From: Tim Merry (timmerry@SHOAL.NET.AU)
Date: Thu May 13 1999 - 12:53:06 PDT
On 11 May 1999 Sinclair Hart wrote: >Was stationed near Crewe in 1944 >and crossed the Channel on Christmas Eve that year, some hours (thank >heaven) behind the Leopoldville, which was torpedoed near Cherbourg about >6 PM that evening. Thank you Sinclair for coming up with a 'Memory'. Most members of this worthy list seem to have momentarily lost their memories! But as a follow-on to Sinclair's a/q message, I thought I might tell you what I remember about 'crossing the Channel' (or 'The Sleeve', as the French prefer to call it): On 7 August 1944 we boarded our ship, a small Landing Craft Infantry - LCI 217 , named "Queen Of Them All", also "Queenie". The names of the places she had been were painted below the wheel-house, and included Tunisia, Sicily, Italy and France (Normandy). Also to her credit were two German aircraft shot down by her 20mm guns. She flew the Stars and Stripes of the U.S., and was manned by some 30 United States officers and men. We left Newhaven harbour at 6pm, the third in line of four similar ships, two of which were British. Troops in the convoy included men from the King's Royal Rifle Corps, the Rifle Brigade, the Royal Engineers and the Welsh Border Regiment. We altered course several times, and passed a homward-bound merchant convoy at about 9pm - some twelve ships, among them the "John E. Sweet" and "Fort Muscauro" escorted by a British "J" Class destroyer and another older type. We also saw to starboard a sloop and a motor gunboat. The sea was as calm as a duck-pond. We slept soundly. The next morning at about 7am we passed through a lot of shipping. There were 'hundreds' of balloons flying from merchant ships near the coast. A harbour had been made around the beach at Arromanches with large floating concrete blocks, end to end, and the inner harbour was full of shipping, mostly LST's. After passing a "D" Class cruiser (converted into an anti-aircraft ship) we disembarked and marched along a pontoon bridge a good half-mile long. (In writing the above my memory was, I admit, jogged by reference to the diary I kept in those days!) There must have been other members of this list in northern Europe during those troubled times who can remember a thing or two? Tim