GEORGE CUNNINGHAM

At about 3am on the sixth of June 1944, George Cunningham, not yet 20, found himself among some of the toughest fighters Britain could muster, heading for the Normandy shore in three small boats. Ahead stood a 500-foot cliff which the men had to scale, so they could knock out a gun that could have wreaked havoc among men who, in a few hours, would be wading ashore on the adjacent beaches.

A Royal Naval signalman, George had already had three narrow escapes since joining up at Devonport in 1942.

He was sent, with numerous other sailors, to crew a brand-new cruiser, just launched at Barrow in Furness. For some reason he was never called. His name was not on the list. “Three of four months later I learned that the cruiser had been sunk,” he said. “There were only eight survivors.”

Eventually, George was sent to join a minesweeper at Thorney Island. “The crew were just like those on HMS Troutbridge, in the BBC comedy programme, The Navy Lark,” he said. “The skipper wore a revolver on a lanyard, and he was always skylarking about, calling out things like: ‘Mutiny, mutiny, by golly I’ll shoot the lot of you.’”

After four months George was sent to take exams to become a fully-fledged signalman. Then he was drafted to an armed yacht, the St Adrian. “Something must have fired at us causing damage below the waterline,” he said. “We began to sink, very slowly. We were picked up by a big American tug, and I hardly got my feet wet. I will never forget it because the American crew fed us with steaks – unheard of in the British Navy.”

On his return to Plymouth, George saw a notice asking for men to volunteer for combined operations with the Royal Marines. “I don’t know if it was the extra threepence a day they were offering,” he said, “but I decided to put my name down.”

He joined a 50 strong group, mostly Royal Marines, living near Fort William, in the Scottish Highlands. They were quartered in corrugated steel Nissen huts, during a winter in which the temperature seldom climbed above freezing.

May 1944 found him fully qualified as a signals-operator, and travelling south on a troopship with hundreds of men on board, destined for the beaches of Normandy. None of them knew anything about the forthcoming invasion at the time.

On June 4 1944, the day before the invasion was scheduled to take place, George was posted to HMS Locust, a flat bottomed gunboat launched in 1939, for service on China’s Yangtse River. A turbulent English Channel was not what she was designed for.

“I was not a good sailor, and a flat-bottomed vessel bouncing about in high winds while moored to a buoy’ was not what I needed,” said George.

“The skipper decided to keep us occupied by hoisting flags up and down to the yardarm. There is a custom in the navy, that if anyone lets go of the halyard, they have to go up and retrieve it. Of course, I did let go.

“Going up the rope ladder would be bad enough in calm weather. In the conditions we had, it was deadly. Up I went and eased myself along the yardarm on my belly. Then with the end of the halyard between my teeth I worked my way down again.

“It was then they told me the halyard was tangled round the block, so I had to go up all over again. I was frozen with fear, and by the weather. Half-way down I couldn’t move, and someone had to come up and help me.

“Despite what came later that was my most terrifying experience of Operation Overlord.”

It was only as HMS Locust (pictured left) was bouncing across the channel that George was told he had to go ashore with a party of marines to blow up a gun.

At about 3am on June 6 the party set off in three small boats for the shore, at a point just adjacent to Sword Beach, the most easterly of the Normandy beaches. “My job was to signal HMS Locust using an Aldis lamp, once the job was complete. They gave me a revolver and stuck a Sten gun in my hand.

“These marines were tough. We arrived at the cliff and there was a sentry at the top. One of the Marines, nick-named Razor, went up and done him.

“After some of the Marines had scaled this 500ft cliff, ropes came down. This helped us get to the top with all our gear, which included explosives. These guys went up like monkeys.

“After the sentry had been silenced, some of the guys went to the gun and the others went to a hut which was obviously the gun crew’s sleeping quarter. The marines dropped hand grenades in through the windows.

“While the marines were searching inside the hut, one of the Germans appeared. I had been left outside and told: ‘If anyone comes out – fire’. I don’t like talking about this bit. This chap was only about 16. I didn’t have to shoot. He could have been taken prisoner. But I just shot him.

“That chap has haunted me right up to the present day. But in war, you are in a different state of mind.”

Having dealt with the gun crew, the marines then blew up the gun emplacements. Shortly afterwards the guns from the invasion fleet opened-up and it was time to get back in the boats and try and find Locust.

“Throughout this time, I didn’t feel frightened,” said George. “Not like I did up the mast of the Locust.”

While those opening salvoes were being fired, a Norwegian destroyer was sunk. HMS Locust managed to pick up three or four survivors from the stricken ship. They also rescued some airmen from a Wellington Bomber shot down by “friendly fire”.

As the morning grew light troops began to emerge from a variety of landing craft. Because of her shallow draft, Locust was able to patrol close to the beaches and offer machine gun support.

“We could see the bloody lot, we were so close in,” said George. “One thing sticks in my mind. We had a chap with us called Doug who could have been a top-class pianist. When he played in the NAAFI everyone stopped to listen.

“They had beachmasters to call in the various landing craft and each had a signalman with him. Doug was one of these. He trod on a beach-mine, I saw him do it. He’s buried over there somewhere.

“The scene ashore was terrible. There were bodies floating at the water’s edge, some with arms or legs blown off. It’s very difficult to talk about. The only consolation we had was that earlier we had knocked out a big gun emplacement, and that had probably saved many lives.”

Once the initial battle of the beaches was won, the attacking troops moved inland, and Locust was no longer needed. George was transferred to a French cruiser, the Gorbet, which acted as a communications base, and provided protection to the invasion fleet.

A few days after he left her, the Locust was hit by a shell. Two crew members were killed, and several were wounded.

“After I had been on the Gorbet about three weeks she was hit by gunfire,” he said. “It killed two gunners, wounded others and knocked me flying. I landed with my legs doubled up underneath.

“They took me to a field hospital at Arromanches, where they patched me up. Then I came home but I can’t remember how. I had operations to help me straighten my legs and eventually recovered.

“After that I was appointed to the War Office and spent most of my time at The Admiralty in Westminster.”