D-Day on Gold Beach, Normandy.
Created | Updated Feb 26, 2011
The order came just before one o'clock on the morning of the 5June 1944 to move to sea towards the Chichester Bar to await further instructions. The sea was very choppy and we bounced around in the darkness for some time before being ordered to return to our mooring at West Itchenor. The weather was indeed bad but at around the same time on 6 June we left our mooring accompanied by armada of landing craft to rendezvous once again at the Chichester Bar but this time we were away! The wheelhouse was painted white and was marked by a large black "G" for gold. We steered a course that should take us close to Gold Beach in Normandy allowing for expected weather and tides. The barge was flat bottomed designed for the placid waters of the River Thames. Here in the open waters of the English Channel we found her very difficult to keep on a reasonable course so we all took turns at the wheel. The best description I can offer is that she was like trying to control a mad dog on a lead in a narrow passageway. That night and the next day we had little chance of taking a rest considering the task that lay before us as we sailed into unknown dangers. In the night we talked and it was obvious to all five of us that we would be sitting ducks for the German guns waiting for us. The barge was carrying 9,000 gallons of high octane petrol and was a floating bomb with our only defence being an Oerlikon gun fitted to the foredeck. I felt calm within myself when I suddenly believed that no harm would come to us in spite of the obvious danger. I mentioned this to the rest of the crew but no one was inclined to argue the point with me. I was 19 years of age at that time as were most of the rest of the crew apart from the coxswain named Benny Quinn who had been an Thames lighterman. I think he was in his forties. We arrived at our destination around about noon on D-Day with shells and gunfire all around us. We moved towards our berth near a small village known as Le Hamel and as I was down below attending to the engines when suddenly the big guns of a battleship fired a salvo almost liftinh our barge out of the water as we pssed close to her hull. As we came nearer to the shore we saw the carnage along the shoreline. There was not one house standing without some apparent damage. Most of the buildings were deserted, left as rubble, some with walls but otherwise gutted. We belonged to the 36th S&R Flotilla of the Combined Operations belonging to the Royal Navy. Because of our dangerous cargo we were not allowed to have an oven on board and there was a 'no smoking' ban on or near the craft. We were living on emergency rations called 'compo' that came to us in large cardboard boxes. There were supplied of tea, coffee, chocolate bars, tins of rise pudding, tins of syrup, sugar, biscuits, franfurters, meat pies, corned beef and tins of soup. The tins of soup had a controption which heated the contents before the tin was opened. This was an excellent idea for cold and wet sailors!
