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During the build up to the Normandy Landings in 1944 the site now occupied by the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre was the home of a Combined Operations camp. In 1939 the woodland had been chosen by the Admiralty as a naval training base. The name given was HMS Cricket - the name of a gunboat used to patrol the River Nile during the British occupation of Egypt.

110 living quarter huts, each holding up to 24 men, were cut into the local woodland; bluebells and celandine making way for the camp site. If you look carefully today in the woodland that leads to the old Roman road you can see all that is left of this camp - brick and concrete bases with the steps leading up, where these men slept the nights leading up to embarkation to France in June 1944. Including the “canvas villages” at Hoe Moor there were up to 4000 men attached to Cricket in the weeks leading up to D-Day.

The information below has been obtained from letters and conversations with people stationed here at that period, in particular RM Stan Blacker of 606 Flotilla, a veteran of HMS Cricket. Bob Nimmo of Botley was instrumental in investigating the history of the area and making sure the contribution of the men and women of HMS Cricket is remembered. This history was put together by Phil Oates and Pete Dunnings of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre in 2004 to commemorate 60 years since D-Day.

Before WWII the land that became HMS Cricket was owned by the Garton family who lived at Brixedone House. In 1939 the Admiralty chose the woodland area for a naval training camp. In June 1943 it became a Combined Operations base and played a vital role in the run up to D-day.

The public were excluded from the area and three public footpaths were closed. Roads were laid through the woodland, Nissan huts erected, drains, watermains, electricity and telephone cables, cookhouse, administration buildings, officers mess, parade ground and Naafi canteen were all installed. The NAAFI included a cinema, which had regular ENSA shows, George Formby even appeared here.

HMS Cricket was a Combined Operations base. Its purpose was a transit and marshalling base for the hundreds of crew members of every conceivable landing craft moored in the Hamble River. Most of these craft were without parent ships and so Cricket afforded good accommodation, messing, canteen and stores facilities. Special Beach and Signals parties swelled the ranks.

Alcombe Steer

There were large troop movements into the area in January of 1944, including 606 Flotilla which had been formed in December 1943 and had carried out initial training at Brightlingsea. The first weeks were spent working long hours cleaning the camp to bring it up to the high standard required by the Royal Marines.

At first there were no landing craft at the Camp and there were concerns that no training at sea was taking place. The next arrivals at the camp were a detachment of Wrens from Portsmouth and a Camp Maintenance Party consisting of a dozen RN and RM ranks, all “getting on in years”, including at least one who had served in the Great War, “all convinced they were going on the invasion with us”.

Training was hard, including 15 mile route marches in full kit without a stop. “On one occasion we came back by the Crow’s Nest public house, along the road to the farm, where we turned up the lane up to the camp and were given the order to double march all the way back”.

The track down to the river was widened by Royal Engineers so that three-ton lorries could get down to Hoe Moor Creek and the Hamble River. Hoe Moor Creek was dredged to create anchorage for the landing craft. Some of the wooden shuttering from this can still be seen.

During the last week of April sixteen landing craft arrived from Sicily, in poor condition, and the Royal Marines started to practice their landing training. “Would you believe it, each time we tried our craft out on the Hamble to get them fit for sea our CO was inundated with complaints from people living on boats on the Hamble that the wash from our craft was upsetting them. This caused great bitterness in the Camp, as we were prepared to risk our lives to win the war and their only concern was the wash from our boats.” As a result training was restricted.

I, as Corporal Les Dyer CH/X 100130, was guard commander when the Saturday Dance was held in the Camp cinema/hall. To increase the supply of female partners the Navy sent trucks into Botley AA and Searchlight Camp and transported ATS girls into ‘Cricket’. One of them and myself became friends and subsequently, one year and four months later, in May 1945, we were married.

note - and still were 41 years later when this letter was written!

By May the river was jammed with landing craft, Bofors anti-aircraft guns were spaced all along the river. Indeed, the whole of Hampshire was becoming a vast arsenal, every roadside jammed with vehicles, every grass verge loaded with ammunition. Canvas villages sprang up in the adjacent fields and woodlands. The field opposite the Swan (now flats) was a mass of tents.

in the aerial photo, left, the landing craft can be seen moored from just above the railway bridge, all the way past Catland Copse (where the qe2 activity centre jetty now is)

We had one evening off in three. The men would walk into Woolston or Bitterne for a pint or two and try our luck with the local beauties. If you tried to go into Southampton for a drink there were so many troops waiting for the invasion you had to take a milk bottle of a doorstep for there were not enough glasses to go round.

Stan Blacker

Stan Blacker “The Thursday before D-day on a road to HMS Cricket we had to parade, for the RAF to fly captured German aircraft over us, to enable us to recognise their aircraft. All we could see was fleeting glimpses of these aircraft between the gaps in the trees. Why we were not marched out to a field I do not know.

“A few days later the local rector arrived in the camp and there was a parade. We all attended and knelt in the main road coming into the camp, the rector stood on a box and gave a short speech “God teach us not to show cowardice, God give us the strength to face the enemy” and the Lords Prayer.

“The whole unit was called to attention and formed columns, the CO took his place and we marched through the camp down to the river and to the Landing Craft and set sail for the Normandy beaches and D-day had begun.”

As they left the River Hamble that day the boys of the training ship TS Mercury were watching. When the landing craft started to move down the river on their epic voyage the boys rushed to the port side of their dormitory ship and cheered the laden craft and the men on board cheered back.

RB Mudway, Mercury Old Boy “Those men that left the River Hamble that night carried with them our hopes and expectations and they did not let us down. I believe that there was not one of the 130 cadets aboard Mercury who did not wish himself a little older and able to sail with that brave armada of small ships.”

LC Butt: At approximately 8pm (Monday 5th June 1944) our flotilla was sailing in line fairly close to the Isle of Wight shoreline. As we passed Osborne House with its manicured lawns and its buildings glistening in the evening sunshine so the sounds of bagpipes echoed across the water, played, I believe, by Piper Mullen. Cheers rolled across the Solent. It was a moment I would never forget.

Stan Blacker: When we left the Solent we were wet through with the rain before we even started. It was overcast and misty and raining very heavily and the seas were rough , running 5 to 6 feet high. We were scared, thinking this was the end of the world, and the soldiers on board who were not used to sea life were seasick. We carried one 3 tonne lorry and a dozen soldiers belonging to 50th Division, Tyne & Wear Service Support Regiment.

Before our eyes the Solent was filling with ships and landing craft. From the enormous dock complex of Southampton, from Portsmouth Harbour, the Hamble and every conceivable inlet, endless streams of vessels were converging and forming into convoys.

In 1944 the preparations for the D-day landings in France were all around us. D-day to me was waking up at about five in the morning to the constant noise of hundreds of low flying aircraft heading out across the beach heads in France. It went on for hours and at first light we could see the distinctive black and white striping on the aircraft wings and the DC-3s towing gliders full of troops.

(from “A Boy at War” by Peter J Armitage, who lived at Hamble)

LCB: Our craft was buffeted by waves 5’ to 6’ high and we were all very soon reduced to a state of inertia. The only relief from the monotony was at about 1:00 am when the air Armada carrying the 6th Airborne passed over. We could hear their passing even above the pounding of the waves. By morning nothing would deter us from waiting to leave our storm tossed craft and landing on Terra Firma.

SB The flotilla consisted of 16 landing craft to make up E squadron. We lost the first craft in the Solent in a collision with a digger landing craft. On the evening of the 5th June another craft’s engine broke down (two engines 91/2 hp each producing 6 knots). The LC drifted into Le Havre and was taken prisoner by the Germans. The third craft was sunk passing Sword Beach after hitting an underwater beach obstruction. Thirteen craft arrived on Gold Beach out of the 16 that set off.

LCB From about 10 miles out we stared our run into the beach. What an astonishing sight to behold. First we passed fairly close to HM ships Warspite, Ramilles and the Lord Roberts, all engaging shore targets with their main armament. Next we passed very close to HMS Scylla, flagship of the Eastern task force; then HMS Belfast and Diadem and finally through the destroyer and gunboat screen. Everyone seemed to be shooting. The noise was deafening. With about a mile to go we received the warning for beaching and hitching up our kit we awaited events. With a hard jolt we beached and I found myself instinctively following Sgt Brown down the gangplank; plunging into chest high water we waded ashore. Capt LC Butt 184 Field Company RE

SB I will never forget on the way to the beaches we saw green flags floating in the water. A merchant ship signalled to us they were a German mine field. Lucky escape!

E Squadron Commander Major Martin Pound, son of Sir Dudley Pound, was killed the day after D-day. There was more sad news after our departure - a V1 bomb landed at the Cricket Camp and killed three service personnel - named Rae, Aubin and Goodier. This was recorded by stores petty officer Alcombe Steer, who had to pack the belongings of the dead men and return them to their families.

The contribution of Combined Operations troops was vital to the success of the Normandy landings. On June 12th 1944 Churchill wrote to Mountbatten:

Today we visited the British and American Armies on the soil of France. We sailed through vast fleets of ships with landing-craft of many types pouring more men, vehicles and stores ashore. We saw clearly the manoeuvre in progress of rapid development. We have shared our secrets in common and helped each other all we could. We wish to tell you at this moment in your arduous campaign that we realise how much of this remarkable technique and therefore the success of the venture has its origin in developments effected by you and your staff of Combined Operations.

Six weeks to the day we sailed back up the Hamble River.

Six weeks to the day a handful of us sat down to tea in the huge empty mess hall.

Tearful WRNS held back.

After the tremendous activity connected with the D-day invasion, HMS Cricket was used as a regrouping base for Combined Operations personnel who had lost their craft and those reforming for further action including the raid at Walcheren and the Rhine crossings.

from A/B Denis Mears, stationed at HMS Cricket between August 1944 and July 1945:

“In October we were dispatched to do the Walcheren Raid, went by ship with landing craft to Ostend, from Ostend to Ghent on railway trucks with landing craft, from Ghent to River Scheldt ... to the raid on Walcheron, came back after a mauling with only five landing craft out of twenty four to Cricket. In Spring 1945 returned across Channel, clearing pockets of resistance along the River Maas. Returned to Cricket at end of May.”

March 1946: at this time Cricket was commanded by Colonel Hayward RM, the only Royal Marine officer to command a naval establihment in peace time.

The Drafting Office at Cricket was used extensively for the intake of Royal Marines returning from overseas service for onward drafting. Regular service Marines were drafted to divisions at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth and training schools such as Lympstone and Deal. “Hostilities only” Marines (that is for the duration of the war only) were drafted to demobilisation centres for their return to civilian life.

Royal Marines who had been prisoners of war, in Europe, the Middle East and most particularly the Far East, also returned to HMS Cricket. Their movements to and from Cricket always took place at night so that civilians would not see their “pitiful state”. Ex POWs when drafted went straight to the Royal Navy Hospital HMS Hasler or nearby civilian hospitals.

Everything from HMS Cricket was removed to HMS Rosneath, a shore establishment at Garelock, on the Clyde.

After this the camp was “de-nauticalised” by the Admiralty. Winchester DC housing authority made as many of the huts as possible tenable (so far as labour and material shortages would allow). The Nissan huts that slept 24 Royal Marines now became the home of demobilised soldiers with their families and those who became homeless in Southampton during the war. At its peak there were more than 200 people living here. Each hut comprised a large lounge, kitchen, two or three bedrooms; with

“an open fireplace in the lounge, and in the kitchen a range for cooking and for warmth, and a large old-type copper in which we heated water for bathing. Living in the centre of a copse there was an endless supply of wood”.

“When we first went there there was no main drainage. It was a case of a bucket under the sink and if you forgot to look you had wet feet when the bucket overflowed”

By 1953 most people had been housed and the site became a chicken farm owned by Mr Thistlewhite "but the foxes soon dealt with it . . .” as one local put it.

In the 1960s the Nissan huts were removed and the site became neglected. One large Nissan hut remained and was used by the Boy Scouts and became known as Cricket Camp. Over the years the Scout site has developed, and over the years thousands of young people have camped there and taken part in activities including canoeing archery and air rifle shooting. The Scouts’ facilities were improved in the 1980s with the opening of a dormitory block named “Pauline’s Lodge”. The opening was performed by HRH Princess Margaret on her second visit to the site.

The first had been in March 1978 when she visited to open the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre. In 1977, thirty three years after D-day, in the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee it was proposed to build an activities centre for people with special needs. The idea had come from Chris Gardiner who in 1984 was awarded the MBE for his work. The Centre provides a range of activities including canoeing, climbing, horse-riding archery, ropes course and motorboat trips on the Hamble River. To celebrate the Centre’s Silver Jubilee HRH the Princess Royal visited in March 2003.

One veteran who visited

the site wrote of the “great satisfaction” that seeing the site being used for community outdoor activities gave him.

At the Centre we have always believed we should honour those who served at HMS Cricket. You can now see a small plinth which is dedicated to the memory of those who were stationed here and served their country. There is also a small exhibition about HMS Cricket which can be viewed by arrangement, please contact Phil Oates at the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre.

The following history was compiled by Bob & Rosemary Nimmo of Botley with the help of a Local Heritage Initiative grant

H.M.S. CRICKET (Cricket Camp) - MANOR FARM COUNTRY PARK
PART 1: July 1943 to 6th. June 1944

Preface
It is an unexpected corner of Hampshire. Around it the noisy traffic of motorway and arterial road seems strangely at odds with the quiet woodland which lies at the end of Pylands Lane. The area of Hoe Moor Copse, known colloquially as Old Moor Copse, has now returned to the wild that existed when a Mr.Thistlethwaite entertained shooting parties at nearby Brixedone (or Brixedene) House before World War Two. Also at this time local children were invited every year to Freehills House to celebrate Empire Day and other occasions, with tea-parties and sports days provided by the owner, Colonel Ferney and held in the big meadow in front of the house.

Cricket Camp, in both its military and later civilian role, swept aside the peaceful pre-war life of the area and replaced it with what amounted to a small town which housed , at one time, some 4000 people. Yet now virtually nothing remains to show that this place once seethed with activity and drama and the sign directing visitors to "Cricket Camp Scout Centre" provides no indication of the rich history that lies behind the name Cricket.

The Beginning
In 1939 the Admiralty searched for suitable sites for naval training camps which were near to existing defence establishments but well hidden from aerial reconnaissance. By the end of 1940 a "Combined Operations" base had been formed at Warsash (H.M.S. Tormentor) under the command of an Australian, Commander Cook R.A.N. Here the Navy undertook training in the handling of the new special landing craft. The boats from Tormentor were used to evacuate the commandos who had been engaged in the destruction of radar and wireless installations at Bruneval, France, in 1942.

A decision to extend the scope of Combined Ops. training on the Hamble river involved the acquisition of land at Hoe Moor. After extensive construction work H.M.S. Cricket was commissioned on the 15th. of July, 1943 as a Royal Naval shore establishment, initially in charge of a Commander Piper, R.N. The camp comprised some 120 individual buildings, including a large NAAFI with cinema, a small hospital and an extensive complex of nissen accommodation huts surrounding central ablution facilities. An armament depot and a sewage works suitable for a small town were also constructed, all served by a network of roads.

At the bottom of the hill, a brisk five minute trot from the camp, Hoe Moor Creek was dredged and widened to give access to about a dozen docking bays which were excavated from the river bank. Three large country houses, Brixedone, Durncombe and Freehills, were requisitioned to provide Officers' and WRENS quarters (separately, of course!)

The Landing Craft
L.C.A.s (Landing Craft Assault) and the smaller L.C.P.s (Landing Craft Personnel) were built in large numbers, based on designs from John Thornycroft & Co. Ltd. of Woolston. Thornycroft became the parent company and sub-contracted the building work to various other businesses all around the country. Locally the boats were built by F.J. Deacon at Bursledon, Luke Bros. at Hamble and the Southern Railway works in Eastleigh. There is also an unconfirmed story that the Bark Store by the river at Botley was utilised by Thornycroft for keeping L.C. spares.

The L.C.A.s and L.C.P.s were designed to carry troops only and were usually conveyed to the assault beaches by Landing Ships Infantry (L.S.I.s). These were, in the main, converted cross-channel steamers. The gravity davits on these vessels were adapted to meet the requirements of loading and launching minor landing craft. The bulk of D-Day invasion forces were carried to the beachheads on the L.S.I.s and were transferred to the embarked L.C.A.s for the final assault.

The L.C.M.s (Landing Craft Mechanised) were designed by Thornycroft to carry a 14 ton tank at a speed of 7 knots. They were larger vessels than the L.C.A.s and were constructed locally by Thornycroft, Vosper at Portsmouth and the Southern Railway. Further L.C.M.s were produced in the U.S.A. and were made available to the Royal Navy under Lend Lease.

A flotilla of landing craft comprised some twelve to sixteen vessels and research to date indicates that seven flotillas were based at Cricket by the time of the D-Day landings. These were:

Life at the Camp
The initial purpose of the camp was to train naval and marine forces in the art of small boat handling and to provide experienced and fit assault troops to land on enemy held shores. Manoeuvring the unwieldy landing craft on the Hamble river was no easy task and even experienced helmsmen were caught out by the vicious ebb tides which would sweep them down onto the railway bridge. There were dented boats and dented egos at first but they soon learned to manage their vessels with skill and precision. The fitness training involved long and arduous route marches through the surrounding villages and countryside. These "outings" were, in theory, the only way of leaving the camp but the marines soon found a way of breaking out over the perimeter wire. Then, via a footpath nicknamed "The Burma Road", they made their way to the Bugle at Botley or to the British Legion where girls from the Land Army went to enjoy a break from their labours on the local farms. One marine veteran recalls seeing American Rangers playing baseball in Botley Square and records that the rivalry between American and Canadian troops sometimes resulted in "skirmishes" after pub closing time!

Because of such "social activities" the local population were well aware that servicemen were billeted in the area but the extent and purpose of HMS Cricket was a well kept secret and in the run up to D-Day security became even tighter with members of the individual flotillas apparently prevented from contacting each other.

In the main, however, the camp was self-contained and provided its own entertainment with films, talks and sporting activities such as football, cricket and hockey. The base staff were able to provide teams to play against other shore establishments in the area and a football squad from the camp entered the Hampshire League and played with some distinction. There were also other, less approved, activities which appealed to the lively spirit which seems to have prevailed at that time. The late Jim McDermott, a member of 141 flotilla, recalled that the standard of food provided by the Navy bore no comparison to that supplied to the American Rangers in the camp at the other side of the Creek. An unofficial barter system was soon set up between the lower ranks in both camps and our lads' diets were much improved by the addition of large tins of fruit, vegetables, powdered eggs and other luxuries. Unfortunately, some months before D-Day, these "raids" on the American store rooms came to the notice of the Powers that Be and when a British party arrived one night for a top-up of supplies they were caught red-handed. The Battle of Yorktown was repeated and the Brits beat a hasty retreat with rifle bullets whistling over their heads. In the mad scramble to get away most of the goodies were dropped and by the time our sailors returned safely to base there remained only one small tin of tomatoes as a reward for their endeavours.

The Build-Up to D-Day
HMS Cricket expanded in the period prior to the D-Day landings. As in many other parts of Hampshire and the South Coast large areas of the countryside were covered with tents, stores and vehicles. The fields on each side of the A27 provided additional accommodation for the assault forces and to the south of Hoe Moor Creek the Rangers practiced assembling Bailey Bridge sections. Mobile anti-aircraft guns were moved into the camp and were positioned at numerous sites along the banks of the Hamble.

The forces assembled in Hampshire were divided into three groups. G Force was destined to land on Gold beach, J on Juno and S on Sword - those camped around the Hamble were to be part of J Force. Their associated ships were anchored in Spithead in an area stretching from Cowes to the Spit Sand Fort. On the 23rd. of May 1944 orders were received to seal the camp and all contact with the outside world ceased. The landing craft were loaded and prepared for the coming invasion. 606 flotilla's L.C.M.s were ready in the Hoe Moor Creek bays and the L.C.A.s were moored in the middle of the river above the railway bridge. The L.C.A.HR.s were similarly moored in mid-stream opposite the creek and further L.C.M.s were sited opposite Fosters Copse.

At 15.45 hours on the 5th of June Lt.Ball burst into 606 flotilla's office and shouted "This is it chaps!" Together with members of the naval L.C. maintenance unit and soldiers from the 50th. Division, 606 were swiftly assembled in full kit on the parade ground where a local clergyman lead them in prayer and made a short speech wishing them all good luck. The whole unit was then called to attention by the C.O., formed into three columns and marched down to the landing craft.

As the boats moved out of the creek the Captain of the camp stood at attention on the end of the temporary pier and saluted each vessel in turn and when the flotillas passed the training ship Mercury the boy sailors rushed to the port side to cheer the laden boats on their way.

By the evening of June 6th. the Hamble river was empty and HMS Cricket had gone to war.

H.M.S. CRICKET (Cricket Camp) - MANOR FARM COUNTRY PARK
PART 2: The D - Day Landings

The King's Speech
On the evening of June 6th., by which time it had become clear that the landings were well under way, H.M. King George VI broadcast to his people. The speech was heard by those who remained at Cricket but more particularly by the men on the later waves of landing craft heading for Normandy. One marine recalled part of the broadcast years after the event. "Now, once more, a supreme test has to be faced. This time the challenge is not to fight to survive but to fight to win the final victory for the good cause. After nearly five years of toil and suffering we must renew that crusading impulse in which we entered the war and met the darkest hour. We and our allies are sure that our fight is against evil and for a world in which goodness and honour may be the foundation of the life of men in every land."

A few days earlier His Majesty had inspected the assembled invasion force in the Solent and had taken the salute at H.M.S. Vectis (J-Force HQ, Cowes) as a large fleet of the small landing craft sailed in formation past the Royal Yacht Squadron. The landing craft which departed from the Hamble on the 5th. and 6th. June were but a small section of this vast armada; none the less, they played a vital and representative part in the seaborne assault.

The LCA (Hedgerow) Flotillas Nos. 590, 591
The LCA (Hedgerow) craft left their moorings in the upper Hamble on the Sunday evening before D-Day. These flotillas, whose vessels were designed to move close inshore in order to destroy beach obstacles, had quickly become known as "The Crazy Gang" and each crew member earned extra danger money - 3d. a day! It would certainly seem that their operations posed quite as much of a hazard to the crews as they did to the enemy. Every Hedgerow craft carried 24 spigot mortars, Heath Robinson devices which each fired a rocket onto the land with a long length of hosepipe attached. The hoses had delayed action fuses at each end and were quickly filled with liquid explosive from a tank on board the LCA which then, leaving the hoses lying on the beach, backed off at high speed to await events!

The Hedgerows were small and relatively unseaworthy craft but were considered, for fairly obvious reasons, to be too dangerous for transportation on the large assault ships. It was therefore arranged that they would be towed across the Channel by LCTs and LCFs. The flotillas loaded up from the armament store at HMS Cricket and then moved down to the hards at Hamble to pick up their full crew. Having passed out into the Solent they met up with their "Mother" towing craft and commenced the extremely dangerous journey across to France. The sea conditions during the night of their transit were unexpectedly rough and so the first hazard faced by their crews was a natural one rather than anything caused by the enemy. Of the two groups of nine boats that left the Hamble six craft of group G2, commanded by Lieutenant (later Lt. Cdr.) Irwin, RNVR., made it to their offshore beach positions but only one boat from G1 survived the crossing.

In all, some twelve of the type sank under tow, two were reported missing and two were towed back to the South Coast. Obviously the losses incurred by these units were heavy. A number of officers and ratings were drowned in passage and a friend of Lt. Irwin, Sub Lt. Bruce Ashton, RANVR., was killed, together with his three-man crew, as they worked off the beach. The Hamble based craft did, however, mainly succeed in their mission as enough obstacles were destroyed at La Riviere, on Gold Beach, to allow the landing of flail and DD floating tanks.

No. 480 Flotilla LCP(R)
HMS Cricket had played a part in the development of the DD (Duplex Drive) floating tanks, one of a number of the specially designed types known as "Hobart's Funnies", of which much has been written elsewhere. The LCP(R)s of 480 Minor Landing Craft flotilla had, prior to D-Day, participated in the trials of the floating tanks and the training of the crews, involving several practice exercises along the South Coast. 480's role on the day was to escort the tanks to the beaches, to tow them if they broke down and to rescue the crews should the tanks founder.

Nos. 513, 514 Flotillas LCA
The 'assisted' flotillas of LCAs received their initial training at Cricket before being despatched to their allocated assault ships, usually a LSI (Landing Ship Infantry), to practice landings with troops. They would only return to the base if their LSI was dry-docked or if work was needed on the craft themselves. The LSIs were all mercantile conversions and the ship which would carry the six LCAs of 513 was HMS Brigadier, an ex-Southern Railway cross-channel steamer, now under the command of Cmdr. H. Paramore, RN (Ret.). To protect her complement of troops and landing craft Brigadier had only four 20mm. AA guns and a single 20 pounder surface weapon, little enough defence against enemy action. With the LCAs hoisted on the davits she sailed out through the boom at Spithead and joined the rest of the invasion force in Area Z, south east of the Isle of Wight. As part of force J2 she landed Canadian soldiers of the North Shore Regiment via her landing craft and this group crossed Juno beach with little difficulty, although they met with stiffer opposition later as they entered the small town of St.Aubin.

Another converted Southern Railway vessel, the former cross-channel steamer Maid of Orleans, was host ship to the six LCAs of 514 Flotilla. While in Cowes Roads Captain Payne mustered the crew of the Maid in the saloon and gave a rousing speech, part of which went as follows. "Our job is to deliver the troops and keep on delivering. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, liberated France - the Maid will help to do the same, by the grace of God." In the early hours of June 6th. the ship entered the swept channel and reached the appointed lowering place by 5.50 a.m. At 6.05 her six LCAs were hand -winched down to land men of 3, 4 and 45 Commando at Ouistreham on Sword beach. As the commandos leapt from the LCAs, with shells bursting around them, Brigadier Lord Lovat's kilted piper, Bill Millin, piped them ashore with ' Highland Laddie' and ' Road to the Isles.'

Five surviving LCAs were re-embarked between 9.50 and 10.30 that morning, the ship having to manoeuvre to provide a lee and pour oil to windward to stem the breaking waves. At this critical juncture the Maid came under shell fire and had to change her position again before all were safely on board. The Maid of Orleans made several more trips to Normandy but was lost by mine, on28th. June, 1944. HMS Brigadier regained her former title when she returned to civilian service in 1946.
606 Flotilla LCM
Stan Blacker of 606 Flotilla recalled that the only means of identification that the landing craft crews were allowed to retain was the usual identity disc showing rank, number and religion. All personal belongings, including pay books, money and photos had been left behind at HMS Cricket and in addition they had removed their Royal Marine and Combined Ops. shoulder flashes. They were each issued with iron rations for 48 hours and were armed with a rifle plus sixty rounds of ammunition.

The LCM(3)s were equipped with single eye-piece binoculars and carried one machine gun tripod mounted on the after deck. The boats, which had been built to an American design, were of welded 1/4 inch steel plate and afforded little protection for the crews - even a rifle bullet could go through one side and out the other. The plating was so inadequate that one of the vessels split down a seam and had to be abandoned and the men taken off before they had passed the Portsmouth forts. 606, with Tyne and Tees soldiers aboard, sailed directly across the Channel, escorted by an armed trawler. These LCMs formed part of Force E Build-up Squadron and the surviving boats landed at Gold Beach, between Port en Bessin and La Riviere.

Five Royal Marines were taken prisoner in unfortunate circumstances. The engine of their landing craft failed during the crossing and in the dark the LCM drifted into Le Havre, where the Germans were waiting. The Luftwaffe had made little impact on the landings during the whole of D-Day but on the following day isolated attacks were experienced over the beachheads. Tragically the commanding officer of the flotilla, Captain Gooding, RM., was killed at 4 p.m. on D-Day + 1 by a lone enemy fighter, carrying just one bomb. Several marines were seriously wounded at the same time and never rejoined their unit.

The role of HMS Tormentor (Warsash)
Closely connected with Cricket and using its repair facilities, was HMS Tormentor, which occupied the old Coast Guard House and RAF station at Warsash. This aptly named unit was originally set up by the Navy for the purpose of training small boat raiding parties to do more than 'torment' the enemy in the years before a major landing could be considered. In this they were very successful. However, by the time D-Day approached Tormentor had become the base for three flotillas of LCIs, a vessel which could be likened to the cavalry of the small landing craft forces. They had no bow doors and were very seaworthy boats, about 108 ft. in length and with a top speed of 14 1/2 knots. (One of these LCIs was, in fact, constructed at the Solent Shipyard in Sarisbury Green and survived to the end of hostilities.)

48 Marine Commando had been specially created to form part of No. 4 Special Service Brigade. At the end of April, 1944 they moved from Gravesend to set up camp at the C3 marshalling area, south-west of Botley and during this period they participated in various training exercises along the South Coast. Immediately prior to D-Day they were encamped on Southampton Common ready for transportation to Warsash, where they embarked on the LSIs of 202 Flotilla at the jetty alongside Tormentor. These landing craft proceeded independently to France and off-loaded their assault forces at St.Aubin on Juno Beach.

Whilst still in the boats the commandos sustained heavy casualties because the vessels were of wooden construction and suffered severely from the effects of enemy fire. In addition, several broached-to at the water's edge and the laden troops were badly exposed as they attempted to get down the embarkation ramps. Lt. J. L. Moulton, their commanding officer, was wounded by mortar fragments but managed to get his men to the assembly area, where he discovered that only 50% of his force were still operational. Casualties might have been even heavier had not Moodys Yard, at Bursledon, installed steel plate decking on a number of the LCIs which were used in this attack.

The House of Commons witnesses a defining moment in history.

Just before midday on June 6th. the Commons met for the first time after the Whitsun recess. When the MPs had taken their seats they were told that question time would be shortened to allow for a special interval before normal business commenced. Mr. Churchill then entered from behind the Speaker's chair to a warm ovation and addressed a packed and excited House. He first reported that Rome had been liberated and asked the Members to recognise the success of the 8th. Army in Italy. After a dramatic pause the Prime Minister then announced that "... during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of a series of landings in force upon the European continent has taken place. In this case the liberating assault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armada of upwards of 4000 ships, together with several thousand smaller craft crossed the Channel. Massed airborne landings have been successfully effected behind enemy lines and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various points at the present time. The fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled. The obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not proved so difficult as was apprehended. ......So far the commanders report that everything is going according to plan." At 6.15 in the evening he was able to report, to loud cheers, that "... this operation is proceeding in a thoroughly satisfactory manner."

HMS Cricket and its sister base, Tormentor, had played and were still to play, a most effective part in this great undertaking. In due course the surviving vessels and personnel would make their way home - but the war was far from over and the work of the landing craft units was far from done.

H.M.S. CRICKET (Cricket Camp) - MANOR FARM COUNTRY PARK
PART 3: D-Day to VJ Day and beyond

After D-Day - the Reckoning
Immediately after the invasion the survivors of the LCA Hedgerow flotillas returned to HMS Cricket and under the command of Capt. De Spon, RM, were again encamped in tents situated in the fields each side of the A27, between the Swan public house and Camp D at Bursledon Bridge. A memorial service was held in Bursledon Church for the thirteen men of their group who had lost their lives.

606 Flotilla came back to Cricket without their landing craft, many of these having been damaged or wrecked in the Channel storms that occurred soon after D-Day. Lt. Searle had taken command after the sad loss of their C.O. on the beaches and they. too, now held a memorial service for their dead at Bursledon Church.

Meanwhile eighty Royal Marines, forming part of the reserve landing craft crews, had left HMS Cricket for Tilbury Docks where they embarked on the transports Cap Touraine (French) and Thyoville (Belgian.) As they sailed for Normandy through the Dover Straits they were fired on by the German heavy gun batteries at Cap Gris Nez. Fortunately both vessels reached the invasion area without loss where they were used as support ships for the landing craft which were still working off the beaches.

Bob Hare of 513 LCA Flotilla returned to the Hamble in the middle of July, 1944. He remained at Cricket camp with his unit while the men who had not returned from Normandy were replaced and the flotilla was re-equipped with new or repaired landing craft. Happily they did not then know what lay ahead of them - a few months later they were to suffer heavy losses in the battle for the Scheldt Islands.

A Story from the Beachhead
With the new mix of personnel at Cricket there were tales to be exchanged with men from landing craft flotillas which had left from other bases along the south coast. One notable incident involved 263p Flotilla which had trained at Hayling Island. Their C Squadron, under the command of Cpt. Robin Taylor R.M., took part in the assault on June 6th., with four LCV(p)s on board an LST and twelve travelling under their own steam. The units landed troops on Sword Beach at 7.30 a.m. and then anchored offshore to await further activity. During the night, in worsening weather, one damaged craft broke away from its kedge anchor and drifted towards enemy held beaches at the mouth of the river Orne, where it eventually grounded. Under intense fire from enemy machine guns the coxswain, with two unarmed marines, leapt ashore and by pretending to be a raiding party they managed to convince the Germans at the gun post that they were facing superior forces. The enemy surrendered - after a brisk fist fight - and were marched off to the nearest beachmaster!

The next phase
As the allied forces made further headway into France and the returning flotillas were settled in things gradually became quieter at Cricket. However, at the end of July the base experienced its first and only enemy attack when a V1 Flying Bomb landed in a field near the Hamble. There was a large store of defused mortar bombs nearby but fortunately no explosion of the ordnance occurred. However, very sadly, three ratings who were on guard in an adjacent hut were killed. The names of these sailors, Rae, Aubin and Goodier, are still remembered by the Stores Petty Officer, Alcon Steer, who was responsible for dealing with their personal effects.

HMS Cricket now assumed a role as a re-grouping base for combined operations personnel and a training centre for operations in the Far East. However, the camp still retained an active operational capability and in September, 1944 606 Flotilla, under the command of Cpt. Robinson, RM, was equipped and despatched to be transported in LSD Northway via Ostend to the Rhine. The intention was that they should attempt to relieve the airborne forces trapped at Arnhem but this operation was eventually cancelled as it would probably have been suicidal.

The capture of Walcheren and the Scheldt Islands, together with the final European landing craft operations

In October 1944 the vital Belgian port of Antwerp was captured by the British. The city fell with little resistance and the port passed into allied hands with all its cargo handling facilities intact. However, the Germans remained in control of the islands at the mouth of the Scheldt, thus preventing the use of the port to supply the advancing British Army. To remedy this, on November 1st., units from the Commandos and the 51st. Division were landed on the islands of Walcheren and South Beveland. Unfortunately, such was the strength of the opposition that troops had to be transported by minor landing craft into the centre of Middleberg in order to secure the surrender of the garrison. The last coastal battery was captured after some bitter fighting lasting about ten days and this enabled the docks at Antwerp to become operational again on November 28th. thus allowing allied forces to liberate Holland and sweep on into north east Germany.

126 Flotilla, originally based at HMS Cricket, was one of the participating units in this action. Crossing to Ostend by LSD they were then transported by rail to Ghent from where they sailed through the canal system and attacked the islands from the rear. Another Cricket Flotilla, no. 513, equipped with LCAs, was sent to Belgium in HMS Northway and using similar means as 126 made their way to attack Breskers. This was a grim undertaking and of the 36 boats which took part in the assault 30 were lost. Subsequently other units based at the camp took part in operations on the Rhine, their craft having been carried overland by army tank transporters. In a totally different operation 813 Flotilla assisted in the relief of the Channel Islands.

The life of the camp then turned to a period of training in which the flotillas were prepared for further action in Europe and also for planned landings in the Far East, including a proposed attack on mainland Japan; an attack which, very fortunately, never had to take place. In its final phase Cricket was used as a transit camp for servicemen returning home from the war and vocational training was also provided to equip the newly demobbed for life in civvy street. This period in the camp's life will be dealt with in Part 4.

HMS CRICKET (Cricket Camp) – MANOR FARM COUNTRY PARK
PART 4: Background information & the last months

Layout of the camp
The boundary of the camp was secured by a fence consisting of one roll of barbed wire lying on top of two other rolls, the whole being served by a track all round the perimeter. The guardhouse, which can still be seen, stood just inside the main gate to Pylands Lane and from there a track ran off to the S.W. and led to the Wrens and officers quarters across the valley at Freehills and Brixedone. This was always guarded and was out of bounds to all male other ranks!

Inside this boundary were contained the many buildings of HMS Cricket, which amounted almost to a small town. There have been differences of opinion about the layout, which may have varied from time to time, but as far as we can tell it was as shown in the accompanying plan. The camp was fairly heavily wooded but alongside the entrance road an area had been cleared to serve as a parade ground; here the crews paraded at 8.00 a.m. every morning for inspection and instruction in the day’s duties. At the easterly end of the road a track, wide enough for navy lorries, ran down to the landing craft bays and a scaffold pier at Hoe Moor Creek. A small hut for sentries was situated near the bottom of the path. On the other side of the creek a large marquee housed an armament store and it was here that a flying bomb fell in July 1944 killing three servicemen who were on guard; a tragedy only alleviated by the fact that the V1 did not hit the store, which could have caused disaster over a wide area.

Life in a Nissen hut
These prefabricated buildings were of a very well-established design conceived by a Col. Peter Nissen fifty years or so earlier, when an increasingly modern army found that tents were totally inadequate as temporary accommodation. Half-cylinder shaped sheets of corrugated steel formed the roof and sides (technically a very stable design) and these sat on a solid base which was usually of concrete, the end walls being of wood or brick. In these walls were the doors and windows, the number depending on the basic size of the hut. Opening roof lights formed little dormers along the sides. Recollections of the internal layout differ somewhat after sixty years but it would seem that a typical hut contained a row of five double bunks down each side, access to the upper bunks being by steel ladders. At each end of the centre aisle were tables with bench seats where the men could eat, read or play games during what little leisure time they had.

In the middle of the hut stood a closed stove with a chimney passing up through the steel roof, the whole apparently getting red-hot at times. However, this did little to alleviate the freezing temperatures prevailing in the huts in the winter (they were also
uncomfortably warm in summer.) Coke was the approved fuel for the stoves but two visiting marines had a different recollection. “Coke!” they said, “We didn’t have luxuries like that. We used to get the axes from the landing craft and cut down trees in the surrounding woods to burn in the stoves. After a while the woodland got so thin that the Commander took away all our axes and so we had to manage in the boats without them.”

Some of the personnel at HMS Cricket The “Bosses” (Administration)
At the time of the Normandy landings the C.O. of HMS Cricket was Commander Piper, CBE. RN (ret.) and his deputy was Lt. Commander Hughes, RN (ret.) In addition to a wardroom of general service Naval and Royal Marine officers there was a Surgeon Lt. A.D.J. Watt, two Paymaster lieutenants and a variety of engineering officers and NCOs. Bosun J. Kelly, Shipwright T. Roberts and Warrant Engineer W. Grainger were a vital part of the base staff.

Bosun Kelly had been brought out of retirement for the duration and was reputed to be aged about seventy. He had served in Queen Victoria’s navy and was the oldest bosun in the Royal Navy. In the words of one marine, “He was a very gentle and likeable person but at the same time would stand no nonsense and always believed in getting his own way. He was certainly no respecter of seniority, especially when it came to other officers of higher rank. On more than one occasion he detailed a working party, for a job that he wanted doing, from a group already engaged in a task for some more senior officer. I never saw anyone remonstrate with him other than giving him a look of open-mouthed disbelief at his audacity. The only person he appeared to respect was the C.O. and even then his salute to him was never more than one or two fingers just touched to the peak of his cap.” Nevertheless, it seemed that he ran a very tight ship.

The W.R.N.S.
Members of the Womens’ Royal Naval Service, always known as Wrens, played a significant part in the efficient working of the landing craft forces on the Hamble River. Their technical skills were put to use in degaussing the LCs, adjusting the compasses and repairing the craft – all tasks needing great care and diligence. They also undertook much of the ferry work on the river, taking crews to and from the landing craft moored out on the trots and carrying personnel and goods hither and yon. There are many stories about these girls and several of them have written their own accounts.

The Wrens at Cricket were not generally required for boat service but worked as office staff or as cooks for the officers' mess or in the canteen. Marine John Watson met his wife Dorothy when he was stationed at the camp and she was serving in the canteen. Married for nearly sixty years they were both able to come to the ceremony in June and while visiting the exhibition at Manor Farm, with their family, they found a photo that they had never seen before. It showed John with the other members of his flotilla: “I know that one’s Dad,” said his son, “I’d recognise those ears anywhere!”

HMS Cricket – the final year
As previously related there was much activity at Cricket after the Normandy landings and during the next eleven months, with flotillas coming and going and, sadly, more fatalities among the crews during the attacks on Walcheren and the Scheldt islands. Even after VE Day, training for the Far East continued apace and in July 1945 the Royal Marines Combined operations base was moved from Westcliff, on the Essex coast, and Cricket became an official Royal Marine base. Below is an Autumn 1945 report from “The Globe and Laurel”, the RM publication, which describes the latter days of HMS Cricket.

The Westcliff contingent had barely arrived in Hampshire when the dropping of the Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought a sudden and unexpected ending to the war. VJ Day had arrived; bonfires were lit, mainbraces spliced and a great revelry lasted for two days, the only casualty being the NAAFI piano, which somehow got burnt. There were riotous parties at the White Swan, the Red Lion and the Crow’s Nest as the camp, along with the whole nation, celebrated the arrival of peace. The officers challenged the senior NCOs to a cricket match – and the officers won.

The End
After VJ Day, Cricket assumed the role of a transit centre for servicemen returning from the war zones. Kitting up, medical re-grading, leave and release routines became the base staff’s forte. Residential E.V.T. courses were introduced to prepare participants for life in civvies. The Christmas activities of 1945 were enjoyed by all but then the staff began the rather sad process of winding down the establishment, with the inevitable splitting up of groups of comrades, some of whom had served together for a considerable period. Many parties were held as old pals and shipmates bade farewell to their comrades and the camp.

Soon only the base staff remained and after the Easter leave of 1946, HMS Cricket paid off.

Note: In 2004, the 60^th anniversary of D-day, Hampshire County Council put on an exhibition about HMS Cricket at Manor Farm Museum. It drew heavily on Bob Nimmo's research which accounts for the duplication. Below is the text taken from the exhibition's display boards. Those sections in blue relate specifically to HMS Cricket, while those sections in black are more general.

If you came visit the Manor Farm Country Park today you will pass an unimposing brown brick building a short way inside the main gate. This is all that remains of HMS Cricket a special place with a proud history.

The dense woodland either side of the park road has long since reclaimed most of what was once a secret wartime base, home to thousands of military personnel as they prepared for the invasion of occupied Europe.

The only bugle to be found here now is the bright blue flower of that name that carpet the woodland in late spring, while the tiny pink stars of sea spurrey bring colour to the saltmarshes once crowded with landing craft.

Veterans returning today, however, see beyond this tranquillity; to the rows of ships company kneeling in prayer before embarking for D-Day to the sentries on guard duty at every corner and to the faces of comrades from the past, now departed.

Although only operational from July 1943 until March 1946 in that short space of time the men and women who passed through the gates of HMS Cricket were to take part in a crucial episode of this countries history.

In this, the sixtieth anniversary year of the D-Day landings, this exhibition remembers HMS Cricket and the part the men and women who served there played in this momentous operation.

Further down the Hamble at Warsash was Cricket's sister base, HMS Tormentor, which occupied the old Coast Guard House and RAF station on the site now occupied by the Warsash Maritime Centre.

This aptly named unit was originally set up by the Navy to train small boat raiding parties to do more than torment the enemy in the years before the major landing could be considered. In this they were very successful.

However by the time D-Day approached, Tormentor had become the base for three flotillas of LCI’s (Landing Craft Infantry). It was also the base for a number of LCA’s (Landing Craft Assault), LCVs (Landing Craft Vehicles), ‘R’Boats (American Landing Craft) and various other landing craft.

During the war Hamble boat builders A H Moody & Son, constructed some 120 craft and repaired and refitted well over 2000 more, including motor launches, motor torpedo boats and various landing craft.

The Hamble was also the birthplace of the midget submarines, known as X-Craft that were to play an important role in the build-up to D-Day. Meetings to discuss the technical details of these secret craft were held at The Swan public house in Bursledon. They were built at the Solent Shipyard near Sarisbury Green under the name of the Varley Pump Company.

HMS Cricket was a Combined Operations and landing craft base. Its main purpose was to provide accommodation and training for the crews of some of the thousands of assault craft involved in Operation Neptune, the start of the Allied Invasion of Europe.

In 1939 the Admiralty had searched for suitable sites for naval training camps that were near to existing defence establishments but were well hidden from aerial reconnaissance. By the end of 1940 a Combined Operations base, HMS Tormentor had been established at Warsash.

A decision to extend the scope of Combined Operations training on the Hamble led to the acquisition of land at Hoe Moor. After extensive building work HMS Cricket was commissioned on 15 July 1943, initially under the command of Commander Piper R.N.

The camp stretched deep into the woods it comprised some 120 individual buildings, including a large NAAFI with cinema, a small hospital and an extensive complex of Nissen accommodation huts surrounding central ablution facilities. An armament depot and a sewage works suitable for a small town were also constructed, all served by a network of roads.

Two nearby large country houses, Brixedon and Freehills, were requisitioned to provide officer’s and Wren’s quarters.

At the bottom of the hill, a brisk five minute trot from the camp, Hoe Moor Creek was dredged and widened to give access to about a dozen docking bays excavated from the riverbank.

The shorebase at Bursledon was named after HMS Cricket, an Insect Class Royal Navy gunboat launched in 1915. She Spent the early part of her service in North Russia before being sent to China,, where she was stationed at Shanghai and on the Yangtise River for the next twenty years.

In 1940 she was posted to the Mediterranean, via Singapore, where she underwent a lengthy refit in Port Said. Shortly after the refit was completed in May 1941, while on convoy escort duty in the Mediterranean, she was severely damaged in a German air attack, a 1000lb bomb from a Junkers 88 exploding just yards from her hull. She was towed into Port Said but was too badly damaged to be repaired. She was eventually broken up in 1944.

The layout of the is recalled by Stanley Blacker who served as a Royal Marine with 606 Flotilla:

“ on arriving at Cricket Camp in those days one would come down the road past the several private dwellings on the left, then enter the main gate. Immediately on the left was the brick built guard room. Immediately on the right you took a foot path through the woods and fields to 2 commandeered private houses, which were the Wren's quarters, then on to the Officers quarters. Both these quarters were out of bounds to all other ranks and such was the discipline that this order was never infringed on.

Proceeding on down the road through the camp, in clearings on each side of the road were Nissen huts for the accommodation of all other ranks and NCOs. Another hut was the flotilla office and another the cook house.

When reaching the end of the road at the bottom of the camp there was a hardcore track to the right and another to the left. Taking the track to the left, after several hundred yards one came to another brick built building which was our armoury containing our ammunition and weapons not required – only our rifles being kept in our huts. Then a short distance on you came to a small wooden hut which was used by the sentries guarding the armoury and this track.

On taking the right hand track, you came to another wooden hut used by sentries guarding the track. Further on, one came to the creek coming in from the river, which was home eventually to our landing craft. So each night we had 4 lots of sentries guarding the camp and we had a roving patrol in the camp as well.”

The late Jack McDermott, who served in the Royal Navy with 141 (later 480) minor landing craft flotilla, remembered the accommodation huts well in his account from 1995:

“each hut normally about 10 double bunks of the standard naval type and a steel locker, also standard pattern, for each bunk. In the centre of the hut at either end was a table with bench seats, whilst dead centre, between the tables, was the heating for the hut in the form of a cylindrical coke fire with its round metal chimney disappearing up through the roof. We knew from experience that these fires, though somewhat primitive were highly efficient in providing heat. I’d seen them glowing red at times – perhaps not a very good idea from a safety point of view but ideal for making toast!”

HMS Cricket was largely self contained and provided for most of the daily needs of it personnel. Entertainment was provided in the form of films and talks in the cinema, while sporting activities such as football, cricket and hockey were also enjoyed. The base staff provided teams to play other shore establishments in the area, including a football team which played in the Hampshire league with some distinction. The camp concert party was also a popular source of entertainment.

Other, less approved interests, including social visits to local pubs and villages, provided welcome relief from the confines of camp life. A footpath popularly known as “the Burma road”, offered a convenient if unofficial, route for some out of camp over barbed wire to Botley, where the Bugle pub and British Legion hall offered Marines a welcome chance to meet local girls.

One marine veteran recalls American Rangers playing baseball in Botley Square and records the rivalry between American and Canadian troops sometimes resulting in “skirmishes” after pub closing times.

Discipline for the marines in camp was strict, so these occasional social excursions were much prized and are well remembered to this day!

On 6 June 1944 Allied forces launched the greatest seaborne invasion in history.

Since the start of the Second World War in 1939, Germany had invaded and occupied most of western Europe. Now the Allies, comprising Britain, America and Canada, together with forces from nine other nations, were about to unleash a vast offensive aimed at defeating Germany and liberating the occupied countries.

From early 1944 a fighting force of over two million men had been gathering along the south coast of England, ready to cross the Channel to land on the beaches of Normandy at the Bay of Seine.

The Day on which this assault was to begin was known as D-Day it was to be the single most crucial event of the war. If the Germans were able to prevent the initial landing then the invasion would be stopped in its tracks and the whole course of the war would turn.

A huge military build up of men and equipment had begun in southern England in early 1944. In January there were 750,000 American troops in Britain, By June this number had swelled to 1,500,000 with new equipment and supplies arriving at the rate of 750,000 tones per month.

In the main, the Americans gathered in the south-west, their huts and tented camps dotted along the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. The British and Canadian forces were mostly concentrated along the coasts of Hampshire and Sussex.

In the months before D-Day the countryside for tens of miles around the costal assembly areas became huge car parks for a vast array of armour, supplies and support vehicles.

Lines of tanks and other military vehicles stood in readiness along country lanes, ammunition was stockpiled, tented troop camps sprang up and civilian movement became increasingly restricted.

In addition to the preparations being made in England, members of the Resistance in the occupied countries, co-ordinated by the secret Special Operations Executive (SOE), worked tirelessly to undermine German forces by sabotaging railways and other communications.

To provide the harbour facilities essential for the unloading of equipment and supplies, after the initial assault, two huge pre-fabricated concrete harbours, known as ‘Mulberries’, were to be built.

The Mulberry Harbours were made up of almost 150 individual concrete and steel sections. These would be towed across to Normandy by tugs, where they would be assembled and secured in place off Omaha Beach and Gold Beach to create two giant harbours, linked to the land by floating pontoon roadways.

In addition a fuel pipeline, known as PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean) was to be laid under the Channel by the Royal Navy to supply essential fuel to the invading forces as they advanced through France.

On 26 April 1944 Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces moved into Overlord operational headquarters at Southwick House near Portsmouth and the five divisions chosen to assault the five Normandy beaches moved into their embarkation area. The exact date for D-Day had still to be decided but everyone knew it was not very far away.

Germany was fighting another war with Russia in the east. An offensive from the west would relieve pressure on the Russians and would ultimately result in the defeat of Nazi Germany as its forces were crushed between two advancing fronts.

The invasion was planned by a team of seven senior Allied commanders representing all branches of the armed forces, led by Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Germans expected an invasion but thought it would come at the Pas de Calais. This was the shortest sea crossing from England and offered the most direct route to Germany. Most of the German defences were, therefore, concentrated around Calais.

However, attacking at the Pas de Calais would mean the Allies having to mount the huge assault from the comparatively restricted area of Dover and Newhaven. By attacking the Normandy coast east of the Cherbourg peninsula instead, the Allies could converge from ports all along the south coast, including Portsmouth, Southampton, Poole, Portland and Dartmouth.

The Invasion operation was given the codename ‘Overlord’, with the initial naval assault phase, due to start on D-Day codenamed ‘Neptune’.

The plan involved an assault force of five seaborne divisions and three airborne divisions, with the seaborne landings taking place on five beaches, codenamed Utah, Omaha, God, Juno and Sword.

The Americans would land in the west, at Utah and Omaha, while British and Canadian forces would land at Gold, Juno and Sword.

This was to be an operation on a truly epic scale and the outcome of the war would depend on it.

The weather had been terrible for days, but with thousands of ships crammed with men and equipment ready to go and the prospect of some improvement in conditions it was decided, after a delay of 24 hours, to move on 6 June.

A vast fleet of minesweepers had spent the previous night clearing paths through the minefields in the English Channel for the great armada armada that was to follow.

The landings were to take place on five beaches, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, with each attack force bearing the initial letter of the beach it would assault.

The western force, ‘U’ for Utah and ‘O’ for Omaha, comprising divisions of the US 7^th and 5^th Corps of the US 1^st Army, sailed from ports along the coast of Dorset and Devon.

In the east, the British 50^th Division of the 30^th Corps of the British 2^nd Army, together with No.47 Commando, left Southampton bound for Gold beach near Arromanches. This force included the 1^st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment.

Force ‘J’ for Juno, concentrated around Southampton, the Solent and Spithead and Spearheaded by the Canadian 3^rd Division of the 1^st Corps of the British 2^nd Army, would land between La Riviere and Courseulles sur Mer.

Force ‘S’ for Sword, spearheaded by the British 3^rd Infantry Division of the 1^st Corps of the 2^nd British Army together with the 1^st and 4^th Special Services Brigade and No. Commando sailed from their assembly area around Portsmouth, Newhaven and Shoreham. They would assault the beaches near Ouistreham.

The journey was a long and uncomfortable one, particularly for the Americans sailing from ports in the south-west to rendezvous with the rest of the armada in ‘Area Z’, popularly known as ‘Piccadilly Circus’, just south of the Isle of Wight.

Weather conditions on the crossing were poor. Many soldiers were repeatedly seasick as their transport ships struggled through the rough seas.

As it neared the Normandy coast the invasion fleet was guided towards the beaches by midget submarines, known as ‘X-craft’. These remarkable craft, X20 and X23 had been lying in readiness on the seabed for days. As the armada approached, they surfaced and showed lights to guide the fleet to its target.

An Allied air and sea bombardment of the Normandy coast began at 05:20 hours, with Gold Beach, the objective of troops sailing from Southampton being pounded for two hours by Allied warships, including HMS Belfast.

Airborne troops had been dropped on each flank ahead of the seaborne force to establish bridgeheads and to protect the 40-mile –wide stretch of coast where the beach landings were to take place.

The strength of German opposition varied from one beach to another, but the deadly maze of beach obstacles deployed along Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’ meant that nowhere would offer a safe landing.

Lethal forests of angle-iron and wooden stakes, designed to disembowel and sink Allied landing craft, awaited the on-coming forces, together with minefields and deadly waves of barbed wire.

The task of clearing a path through these beach defences fell to the 79^th Armoured Division and their menagerie of specially-adapted armour known as ‘Hobart’s Funnies’, after their leader, Major-General P. Hobart.

American troops went ashore on Utah Beach at 0630 hours. The pre-assault bombardment had destroyed many of the German defences here and the Americans suffered relatively light casualties.

However on nearby Omaha Beach things were very different. A lack of the specialised armoured vehicles needed to clear beach obstacles, combined with rough seas and unexpectedly strong enemy defences proved disastrous.

American troops were pinned down on the beach and slaughtered, with over 2,000 men killed, wounded or missing in action. The true horror of the landing is graphically portrayed in the 1998 film ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Further east, on the beaches of Gold and Juno, British and Canadian forces fared better and despite suffering casualties, had moved off the beaches by mid-afternoon and advanced inland towards Bayeux and Caen. Progress was similarly swift on Sword Beach, with British troops also advancing off the beach towards Caen.

Operation Overlord had begun, By the end of the first day General Montgomery, commanding the 21^st Army Group, was able to report ‘As a result of the D-Day operations a foothold has been gained on the Continent of Europe’.

Another eleven months of bloody fighting lay ahead as the Allies pushed inland through France towards Germany, but the success of the D-Day landings meant the end of the war in Europe was a t last in sight.

During the Second World War a number for different types of landing craft were developed each designed to carry a particular element of an amphibious assault force. Some carried troops, while others carried tanks and trucks. Others were used as floating platforms for firing rockets and anti-aircraft guns.

The primary cargo of each type of craft was suggested in its name. For example, Landing Craft Infantry, commonly known as LCI’s or Landing Craft Tank (LCTs)

The bulk of the D-Day invasion troops were carried across the channel on LSIs (Landing Ship Infantry) and then transferred to LCAs (Landing Craft Assault).

HMS Cricket was the base for at least 8 landing craft flotillas in the days leading up to D-Day.

HMS Cricket played a part in the development of the famous DD (Duplex Drive) swimming tanks one of a number of armoured vehicles specially adapted for the landings.

The LCP( R)s of 480 minor landing craft flotilla had, prior to D-Day, participated in the trial of floating tanks and the training of the crews, including several practice exercises along the south coast.

480’s roll on D-Day was to escort the tanks to the beaches to two them if they broke down and rescue the crews should the tanks founder.

606 Flotilla arrived at cricket in January 1944 where they became part of the E Squadron Royal Marines under the command of Major Martin Pound, son of Admiral Sir Dudley Pound.

The squadron, comprising six flotillas of sixteen landing craft each, was then placed in combined operations, commanded at this time by admiral of the fleet, Lord Louis Mountbatten. The squadron thus had 96 landing craft, all LCMs (landing craft mechanised)

The LCMs of 606 flotilla were of the Higgins type, made in America. Other LCMs, in common with LCAs (assault) and the smaller LCPs (personnel), were designed by John Thornycroft & Co. Ltd of Woolston. Although constructed at yards all over the country, these landing craft were also built locally by F.J Deacon at Bursledon, Luke Bros. at Hamble and the southern railway works in Eastleigh.

The LCMs were 50 feet in length and powered by a 29 hp Gray marine engine. Each boat had a crew of five and was capable of carrying a single 4 ton tank at a speed of 7 knots. LCMs were the second smallest craft to make their own way across the channel and were the only minor landing craft capable of carrying a tank form ship to shore.

606 Flotilla were part of the 3^rd wave onto the beaches on D day, carrying soldiers of 50 division (Tyne and Tees) to Gold beach, between Port en Bessin and La Riviere.

The LCMs were made of only quarter inch steel plate welded together and offered little protection for the crew. A bullet would go through one side and out the other.

Shortly after they sailed, before reaching the forts at Portsmouth, one of the LCMs started to split down the welding, resulting in the abandonment of the craft and the crew being taken off.

Another landing craft from 606 flotilla developed engine trouble on the crossing and drifted into Le Havre where the Germans were waiting for them. Five royal marines were taken prisoner. A third LCM was sunk off sword beach while making for Gold beach.

The “assisted” flotillas of LCAs (Landing Craft Assault) relieved their initial training at Cricket before being despatched to their allocated assault ships, usually a LSI (Landing Ship Infantry), to practice landings with troops. They would only return to base if their LSI was dry docked or if work was needed on the craft themselves.

The LSIs that carried the landing craft across to France were converted merchant ships. The ship that would carry the six LCAs of 513 was HMS Brigadier, an ex southern railway cross channel steamer. As D day approached and with the landing craft hoisted aboard, she sailed through the boom at Spithead to join the rest of the invasion fleet in area Z, south of the Isle of Wight.

As part of force J2 she landed Canadian soldiers of the north shore regiment via her landing craft on Juno beach. The force moved across the beach with little difficulty before meeting with stiffer opposition as they entered the small town of St. Aubin

Another converted southern railway steamer, Maid of Orleans, was host ship to the six LCAs of 514 flotilla. In the early hours of 6 June the ship entered the mineswept channel and by 5.50 am had reached the appointed lowering place. At 6.05 am her six landing craft were hand winched down to land men of 3,4 and 45 Commando onto Sword beach at Ouistreham.

The men of 514 had been entertained on the crossing by Brigadier Lord Lovat’s kilted piper and as the commandos leapt form the LCAs, with shells bursting around them, Bill Millin piped them ashore with “Highland Laddie” and Road to the Isles”.

The LCA (hedgerow) craft left their moorings in the upper Hamble on the Sunday evening before D-day. These flotillas, whose vessels were designed to move close inshore to destroy enemy beach obstacles, had quickly become known as “the crazy gang” and each crew member earned extra danger money – 3d per day!

Every hedgerow craft carried 24 spigot bombs, each containing 30lbs of mortar barrels welded to the deck. The bombs would be fired simultaneously onto the beach from a range of approximately 400 yards to clear a 12 yard wide path through the beach obstacles through which tanks and other armour in follow up landing craft could then pass.

After setting sail from the hards at Hamble, the flotilla passed out into the Solent where they met up with their towing craft to begin the treacherous crossing to France. Unlike the infantry LCAs, which were carried across the channel on larger ships, the hedgerows were towed across by LCTs and LCFs (Landing Craft Flak)

However, sea conditions on the crossing were rough. Of the two groups of nine boats that left the Hamble, seven craft from G2, under the command of Lieutenant Michael Irwin RNVR, made it to their offshore firing positions, but only one boat from G1 survived the voyage.

A large number of boats were lost on the crossing, towed under by the rough seas. In all, thirteen men were killed, including Sub Lt. Bruce Ashton RANVR, who was killed when their craft was accidentally rammed by a LCT (landing craft tank) as they approached the shore

Although a further 2 craft foundered while making their way to the landing ship for the journey home, the Hamble based craft did largely succeed in their mission, destroying enough obstacles on Gold beach to allow the successful landing of flail and DD swimming tanks.

Operation Neptune was a huge logistical exercise. In all around 156,000 allied troops were landed in Normandy on D-Day. This included 23,000 airborne troops, conveyed by a fleet of 2395aircraft and 867 gliders, part of a force of 11,590 aircraft assigned to support the landings.

Nearly 7,000 vessels of every description took part, from battleships and landing craft to hospital ships and tugs.

The number of Allied casualties (troops killed, wounded or missing in action) on the first day of Operation Overlord (D-Day) is thought to be around 10,000, 2,500 of which were killed.

The heaviest casualties were on Omaha Beach, where 1,000 Americans died, with at least another 1,000 wounded or missing.

British and Canadian forces suffered in the region of 1,000 casualties on Gold Beach and the same number on Sword. Other British losses were amongst the airborne troops, with 600 killed or wounded and 600 more missing in action.

On Juno Beach, the 3^rd Canadian Division lost 340 men killed, with 574 wounded and 47 taken prisoner.

In all, American casualties on D-Day numbered 6,603 men, including 1,465 dead, 3,184 wounded, 1,928 missing and 26captured. Almost 2,500 of these casualties were from US airborne troops.

German casualties on D-Day are not known but are estimated at between 4,000 and 9,000 men.

After D-Day HMS Cricket became a regrouping site for units returning from Normandy and the base for further operations, including the British and Canadian landings at Walcheren in Holland in November.

The Allies had captured the strategically important Belgium port of Antwerp on September. However, the Germans continued to occupy the Scheldt estuary that controlled the sea approaches to the port, including the island stronghold of Walcheren.

Despite Bomber Command dropping 9,000 tons of bombs on Walcheren, the formidable German defences remained intact until an amphibious assault on the 1^st November by the 4^th Special Service Brigade struck a decisive blow, though at a cost of some 500 allied casualties.

126 Flotilla, originally based at Cricket, took part in this action, while another Cricket flotilla, 513 LCA, participated in an assault on nearby Breskems, in Belgium. The latter action resulted in the loss of 30 of the 36 boats that took part.

Another Cricket flotilla to see action in the Scheldt estuary was 550 LCA. On D-Day, before its posting to HMS Cricket, 550 flotilla had landed American troops on the infamous Omaha beach, the flotilla suffering 7 fatalities in the process. Almost half of the first wave of American troops to land at Omaha was carried by a Royal Navy craft.

Subsequently, units based at the camp took part in operations on the Hhine, their craft being carried overland on Army tank transporters, while others trained for further action in Europe and the Far East.

At the End of July 1944 the camp experienced its first and only enemy attack when a German VI flying bomb (doodlebug) landed in the field near the river. 3 ratings on guard duty in a nearby hut were killed. The names of the sailors killed, Rae, Aubin and Goodier, are still remembered by the stores petty officer, Alcombe Steer, was responsible for dealing with their personal effects.

At the end of the war, once the military personnel had left, the site was used to house many Southampton families whose homes had been destroyed in the war. Indeed, many local people today have fond memories of their childhood living in the woodland village that was Cricket Camp.

Beaches	Troops Landed	Total Casualties	Of which killed
Omaha	43,250	2,000	1,000
Utah	23,250	197	12
Gold	24,970	1,000	n/a
Juno	21,000	961	340
Sword	28,845	1,000	n/a
Airborne
British &Canadian	7,900	1,200	600
US	15,500	2,499	238
Total
D-Day	156,000	10,000	2,500