At the time of the invasion of Normandy I was serving in the navy's Light Coastal Forces. These were made up of Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) and Motor Gunboats (MGBs), small in size but powerful and deadly. As somebody said of us, 'Faster than anything bigger, bigger than anything faster.'
    They ranged in size from 70 to 115 feet long, the former with a crew of a dozen or so, the latter manned by some 30 souls who worked and lived in conditions that had not advanced much since the days of Nelson.
    But because of their smallness these boats, the 'Little Ships' as they were affectionately known, had a personality and a sense of comradeship which were unique. A part of the wartime navy and yet somehow completely separate, like submariners and minesweepers. Their war was a fast one where there was little time to ponder and calculate the cost of a fight. For that reason their crews - like their boats - were very young, the vast proportion of whom were 'Hostilities Only' and, like their officers, volunteers. I remember that in our boat the oldest man aboard was the Skipper, and he was a veteran of 26. It occurs to me now that only five of our company, which totalled 30, were entitled to draw their daily issue of rum, which means they were the only ones who were aged more than 20.
    Most of them had been schoolboys when the war had started, but by 1944 they had seen action in the Narrow Seas, the North Sea, and from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.
    Of course there were the usual changes, as in any ship's company. A new face when a man was killed or sent ashore badly wounded. Others gone to replace less experienced hands in different boats, or to attend courses for promotion. Many of the actions were fought at night , hunting along the blacked-out coasts of occupied Europe for small fast convoys in

MTB of the Vosper type under way.