I VOLUNTEERED for the Royal Navy, under-age, and was called up at the age of 17 and 12 days, on 31 August 1943.
I did my training at HMS Collingwood, and was then posted to join the cruiser HMS Diadem in December 1943.
Before D-Day we took part in several convoys to Russia.
Towards the end of May 1944 we sailed from Scapa Flow in a Force 8 gale to Green
ock on the Firth of Clyde. We set sail thinking we were going on another Russian convoy, however some bright spark in the crew said that we weren't going north about, but had turned south.
Then a message came over the ship's radio: the Captain would speak to the ship's company in five minutes, sending quite a buzz around the ship.
The Captain stated that we were going to participate in the Normandy landings, codename Operation Overlord which would incorporate Operation Neptune. D-Day.
HMS Diadem was commissioned in December 1943, a World War Two light cruiser under the command of Captain E G Clifford R.N. Her armaments and tonnage were so new as to be still secret. Her eventual battle honours in WW2 were as follows:
Arctic 1944-45 - 10 Russian Convoys, Normandy 1944 - D-Day Juno Beach, Biscay 1944, Norway 1945.
Bombardment Force 'E' JUNO Beach together with HMS Belfast (motto: Versatility):
We steamed south through the Irish Sea, where the weather became atrocious. Taking a breath of fresh air, it was a sight for sore eyes to see the 10th Cruiser Squadron in line ahead, as far as the eye could see, fore and aft.
On arrival at Lands End we were greeted with an extraordinary sight, of which you would never see the like again. There were hundreds ships of all descriptions: hospital ships, cargo ships and hundreds of tank landing crafts full of solders bobbing about in the rough sea. At this stage we received an Admiralty message that Operation Overlord would be delayed for 24 hours, to June 6.
Many of the tank landing crafts, along with HMS Diadem, withdrew to the shelter of the Solent.
On June 6 the weather had abated slightly and it was all systems go. We proceeded through the channel, cleared by the 255 minesweepers in the van of the invasion fleet, and along the invasion coast. As dawn was breaking the coast was lit by thousands of flares and flashes until we reached our allotted bombardment position on Juno Beach, next to HMS Belfast. It was 5am. We opened fire at 5.52, followed by the rest of the invasion fleet, which consisted of nine Battleships, 23 Cruisers, 104 Destroyers and 71 Corvettes, all of which dominated the assembled crafts.
Bearing in mind that we were attacked constantly from the air, by submarine and by E-boat for over three weeks, we stayed off the coast and fired shell after shell on to our designated targets. No navy, in the history of sea warfare, has ever been called upon to unleash such a bombardment, shells reaching 12 miles inland, destroying everything in their paths.
The total rounds of the smaller shells that Diadem fired would normally last a ship in peacetime between 15 and 20 years. Ours were fired in less than 20 days, at the rate of four to eight shells a minutes, each weighing 87lbs. Between June 6 and 29, HMS Diadem fired 3,826 rounds from the main armament at shore targets in Normandy.
On July 14 we sailed from Portsmouth to change the guns worn out by the bombardment.
Extracts from the London Evening newspapers from June to September 1944 read: "HMS Diadem fired 60 shells of which 58 were on target."
"Operation Neptune involved huge naval forces, including 6,939 vessels: 1,213 naval combat ships, 4,126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. Some 195,700 personnel were assigned to Operation Neptune; 52,889 US, 112,824 British, and 4,988 from other Allies countries."
"Naval losses for June 1944 included 24 warships and 35 merchantmen or auxiliaries sunk, and a further 120 vessels damaged.
HMS Diadem, built as an Ack Ack ship for Russian Convoys, and which carried all the famous Admirals: Megrigor, Fraser and Hamilton, was finally sold to the Pakistan Navy in 1959.
(With grateful thanks to HMS Diadem's Historical Society for their help in writing this story).
James Broomhead, Westminster Avenue, Lodge Moor
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