Lct 2338
My Dad Rodney (Vic) Weston (RN) served on this landing craft I'll add a photo of it when I get back from France next week. On the run in to Juno he was operating the Port mg his oppo was on the starboard which was hit by a shell. The Fireflies were he said propped up on wooden ramps which the rode over once beached. As they left the beach he thought they were hit amidships by a shell I see from another thread it was probably a teller mine. The ship capsized in the bay and the crew wounded and unwounded (my Dad had flash burns to his neck) were left sitting on the stern none of them could swim and no-one could rescue them. He said at the time that although they had no water everybody threw them cigarettes. After a bit he said they tasted like cardboard. He vowed never to smoke again. At full tide they floated ashore he reckoned on Omaha but I'm not sure. He and his shipmates hitched as lift on a jeep he thought driven by a yank who drove them to Caen still in German hands. On arrival the bedraggled sailors in battledress but sailor hats were arrested by a US MP and locked up in a cellar for a few days during which he was posted MIA probably dead. I suspect the Jeep driver and MPs were Canadians not US. Eventually released he returned to his ship which was repaired and acted as part of the stores transport for the next month or so and then served in the attack on the Antwerp estuary. Sadly he did return to smoking continuing until his sixties until he gave up but still died of smoking related heart disease on his 72nd birthday
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