“I came out of the forces 1946. We went to Dieppe, because we went as a workshop - when the ports were released - and were withdrawn there and sent to Marseilles. We were attached to the Canadians. They brought the Canadians to join the Western Front. They shipped these Canadians across via Marseilles. I went off to Brussels and stayed there until I was demobbed. VE Day, we had a victory parade in Marseilles. British forces were represented, strangely enough, by the Pioneer Corps. There were only 30 of us down there. Because we were from Dieppe, we went down through Paris and then on to Marseilles and we stayed there overnight and from Paris south … We were the first British troops to go south of Paris, so every time we pulled up to make a brew or anything, there were people out with wine.”
For many in the Army, D-Day fulfilled a long-felt want: the chance to hit back at an enemy that had, up to then, largely had things their own way. The payback for many months spent guarding their home shores, scanning the horizon for any sign of the invasion which they thought must come, even after Hitler’s strange decision to turn his attentions eastwards and attack Russia. So who were the people who expected at almost any time to have to repel the enemy if they landed on Hayling?
William Sandham of Erith, Kent, was formerly a corporal in the 12th Battalion Royal Marines and the 48th Commando. He recalls that invasion could have occurred at any time during the early months of 1941 and feels that available weapons were insufficient for the possible task ahead. Their P14 rifles were obsolete, and but for a few Bren guns they were no better off than the average Home Guard. But there was a spirit in the ranks that he never knew to be greater, and that included his time in the Commandos. They didn’t need telling to fight on when surrounded: that went with the uniform. They would have died if called upon to do so, defending Hayling Island. He was twenty.
He recalls that early in World War II, local dances were held in West Town, Hayling. As the months passed, the threat of invasion subsided and some of the marines began to court local girls. The Barley Mow and the Brickwood Arms were visited but the fish-and-chip shop was their best bet, he recalls, if they had money. Bill was always hungry. During the late summer of 1941, the battalion had a football team.
Marine Jack Sinclair of Waterlooville was twenty in the summer of 1941 when he arrived on Hayling Island. He loved Hayling, having only had day trips to the seaside previously, and was billeted on Eastoke Corner in Anne’s Cottage, an old house where he was allocated a bed and space for his kit. Close by was an opening in the beach defence fortifications, through which a local lady went for a daily dip in the sea. The Marines swam there too, when free. He and colleagues were drivers in the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation. When promoted to corporal (temporary), he was paid as a junior non-commissioned officer, adding 9d a day to his pay as a physical training officer.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Harris, RM, of Henley-on-Thames was a regular subaltern when he arrived on Hayling for tactical training. His group were stationed in huts to the east of the island. On one exercise, it poured with rain all night. He recalls that he strapped himself into his officer’s valise, head and all, and slept. Phoning home was a major occupation as one usually had to wait all evening for a three-minute call. He says he met a nice girl on Hayling, who was friendly.
1942 began with a particularly cold winter. David Lewis, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, who shared a room at Gafsa House with Sub-Lieutenant Bill Sinclair, recalls that they were so unbelievably cold they went to bed in their full uniforms and greatcoats. Matters improved when they used large beer bottles as hot water bottles. Bill Sinclair was later Commanding Officer, Landing Craft, Infantry (known as LCI(L)) and much later, First Chief Justice of Alberta Canada.
Marine John J. Cook of Tintinhull, Yeovil, whom we met earlier, describes his arrival on Hayling from Portsmouth in early 1942, having marched with full kit from Eastney Barracks. Service iron beds were brought to the Royal Hotel from Eastney for the Royal Marines. Most of their kit and uniforms were kept in kitbags. They were expected to keep all the rooms clean and tidy and trained on an assault course in front of the hotel and also on the beach, which had eight-foot high barbed wire defences.
Surgeon Lieutenant Commander J. W. Rae of Edinburgh was a young RNVR medical officer who had already served at sea and in two naval hospitals when he was appointed to the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation II (MNBDO II) in November 1942, in response to Churchill’s idea that Royal Marines could provide the complete services for a captured port which could be used as a naval base. His group headquarters was at Alton, Hampshire from where he moved to Hayling Island to be joined by the rest of forty medical officers who were to staff a tented hospital. During a talk from Colonel (later Major General) V. D. Thomas, they were shown an illustration of the Royal Marine badge, the globe and laurel, and told that this was where they would serve: the motto reads “all the world”. They were on Hayling a short time before moving to the Midlands to prepare to go overseas.
Lieutenant Commander David J. Lewis, RCNR writes from Calgary, Alberta, Canada of taking landing craft training in Chichester Harbour while stationed at HMS Northney. He says he read small books of Shakespeare’s poetry as he and the crew braved the chilly winds and spray of what was said to be the worst winter this part of England had ever had. He spent little off-duty time on Hayling during the January and February in which the first two Canadian landing craft flotillas were in training on the Island, since it was easy to reach London by train.
A.B. [Able Seaman] Miles of Brackley, drafted to HMS Northney in 1942, lived in a flimsy wooden chalet furnished with a single iron bed and a Valor oil heater. His own hammock was used for bedding. There were communal ablutions. Before the doorways was a large field enclosed by a grass embankment with a string of LCAs (assault landing craft) at anchor beyond. The camp was used for training in LCAs and unarmed combat. He recalls that the former entailed leaving Chichester Harbour and reaching the point opposite, seemingly endlessly. It was very cold, wet work in January. It was impossible to get dry or warm in his chalet unless he went to bed. It should not have surprised anyone that he developed a sore throat. Doctors suspected diphtheria and sent him to Haslar Hospital by ambulance. Luckily the complaint proved less serious.
The men were also taught to use Thompson sub-machine guns and to strip down Lewis guns. They were given a basic signals course. They worked with American R boats, known as Eureka, equipped with radios, direction-finding gear and other signalling equipment. The conversations between boats were such, he recalls, that complaints often came from the Women’s Royal Air Force girls on Thorney Island. AB Miles was drafted to an LSI (Landing Ship, Infantry).
D. Roberts of Birmingham, a Marine sent to Northney, says that during the day they would march to the causeway to build gun-pits. People gave them apples. At night, the men would patrol the seafront, armed with rifles and five rounds of ammunition, in case there was an invasion. He was 18 and regarded this as a bit of excitement.
He recalls an incident in early 1942 when a guard at the entrance to HMS Northney heard a noisy motorbike and challenged its rider. It was his Commanding Officer, who failed to hear, failed to stop, and was shot at. The shot missed. The officer referred to the guard rudely and ordered him off the gate forthwith, but having realised the poor lad had made an understandable mistake, he took no further disciplinary action.
Another former marine says they attended dances at the Sinah Battery. He was courting the manageress at the dairy in West Town at the time. She lived in Magdala Flats in a lane leading to the Shades. He was billeted in Seager House, a girls’ preparatory school.
Former Royal Marine corporal Bob Sollars of Sparsholt, Winchester, was in Hayling with MNBDO I in 1940. He considers himself fortunate in getting to know Mr and Mrs Percy Thistleton of 4 Magdala Flats