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We moved from a small village called Horndean
near Portsmouth on the Sunday down to the town
of Portsmouth, and boarded the yanky troopship
called the Battleaxe, on the sides of the
ship were the small landing craft, which was
to take us to the beaches, we sailed that
day and should have landed on the 5th of June
but was too rough, so it was the 6th June 44
midnight of June 5th, we came up on deck,
and about 3 in the morning we could see the
light in the sky over the French coast
one big glow as they were bombing it to
hell, as we stood there one of our destroyers
passed us, then it went up, must have been
a mine, as it went down in a few
minutes at 5 o'clock they told us to get
in the small craft, as we had stopped
well out maybe 2 to 3 miles from the
coast, they began to lower us over
the side of the ship with our small craft
holding about 32 men, then we set out
for the beach, as we got nearer we could
see the flames, as the houses on the coast
were up in smoke, and what a racket,
small landing craft were floating everywhere,
with nobody in, as the craft got nearer
we saw the men on the beaches and the
tanks were on fire, with the shells coming
down on the beach and in the sea around
us, the marine who was steering our craft
had to pass through steel pilings which