Went by train to Kings Cross then had to catch another train to Lowestoft, journey took about eleven hours, and all the way we were stopping because of air raids. Reported to the master at arms office on arrival, and was given accommodation on the first night in the London Co-op. canning factory. Told not to use the showers cos there had been an outbreak of skin infection. Several of the matelots that had caught it looked as if they were covered in woad, cos they had to put a blue unction on the affected places.

The following morning reported to the landing craft tank that I had been assigned to, and the skipper told me in no uncertain terms what he expected of me. Made my rounds and had pride of place in slinging my hammock over one of the large Paxman diesels. Boy this stay was going to be even worse than kipping on my beloved fishing boat, and noisy to boot, when the engines were going. On the stern of the L.C.T. there was a metal tripod, and the Boffins had invented this. When one beached on the enemy beaches if one was dive bombed by low flying aircraft, then one fired a rocket from this tripod and in the air a parachute would open up and the charge would blow the aircraft out of the sky. Unfortunately, if the settings on the explosive charge were not set correctly, then it would drop back onto the craft that had fired it and blow that out of the water. So this device was not used very much.

The following day we were putting to sea to go up to Bo'ness in Scotland n the firth of fourth, what the hell for you might ask, well we didn't but just did as we were told. We were following the coastline round and I carried out my checks on the electrical equipment to make sure that all was functioning correctly. Now the crafty Germans had invented a magnetic mine, let me explain. All boats had an inherent polarity depending whether they were north or south of the equator. The magnetic mine was attracted to this magnetism and then blew the ship out of the water. The Boffins had invented the M Coil to neutralise the polarity of the ships. This consisted of 30 turns of cable wound round the entire ship's hull. Thus when charged this neutralised the magnetism of the ship. I checked the polarity of the M coil, then asked to see the skipper. Very abrupt the skippers, yes Hookey what do you want?

Skipper I said 'has this craft been south of the equator' the answer was in the affirmative, why he said. Well, said I in my best tone, all the time you've been sailing on her its been ATTRACTING MAGNETIC MINES, cos the M coil has never been reversed when crossing the equator. The Skipper turned a bit pale and said 'well you better put it right then hadn't you'. Well, I never asked for a medal, but I thought he might have said thanks or something. Found out later why there were so many vacancies for Wireman on board the smaller craft. When in action one of my jobs was to be right up for'ard and wind the ramp down as we approached the beach to let the tanks and marines run up the beaches, then we could follow in with them.

Did a few manoeuvres in the forth on landing techniques then we set sail again this time for my beloved Poole Harbour. Unusually we tied up along side the pier in Poole so we were able to get ashore quite frequently. Now on the back of the L.C.T. there was a Kedge (or very large anchor, grandson) the object of this was just before beaching on a raid, one would drop the kedge into deeper water and then beach. If one had to get off the beaches and the tide had gone out then by the use of the capstan one could pull on the chain and the kedge and pull the craft into deeper water. At the end of the jetty, the trotboats (manned by sea going Wrens) were coming and going all the time, out to the craft moored on the trot.

One particularly dirty night, the rain was pouring down and there was quite a swell on the oggin. It was the usual custom for all the marine commandos to take the P out of the sea going Wrens and the officers, that were given covered seating in the stern of the trot boat. The trot boat was full to the brim with combined ops personnel returning from leave with their kit bags and rifles, to return to their craft on the trott. The poor Wren got really flustered and instead of putting the trot boat into forward gear she put it in reverse. The trott boat reversed at very high speed straight onto our kedge which didn't do it much good as it knocked a hole in the bottom of the trott boat.

The boat sank and all the personnel on board were ejected into the water. Now it's a crime for a marine commando to lose his rifle, so in the water they held them above their heads, but with full kit on, it took some doing to grab their rifles and pull them out of the oggin. I've never seen so many marines bobbing about in the ocean laugh I nearly drank my own beer, but most of them took it good heartedly, although many lost their possessions.

During this time I was transferred to a base mobile unit, where repairs of all types were carried out on various craft. A new craft had been invented, Landing Craft Rocket. These looked like a load of scaffold poles standing in line on the upper deck. The rockets could be fired all at once or a quarter at a time. It was stated after trials that a L.C.R. could do more damage in an hour than the biggest battle wagon firing all day, the only trouble was that they were non directional. These craft were so secret that no one told the poor Wireman that when checking the firing elements of the rockets that an admiralty type megger was NOT TO BE USED. So as this megga could pass up to one third of an amp, when the Wireman tested for continuity of the firing elements, he could fire the rockets and blow himself up at the same time.

Another invention was the Landing Craft Guns, and these were used on the Walkeren Islands Attack. Two large guns were mounted on the foredeck and were fired by marines. The instructions issued were, before firing the guns; the bilges were to be filled so as to stabilise the craft. With the craft stabilised the marine's fired the forward guns and the recoil pushed many of the craft below the water line and they sank.

Some of the inventions were a bit crazy, but we were a long way from using towed coal barges with forward ramps cut in them that were manufactured in Chelsea basin. So now we were on the attack.

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