Royal Navy – WW2 D-Day and beyond
After the ships steering party was drafted I was sent to
Portsmouth Barracks. I went home for some well deserved and
on my return I was drafted to Combined Operations’ which
was at HMS Mastodon, at the Lord Rothschild’s Estate in the
New Forest. I became gunners mate of ‘HMS Mastodon’, ‘
Bucklers Hard’, Lady Forsters House and another estate at
Lepe Point. The main area was controlled by Lord
Rothschild’s Estate (Com/Ops). The area was used by landing
craft ready for deployment as required and the training
area for beach landing parties. ‘P’ Unit was Royal Naval
personnel; ‘R’ Unit was Canadian. Stationed at Bucklers
Hard, Lymington, was a US Naval Section of landing craft
with personnel using the main house. Exercises were
constantly carried out by both P and R units, and there was
great competition between the two.
The river that came through part of the estate was a salmon
area and one day the Game Keeper said to me “can you come
down and look at the river?” On arriving we found about 12
salmon stunned or dead, so we collected them and took them
to the galley (cooks house). We inspected the area and
found a trip wire rigged from one bank to the other, and
the grenade pins when inspected, gave away the culprit. It
was ‘R’ company who had been doing a little bit of fishing
that day. I sent for the Canadian Petty Officer – a man
called Thackery – and requested the return of all pins
(grenades). As I suspected he was short of 2 grenades. I
informed him that they would be dining on salmon for
tomorrow’s dinner, and that to save a lot of trouble, they
would be paying the gamekeeper for them.
After a period of time the Commission Gunner – Mr Green –
said we would be clearing lower deck and all ships company
will be mustering in the cinema at 21:00 on June
10th.
When we had mustered and accounted for we were informed
that D-Day was in motion and large movements were under way
and we were all confined to the Estate area. We were
released to duties and sentries posted on areas that had
been designated earlier, and no one other than servicemen
were to be allowed into the area. Everything seemed to go
like clockwork as the main section were on the move in no
time at all and Bucklers Hard was soon clear of most
personnel – including most of the US personnel too. After
all assistance had been given and it was clear that a good
foothold had been obtained on the continent, all of the
areas had to be closed down. After a few weeks a Care and
Maintenance (C&M) party was detailed by the Captain and
all area buildings were to be stripped and cleaned. I was
the senior rating. My orders were to stay behind and ensure
that all areas, were as much as possible, returned to
normal. This consisted of Lord Rothschild’s house and
outbuildings and the return of the portable dome we used
for training on aircraft attacks, distance and speed, and
aircraft recognition. We also had to close Bucklers Hard,
Lepe Point and Lady Fosters house, which had been used for
bases by the US Navy Units (landing craft).
Before D-Day one incident we had to deal with was refilling
a compass bowl that had been drained of its alcohol (it had
been used to drink with orange juice). If it had not been
refilled the officer on watch would never have known where
he was!
One incident stands out to me during the closedown period
at Lady Fosters House. The young American Lieutenant who
showed us around for checking and handover purposes said as
we approached one of the small rooms centre “Oh, by the way
we have left you and your company a couple of crates in
that room over there.” When we examined them we got the
surprise of our lives as they had left us tins of chicken,
beef, ham, bacon and some other foods. I said that we
couldn’t accept them but he simply told us that they had
been written off and that we could ditch them if we
preferred… Needless to say we were fed very well for a few
weeks!
I had continued writing to Jess and had visited her whilst
on leave. It was whilst I was at HMS Mastodon that we were
married. Jess and I had originally planned for the
8th
June 1944,
however, with the post D-Day activity all movement in the
area was stopped for miles around as far as Southampton.
Our wedding had to be postponed. When we were close to
closing down HMS Mastodon we were told to standby for
drafting and that it would probably be to sea-going ships.
As a result my future wife came down from the North of
England. I had decided to ask permission to get married in
the August as I did not know what was happening, or where I
may be drafted.
We were married on 4th
August 1944 and
it is often said “it was a shabby wedding” as we only had
Jess’s Dad there. Due to the bombings in London most of the
family had returned to the North of England – but at least
we were married in a church.