We scrambled to get ready for sea and tried to cope with the sudden arrival of intelligence packs and sealed charts. The mass of information seemed endless and with little time to study it. Destinations, grouping zones, depths and distances, where the enemy coastal defences were - they had certainly done their homework.
    It was Normandy, come hell or high water. I tried to discover how I felt about it.
    Excitement, anxiety, fear - it was all and none of those things. I was 19 and did not want to die after getting that far; too many I had known had fallen along the way. Equally I knew I could not stand the waiting and the uncertainty all over again.
    War changes a lot of things in a young man. I found that I could not decide whether to write a 'last letter' to my parents just in case the worse should happen. In the end I decided against it. Maybe I was afraid of displaying too much emotion which in the past years I had had to learn to conceal. I consoled myself with the sailor's belief that someone would foul things up anyway, and tonight we would be back in harbour.
   The flotilla put to sea in a stiff, biting wind and an endless array of broken whitecaps.
    It was then the Skipper told our small company that this was not another exercise. It was on.
    I watched their expressions, young faces I had come to know so well. They seemed to take it better than I had, or so it appeared. There was some disbelief and anxiety, but that was normal enough before anything dicey.
    I looked at the Skipper who seemed so much older and more experienced than the rest of us. He appeared to hesitate as he outlined briefly what might be expected of us. Perhaps, like me, he was moved by the occasion and wanted to find the right words. Something stirring, like England Expects.
    Beyond him two rusty freighters escorted by an equally battered corvette headed towards the harbour we had just left. One was trying to take in her barrage balloon, which they sometimes flew in case of sudden air attacks. It looked ridiculous as it dived about like a fat whale and several of the lads laughed.
    The Skipper turned. 'Dismiss them. They'll do I think.'
    Somehow those brief words were just as inspiring as any signal.
    We made heavy going of it as we thrust out into open water. We were loaded down with full tanks and extra ammunition, and the steep waves caused the slender hull to lift and plunge so much that I thought I was going to throw up.
    The Skipper left the bridge once the flotilla had
formed up to the SO's satisfaction, and we went

Sherman tanks and equipment aboard Tank Landing Craft.

through all the usual drills before darkness closed in again.
    No room for errors. We would be meeting up with other units, some completely foreign to the area. It only needed a sloppy challenge or acknowledgement, or a trigger-happy gunnery officer, and all hell would break loose.
    I thought of those hundreds of ships leaving their various hiding-places, harbours and estuaries, little-used inlets, anywhere which could conceal a vessel until she was needed to move. How would it look to a pilot in one of the patrolling Sunderlands or Catalinas, I wondered?
    I pictured the staff officers, mechanics, engineers, and above all the many instructors as they stared after their charges.
    Off you go, boys. We've done our part. Now it's up to you.
    And all the others who had rarely left their operations rooms and signal stations since the dream had started to form into deed. The weather men, the perky Wrens, and the dockyard maties. A mixed collection which had been welded into a single force.

NEXT ... ENTERING THE DANGER ZONE

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