D-Day: 'I had three hours' sleep in three days at Normandy'

Leonard J Taylor served as a yeoman of signals on HMS Frobisher during the Operation Overlord invasion of Normandy.

Before he died, Leonard recorded his memoirs.

These are his words:

Around early April 1944 we were in Ceylon [now known as Sri Lanka] and the whole ship's company had to muster on the quarter deck.

The commander-in-chief of the Eastern Fleet, Admiral Sir James Somerville, came aboard and told us we were going home.

There was a terrific cheer from us all.

But he said not to expect lots of leave when we got home, because we were to exercise to get ready for the Western Front - meaning the invasion of France or Germany.

So we went back to Mombasa, Kenya, and a few days later we left for Grenoch in Scotland.

We got three days' leave each. I went to Edinburgh where my mum and dad and three sisters and their families were living.

When everybody was back on the ship, we went north to Lamlash, on the isle of Arran, and spent two or three weeks there doing various exercises at sea and gunnery practice to get us ready for the invasion.

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We left Lamlash and sailed through the Irish Sea.

On the way, our captain announced over the loudspeakers we were going to a port in the south of England to ready for the invasion.

On 5 June we turned round and sailed north for 12 hours. And then we turned round again and continued going south.

This was because the weather was very rough and so the invasion was delayed for 24 hours.

We did not go to a south coast port as the captain had told us. We went straight over to Normandy.

Had we gone to a south coast port, there would have been the possibility that the Germans would have guessed what was about to take place.

As we approached Normandy there were ships coming from all directions - but all going to the same place.

We arrived at the spot where we had to anchor at about 4.15am.

There were a great number of Naval ships carrying out the bombardment; battleships, cruisers, destroyers and corvettes etc.

And this was going on all along the coastline as far as Cherbourg.

The bombardment of the coastline started about 6am and the army started to go ashore about 7.15am.

There were hundreds of ships and landing craft of all shapes and sizes and the noise of the gunfire was really terrific.

And, of course, a thick cloud of smoke everywhere.

The bombardment was concentrated behind the beachhead in order not to damage the beach for the troops landing.

After the initial bombardment we were called on a few times during the day to bombard particular spots when and where required.

On these occasions we had a spotting plane reporting back to us where our shells were landing.

According to these reports we did quite a lot of damage to German troops and tanks.

We were at action stations all the time and, of course, got very little sleep.

At lunchtime on D-Day I looked over the ship's side and saw bodies floating past the ship with their life jackets still inflated.

These were apparently from the Norwegian destroyer Svennen, which had been torpedoed and sunk during the morning.

The weather was still bad and the sea quite rough.

We spent the next two days still at action stations and doing the occasional bombardment of various targets on shore.

We had expected heavy German air attacks, but this didn't happen. We only had the occasional attack from a few bombers at a time.

I was on watch one day when I heard a German shell pass over my head.

But it is said that, if you hear the shell, it has already passed you and you are quite safe.

We were not allowed to sling or sleep in our hammocks because, in the event of an emergency, the hammocks would be in the way of rescue operations.

So we had to lie down on any space that we could find.

During the three days that we were there I can only remember having about three hours' sleep on the floor in the early hours of one morning.

Although there was so much going on of a frightening nature, I can't remember ever being frightened.

This was possibly because there was so much going on.

On Friday 9 June we left Normandy and returned to Portsmouth to fill up with oil and ammunition and, of course, food.

I spent the weekend with my sister Hilda and her husband Les and daughter Margaret at their house in Cosham.

On the Friday evening Hilda, Les and I went to the pub for a drink. In there I met Iris [Len's future wife of 62 years] for the first time.

The next day, Iris and I went to the cinema.

On Monday I had to go back to the Frobisher and then we went back to Normandy.

This time we anchored near "Gold" beach. There was still plenty going on over there.

Our troops were making good headway but were finding a lot of German opposition around the town of Caen.

Our air force were continually carrying out heavy bombing raids, day and night, particularly around Caen.

Thousands of airborne troops were being parachuted into the area every day.

We were now given a new job.

If a ship was torpedoed or bombed, we had to arrange for tugs and salvage vessels to go to their help, so we were kept fairly busy.

As well as this we were called upon, on occasions, to bombard.

Our worst experience over there was one morning just before 8am when a lot of our crew were on deck smoking and talking.

A lot of our aircraft were flying over us on their way back to England.

One Wellington bomber was obviously damaged and losing height and was going to crash onto the sea.

The pilot decided to release the rest of his bombs before crashing.

Some hit us where our chaps were having a chat and a cigarette. The sad result was that ten men were killed and a few wounded.

We were all very shocked by this and the whole ship's crew were very upset for the next few days.

One of those killed was a friend of mine named Marsh, from Liverpool.

Sometimes we used to go ashore together.

:: Leonard was born on 19 September, 1917. He attended the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of D-Day, with Iris, in Normandy in 1994. He died in 2010, aged 92.