Diary extracts for July 1944
1st Jul 1944:
Mavis made the grueling journey to visit Crispin who “is doing very nicely.”
10th Jul 1944:
Caen has been captured. Vilna reached by the Russians.
12th Jul 1944:
Commander Dillon Robertson advised Richard to stay on an ammunition ship in Portsmouth as the only way to get to Normandy (‘what! with doodle bugs about!’) Went on one of the ships in the Solent.
13th Jul 1944:
Spent night on HMS Enterprise. Captain Groves very helpful with regard to the bombardment on D-Day etc.
13th Jul 1944:
'D-Day, Reconstruction' triptych
. . . it’s very difficult to do a thing of D-Day. I made a sort of triptych of it. The centre portion is about 9 feet and depicts men running ashore on Normandy beach. And the side pictures which are smaller, though the depth is the same, depict a bombardment from the sea, the initial bombardment which covered the landing, and the one the other side is the destruction of Caen and places like that, which had to be unfortunately, for the troops to make an advance and to liberate Paris.
[unknown date]:
Towards the end of the war Richard was on a destroyer which was escorting troops possibly into Boulogne.
But the seas were so terrible the captain of the destroyer . . . couldn’t get the troops in and they had to anchor off the downs in very rough weather.
Richard was the only one not seasick.
I was up early and went down into the galley where we had our breakfast and the steward said . . . 'Do you think you could possibly take a cup of coffee to the captain who’s up on the bridge?’ I said ‘Well, I’ll certainly try.'
I wondered . . . how on earth can I keep this from spilling? Anyway I climbed up ladders and got onto the deck and had to hold onto the rattling lines. And I’d still got this cup of coffee which was full when I got to the top.
. . . the door opened of the chart room where the captain was with his batman. And I said ‘Here’s a cup of coffee for you sir.’ And the batman took it and immediately spilt it all over the charts.
I didn’t take another cup of coffee up, I thought it was enough.
25th Jul 1944:
Brought Crispin back home (end of term)