the fact, and probably a lot of people over the years have had it and not realised what it is or what it does to you.

I don’t think so, I had a problem, because all my medical documents and things had been lost. And it wasn’t until, I tried for thirty years with Veteran Affairs to get some acceptance of these war-caused disabilities

and things, and it’s only in the last decade or less that all these things have unravelled and been accepted. And a lot of it was due to the fact that medical, see they had no records of my hospitalisation in North Africa or any of these problems. And

because of the degree of secrecy with the different areas in which we were operating, it was extremely difficult to get confirmation of the fact that we were there. Now for instance, I was told that I was entitled to a Malta Cross for the Anniversary at

Malta, of the Fiftieth Anniversary at the, during the year of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Normandy. The Maltese Cross was presented to those who served in Malta during the period of, from just before July on, ‘til the end of 1943. Now I was there, I got a letter from the British Admiralty saying that I took part in operations based at

Malta during this period, and the Maltese Governor General here said that they couldn’t accept that at all. They had to name the ship and you had to go into all details and one thing and another, which just weren’t readily available. And I didn’t pursue it any further, thought what the hell’s the use, I don’t want a Maltese Cross particularly, but it was only some mates of mine who got ‘em, said to me that you’re eligible for it.

And they got it, two of my mates did. And one of them is since dead, so it didn’t make much difference, but the other one is alive and we were talking about it just recently. And I said, “Well it’s too late now to do anything about it,” and I didn’t pursue it. But that was just because I didn’t have the details and ‘course Veteran Affairs didn’t have any details either of all these things.

And it’s only because things have changed in recent years that they’ve sort of accepted these things. And oh, I had a file that thick, for 30 years it took me to get any sort of, you know, response from Veteran Affairs.

And the last time I had was a, went before a Board in Sydney, and there was a lady in charge, she was in a wheelchair I found out afterwards, I didn’t realise that, but she was a very pleasant person. There was a gentleman and another younger lady who was a legal eagle.

And she kept asking questions about one thing another, and I was starting to get a bit agitated, about to do my block. Anyhow the lady in the chair realised it and she said, “Look, Mr Nelson’s already answered that question, you’ve asked him again in a different form, you’ve got the answer.” Anyhow when the meeting was over, she said to me, “Well you’ll get a letter from us in a couple of weeks and you’ll find it will be a favourable one,” and

it was. They accepted all these disabilities and it took me, as I say, thirty something odd years or more to get them. And I often wonder how many other people are in the same boat. But that was the main problem, the fact that shipping documents from overseas to here, and they would come in the secret form that they used over there, code names which weren’t

known to anyone here. I mean they didn’t know ‘Dinosaur’, ‘Quebec’ or ‘Overlord’ or any of these other code names, and I don’t blame them, it was just the fact that they weren’t made available to them.

Well I had reached the stage where I’d given it away. And it was only because I saw someone from the Legal Department who was up visiting in Coffs Harbour, and I explained what, and she said to me, “Pursue the matter.” And she gave me some contacts, and I did, and it was as a result of that, that

these things... but I’d given it away for years prior to that because I thought well it’s just a waste of time.

I don’t, I don’t have any remorse whatsoever about the service that I had, particularly the service overseas, because I enjoyed it, people I was working

with. And my mates here in Australia, there’s only two of them left now, they feel exactly the same way, they have no remorse about what happened to them over there. In fact they would be highly delighted to, you know, jog their memories about their service with the Royal Navy. And

it’s understandable because the people were honest and down to earth and, you know, and they didn’t fiddle and what’s-a-name around with things. They got down to the nitty gritty and the honest truth, no matter what the problems were. If you were in the wrong and they said that and you accepted it, there was no problems.

I don’t know. It may be the fact that the people at the head of the navy were more reasonable. Well this captain who was in charge of this interview in Portsmouth, I mean his understanding was entirely different to so many officers of a lower rank

than him. And quite often I’ve found that the higher the rank over there, the more understanding and the better they were.

Yes, it was about a week after the actual landing in Normandy that our flotilla was on loan to the Americans who were based in Weymouth too. They only had LCI’s and they had no LCT’s or

craft that could take over tanks or armoured equipment. I don’t know what had happened to those that were used originally, they might have all been destroyed. But, anyhow we used to go over on a regular basis with the LCI’s and take American armoured troops over and tanks and any other equipment and land them on Omaha and

Utah Beaches. And it was then that we realised the amount of damage that was done on those two beaches with all the equipment that was lost there. And we operated with them for probably two or three weeks and nothing exciting really happened, or anything like that. They were very friendly,

we got on quite well with them, and it was then that I was told that my relief was arriving in a few days and I was to leave then. And I went up to London and saw them in Australia House and then went up to Edinburgh and then on to Methel to

embark in the Stirling Castle and come back here. So our actual time with the Americans was not very long and it was very straightforward, there were no unpleasant things or anything like that, and we had no problems. The weather had really turned into beautiful weather a couple of weeks after the Normandy landing. The seas were calm and the days were nice

and sunny, ‘course we were into mid summer, and it was amazing the difference in the weather. It all happened in a matter of a week or two time and it made things more pleasant, and the days were a bit longer and it was very pleasant.

What after the war?

I joined COR Limited which became BP Australia later on. I worked in the office in Sydney for a short time and then went out to Cootamundra as a representative. I was down in Cootamundra

until 1955 I think it was, or thereabouts and then I was transferred to Taree. And I stayed there until 1962 and I was promoted to District Manager, and our District Manager in that area lived in Grafton, but I thought that Coffs Harbour would be a better place. And I spoke

to the boss about it and he said, “Yes,” he said, “that’d be right.” So I bought a block of land in Coffs Harbour and built a house there and that was my headquarters. And I used to, I had six representatives who were working for COR and then later on with BP, and we used to cover from the Queensland border down to Newcastle and out as far as Inverell and those places just on the outskirts of them, so

we looked after the whole of the north coast virtually. And I stayed with them until what, 1975 I think when they reshuffled things and I had reached the age of fifty-five. And the boss had said to me that I was too old to be considered for promotion and one thing and another and perhaps I should take early retirement, which is what I did. And

I don’t regret it, but I went in to, took the lease of the BP Service Station at Woolgoolga for four years and then got out of there, and finished up with a property next door to the Pier Hotel in Coffs Harbour down at the jetty. It was a restaurant there at the time and my daughter

and her husband were running it for a while, and then she was having her first child so they got out of it. I got tired of leasing it and ultimately got rid of all the restaurateurs and developed a picture framing business and an art gallery, which it still is today. I sold it, I got out of it when DVA [Department of Veteran Affairs] accepted me as one of their

kin and I have just been filling in time in the garden, and one thing or another ever since.

No, no, I haven’t at all. I haven’t put in any sea time at all since my number one son had a fishing boat

in Coffs Harbour and I went out with him a few times until I got horribly sea-sick, and I thought well this is not very good. So no, I had no inkling to go back to sea and I don’t think I ever will, now, that’s all water under the bridge.

With?

Well I, with hind sight it was probably nothing unusual, it was just at that particular, in that particular era they weren’t aware of so many of these things that they are today. And it’s only the doctors

in recent years who’ve come to really understand and relay to people the effects that different things have on them. And I’ve been lucky in recent time, my current doctor I’ve had for a few years, he’s been one of the best doctors I’ve ever had. And it’s, I never really

blame the medico’s in those days, it was just the era in which they were working. And the two doctors I saw in Queensland, the navy doctor and the army doctor there, I mean they did all they could. I mean it was the commander in charge of our operation who was the bloke at fault, he wouldn’t accept a medical assessment at all. And

that was the attitude in those days of many of the people in his position, and today I hope it has changed.

Well I don’t, the American films, I don’t mind

looking at the British films because they are down to earth, but the American films are not, in my book.

Well, I have seen brief films, American films of D Day and it’s just a load of rubbish in my book.

Well, they don’t seem factual. They seem to emphasise, put emphasis on things that have little or no value or reference to the episode that they’re showing. It’s like any other film, I’ve always maintained that a British film is far better than an American film. Might be the actors, the actresses, I don’t know, but the components,

the parts seem more down to earth, the British ones, than the American ones. And, I don’t watch a lot of American films for that reason at all.

I don’t know anything about it, at all.

I don’t know anything about it, I look at the ships on TV every now and again, and see women standing up there on the upper deck with members and think well, gee whiz, I don’t know how they put up with that. How the ladies put up with the men and the men put up with the ladies. But no, I don’t think at

all about the, other than that aspect. And I may be wrong, I don’t know, but I think the navy of the past seems to be more efficient, more effective, better sea-going than the one today.

Oh, I march here on a regular basis as a rule, because there’s a lot of ex navy people here, there’s a lot of ex force, ah, ex airforce chaps too and people who’ve served in the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force]. And I feel that the camaraderie there is quite nice, good, on Anzac Day and I usually

enjoy the march and the luncheon afterwards and the get together that we have. I'm...

If I had a message?

Well I don’t know, I,

I probably feel that I'm lucky that I’m too old to be part of it. Because when you look at what’s going on in the Middle East today and the roles that they play, I think that well, some of it’s a waste of time. I know that in Iraq they reckon probably the only thing to

do was to invade the place but, I don’t know. The whole attitude today on a war-like footing is so different to what it was during World War II and probably World War I for that matter. And I hate to think what it’d be like in the future, couldn’t see it getting any better.