Towards the end of 1943 I was a Lieutenant with 953 Inland Water Transport (IWT) Company Royal Engineers on detachment with a section of sappers at the Tower of London. We moved invasion craft from London to Ham Dock Richmond to escape the bombing. Some of these were petrol barges, made of concrete as steel was in short supply. They could be seen as dummy barges in front of County Hall for many years after the war. With other IWT officers I attended a film showing the early development of Rhino Ferries in the Mediterranean.
 
Prior to the landing at Anzio some thought had been given to designing a shallow drafted vessel to work as a ferry between LSTs and shores which had a shallow approach.  These were unsuitable for LSTs, for in beaching-mode, they drew nine feet aft and three feet forward. With an overall length of 328 feet the keel had a slope of one in fifty.
 
A self-propelled platform emerged, able to sustain damage, capable of emptying an LST in two runs and able to marry-up with an LST in a moderate swell. 180 American NL (Navy Lighterage) pontoon units, each measuring 5' x 5' x 7' were assembled together in six rows with 30 units in each row. These were joined in such a way that the two centre rows were two units further aft than the rest, thus allowing a projecting deck space aft on which an LST ramp could rest and a gap forward to accommodate a ramp. This formed a rectangular vessel 180 feet long with a beam of 42 feet. Two 120 HP petrol engines coupled to Murray-Tregurther (Schottel) units allowed propellers to turn in any direction. The propellers and shafts could be raised manually through 180 degrees when in shallow water. A ramp forward was raised and lowered by two manually operated winches. Connection between LST and Rhino was achieved by having a conical post, about 2 feet high welded to the after deck the Rhino and this fitted into a hole cut into the outer skin the LST’s ramp when it was lowered.
 
This stopped the ships ramp moving across the Rhino's deck.  Any jack-knifing movement was reduced by having two fore-and-aft lines which ran from the ships upper deck to bollards on each side of the Rhino. The conical hornlike post led to the craft been named "Rhino".
 
At the beginning of February 1944 I was a staff captain at War Office (Transportation7) when Colonel Auriol Gaselee asked me to join his newly formed No 3 IWT Group preparing for the invasion of Europe. As my old 953 Company was within his group I jumped at the chance to sample the handling characteristics of a Rhino. Late February we took delivery of our first and enjoyed the ease with which they could be turned. It took quite a while to get used to the long slide sideways which followed any sharp turn. Unladen, the units drew only six inches, and sliding sideways was something we had to get used to. Before that happened we left our mark on more than one LCT in Southampton Water. The corners of a Rhino were sharp and whatever we hit had a hole in it.
 
At a film show I had learned that the first LSTs were three converted shallow draught tankers Tasajera, Misoa and Bachquera which had proved their worth during the invasion of Algeria way back in 1942. We joined Tasajera off Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight in March and practised marrying-up and beaching. The Rhino horn had been replaced by two bitt-heads, and sideways movement reduced by adding tackles to bridles attached to the LST ramp. In April Tasajera, towed us to exercises "Fabius" and "Gold Braid", on Hayling Island where the approach at Sandy Point had a slope of one in two hundred. Valuable lessons were learned which were put to good use later. The propellers increased our draught from six inches to two feet six inches and these had to be raised in good time to avoid damage. The loss of control over the period prior to grounding demanded a course straight-and-true without the slightest turn. When discharging our cargo was complete we had to get into deep water with propellers only partly immersed. What we needed and received was a good strong push from a bulldozer.
 
One incident in particular stands out in my memory; a Rhino was alongside an MT ship when Admiral Sir Philip Vian came aboard. He had won fame as commander of destroyer HMS Cossack boarding the German prison ship Altmark in Josing Fjord on Norway's west coast, releasing hundreds of British seamen who had been captured by Graf Spee. Admiral Vian was impressed with the speed of delivery as our 180 feet length received cargo from three holds at one time. He said that we could dispense with LCMs while Rhinos were on the scene. I suggested that we might have a role to play in the evacuation of wounded, but he said that an alternative had been decided upon. Our final exercise was Exercise Trousers off Slapton Sands, where we were luckier than the ill-fated Exercise Tiger when so many Americans were attacked by E-boats. Heavy swell between Isle of Wight and Devon caused winch wires on our ramp to fail. The two parts of the ramp fell to vertical but were not carried away. We moved through thick fog for an hour before anchoring and I was amazed to discover, when the fog cleared, that we were in the centre of our allocated area. This was due to a milky-white cylinder rejoicing in the name of "Mickey Mouse" working its magic at the masthead. It was the navigation system later known as Decca Navigator.
 
During the weeks before D-Day I attended meetings at HMS Squid and learned details of many plans. The British beaches would be named Sword and Gold and the Canadian beach was Juno. I was to be in charge of all the Rhinos on Gold under the direction of Senior Officer Ferry Control (SOFC) Commander Heywood-Lonsdale on LCH 317. On the beach I would be directed by the Beach Major. One in four LSTs were hospital carriers to bring wounded back to UK. All casualties would be sent to Casualty Reception Stations just clear of the beach. My landing area on D-Day would be from Jig Green to King Red, the limits would be marked clearly with boards by day and appropriate lights at night. The landing area would be extended if matters went well and then only when mines had been cleared. Eight soldiers of Pioneer Corps would be attached to each Rhino adding muscle with tackles and to take sounding with rods on our way in.
 
Six motorised swim-ended barges from the Thames would be allocated to carry Company stores. Those barges belonging to IWT would be known as PBRs (Power Barge Ramped). Other Thames barges belonging to the Navy would be known as LBVs (Landing Barge Vehicle) or LBW (Landing Barge Water), LBO (Landing Barge Oil), LBK (Landing Barge Kitchen). I would be allocated a small number of Rhino Tugs (smaller versions with only 21 units instead of 180 and powered with one Murray Tregurther). I would also have six steam powered TID tugs which would arrive in the days following D-Day. When I asked Colonel Gaselee what the letters TID stood for he said, in his Noel Coward voice "Tugs Incredibly Dirty".
 
It had been decided that each IWT Company should have its own waterproofed bulldozers (Allis Chalmers D7s) to act as mooring posts when the Rhino was discharging and to provide the necessary push to get it afloat into water deep enough to allow propellers to be lowered. For the trip across The Channel some Rhinos would carry a waterproofed bulldozer on deck and a RB19 (Ruston Bucyrus) crawler crane as their long jibs did not fit easily in an LSTs tank deck. All vehicles due to land by D+10 would be waterproofed to drive through 3 feet of water. D-Day would be on top of the springs, which led me to conclude that D Day would be around 7th or 20th June, full moon or new moon. I wrongly guessed new moon. At least half of the Gold Force fleet of LSTs would be American.
 
At our final meeting the Admiral in charge emphasized that every effort should be made to keep the Rhinos working as they were by far the largest vessels in the ferry fleet. He added that if my contact with SOFC was lost I would have the authority to commandeer naval craft to assist Rhinos in distress. We were then asked individually to define our most worrying problem. When my turn came I said that I anticipated everything would be going ashore and nothing would be coming off afloat. I added that my men were used to working unsupervised and that they would carry on without Company officers until they had been without food for a couple of days. I foresaw that getting food afloat could go terribly wrong.
 
The Admiral then made a remarkable promise borne out by documents revealed later (documentary proof enclosed). He said that he would issue a directive to all ships in Gold Force that every time a Rhino crew came alongside requiring a hot meal they must be given one. I was impressed, having believed that only Churchill had that much power. Much relieved I began to receive directives that particular tasks (such as water-proofing vehicles) would need to be done before D minus so many days, and later the same tasks should be done by a particular date in May, from which I deduced that D Day would be 5th June.
 
On the last day of May our OC Major Don Leaney, a fish farmer from Godalming decided that he could not go, so he was reduced to Captain and his command taken over by Major Peter Philip, of Philip & Son builders of minesweepers at Dartmouth. We began to join our ships in the West Solent on June 2nd and waited for departure on the 4th to arrive on the 5th.  I was partly correct as this was the intention, however, the operation was delayed by some 24 hours due to bad weather.

 Towing bridles for Rhinos were checked and we took on board our own waterproofed bulldozers and some RB19 crawler cranes. They crossed the Channel as Rhino deck cargo securely chained to the deck. During the weeks that followed these cranes did valuable work inside Mulberry Harbour when coasters beached and dried out to discharge stores.

Our Allis (Chalmers D7) Bulldozers became mooring posts ashore and when offloading was complete they gave a much needed push afloat to allow propellers to be lowered for the return trip to an awaiting LST. In the Solent my LST 504 was American, and there was a noticeable difference in the way messages came over the Tannoy. On HMS Tasajera for example, a bosun’s whistle followed by “Out pipes, pipe down” “Out pipes, pipe down”. It seemed strange to hear instead “Now hear this. Now hear this. Those guys who aint got their tobacco ration, go gettem now”. “ Those guys who aint got their tobacco ration, go gettem now”.
 
Late on the 4th some small craft left The West Solent but returned hours later when Eisenhower postponed the landings. The postponement allowed us to collect one last Rhino from repair making our total fifteen. In the evening of the 5th we weighed anchor and headed for the Hurst Narrows and the open sea with hundreds of others. I believed that the Germans must surely know that we were coming. We had been under-weigh for about ten minutes when the Ensign (they suffer as do Midshipmen) in charge of the Anchor Party noticed that we still carried the anchor ball. He made his way forward and slowly lowered it but was spotted by the skipper. I will never forget the anger and humiliation which came over the loud-hailer as the skipper screamed “Mister Kosminski”. “God Almighty”.  With Rhino crew I settled down for the night.
 
Awake early I could see smoke and flames along the distant shore.  LST 504 was a hospital-carrier with pipe cots lining the tank deck and the wardroom was fitted with operating theatre lights over the dining table. 

Breakfast was a bit quiet.


During the night one of my Rhino’s had broken adrift when the rough sea caused her bridle to part off St. Catherine’s Point. Her crew were put aboard by LCVP and escorted back into the Solent; it must have been a bit like going the wrong way up a one-way street.

Eventually we closed enough to see havoc caused by heavy guns above Arrornanches and monitor HMS Roberts replying. Soon we were down the scrambling nets and onto the Rhino to release the bridle while 504 attached her stern anchor to the towing cable and dropped anchor a mile offshore. An LCVP took our crew to release the bridle so that our Rhino could motor round to her bow. We found her bow doors were open and ramp half lowered.  Marrying-up was rougher than we had previously known, some blocks carried away but we improvised successfully.  Within ten minutes her tank deck was empty and we were on our way ashore, loaded.

Someone in War Office had done their homework, for this bit of Normandy was quite unsuitable for LST’s but ideal for Rhino’s.  The landing is best described in two parts:  the “Approach”, which took us as far as the High-Water neaps line, and the “Beach”, which extended from there to a low sea wall.  The approach had a slope which varied a little but was about one in three hundred and the gradient was consistently maintained, unlike the beach at Omaha where the approach was marred by considerable undulations.  We were happy that having grounded our Rhino at Gold beach, our precious cargo would not find deep water ahead.

The beach had a slope which-was generally about one in 30.  Without a ferry service to negotiate the-last mile LSTs would have had to beach at High Water Springs to release their load immediately. The alternative would have been to run aground on the ebb and wait an hour or so before being able to discharge, during which time they would be sitting targets.  I did not see any LSTs beaching during the first three days.  I have heard since that it did happen at Juno, but I think it unlikely.
 
Much happened that day but I will confine this account to a few incidents that stay with me.
QMS Arthur Newcomb, an apprentice friend of mine, went in ten minutes before me when the shelling was especially heavy on the beach and coast road.  When I followed I was most frightened by machine-gun fire and mortar. I caught a mortar splinter, very small, in the middle of my forehead, which bled a little and I used the field dressing that I had carried in its special trouser pocket since Arctic Norway in 1940.
 
Most heartening to all of us was the care of the wounded. Sgt. Shepperd on Rhino F 19 had multiple shell splinters in his back and was whisked off to Casualty Reception Station where wounds were assessed. He was put aboard a DUKW and taken afloat to wait a few minutes while a “hospital carrier” LST completed discharging. Her ramp was lowered and his DUKW with a dozen others, similarly loaded with wounded, took him into the tank deck where there were pipe cots. He waited with one hundred others as they crossed the channel before being put ashore at Netley Hospital in the early hours next morning having done the return trip in about thirty hours. 
It is now known that over forty thousand wounded men made the return trip to the UK in the tank deck of an LST.  

Each time we left a ‘hospital-carrier’ empty we could not resist looking back to see her ramp being lowered to receive DUKWs circling nearby and we were able to see how well someone was looking after them.  The boost this gave to morale was noticeable.  It allowed us to feel confident that we would be on our way home that afternoon if wounded.

Nearly thirty years earlier my father had been a Corporal in IWT Royal Engineers during the first world war on a huge Hospital barge which took seriously wounded from the forward areas back to base hospital at Calais, the journey often taking a week. The Barge was in fact a floating hospital with Nursing Sisters of The Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. RAMC Surgeons carried out operations.

The patients were fortunate in that the journey was made by barge instead of by ambulance with solid rubber tyres running on poor roads.  My father told me that everyone gave way to the white hospital barge.

Mortar shells on our beach seemed to bury themselves in soft sand before exploding, limiting injury to blast rather than shell splinters.  Much of the beach was protected by rows of ‘Pit-Props’, on top of each was a mine or primed shell.  Between the rows, fortunately for us, brave sappers had arrived earlier to clear a pathway for us about one hundred feet wide, this was more than twice our beam.  Sergeant Doug Bates, another apprentice friend of mine, happened to have a Brigadier of Artillery on his Rhino when he went in at dusk when smoke was laid.  There were a number of American LSTs in Gold Force and when the Americans are told to ‘lay smoke’ they really know how to lay smoke.  In this thick fog Bates followed instructions and stopped his engines, knowing that whatever he hit would sink.  For twenty minutes or so he drifted to the west and was well away from his prescribed beach at Vers Sur Mer when it cleared. He made his way back to the area, found a marked pathway in the dark and beached. The first vehicle down the ramp flooded his engine and stopped with its rear wheels still on the ramp. As Bates was on the “beach” rather than the “approach” he was able to lower his engines a little, with room to spare he found himself rubbing alongside a row of pitprops with their mines so well attached that none of them fell on deck. Later the Brigadier ensured that Bates got his “Mentioned-in-Despatches”, the only award to 953 that day. On Sword our fellow sapper lightermen in 940 IWT had a much tougher time, among their many casualties was a fellow apprentice friend of mine, Sapper Eggs Skelton who lost part of his foot and never worked as a lighterman again.  In his company there was a Sgt-Major Billings who was awarded the Military Medal when he took an LCVP through a burning sea to rescue men aboard a blazing Rhino.  Months later I saw that Rhino covered in red rust ashore at Cabourg, many miles east of the landing beaches.
Our own waterproofed bulldozers did a valiant job pushing us offshore into water deep enough to lower our engines. On the approach to increase our chances of staying afloat we aimed to unload our cargo in six minutes for in that time a six inch drop would cause the waters edge to recede the length of a Rhino. On D+I one of our bulldozers ran over a mine and the driver came down in the water with only blast injuries. Rhino F19 (their numbers went up in threes to deceive the Germans) sat on a mine while fully loaded. There were fatal casualties among the drivers but our crew escaped unhurt.  Despite a substantial loss of deck space, the mined Rhino continued to work until after the great gale. On D+3 Newcombe was on Rhino F100 when she put her cargo ashore on the ebb on the approach but could not stay afloat. Most of the NL Units of her outside strings had been holed by hedgehogs on the beach and this affected her freeboard dramatically. Her ramp was damaged and she had engine problems so l arranged for our workshop men to come aboard and make repairs while we waited to fleet on the early flood.  Two hours later, when we came afloat, there were two working parties; Newcombe forward with the ramp party while l was aft with Sgt Dundas working the engines.  We had hardly moved when there was a very loud bang and lots of dark green smoke rose amidships. We picked ourselves up off the deck to find that about twenty of our units had disappeared and quite remarkably there were no casualties. The first thing that Newcombe said to me was “If I was a betting man I wound have a win-treble today”.
On D+2 the Beach Major ordered one of my Rhinos to take 500 prisoners off afloat to an American LST. I cannot remember her number but I do remember that her skipper refused to swap his cargo with mine. The stalemate lasted half an hour during which the prisoners were issued with tins of “self-heating soup” and many of them burned their fingers. The skipper contacted the ‘SOFC’ (Senior Officer Ferry Control), Commander Heywood-Londsdale RN who solved the problem immediately by ordering the swap to go ahead and the prisoners were offloaded. What a photograph that would have made. 

Around D+4 an LST came into the anchorage with a shell hole high on her port bow.  We were told that on her way she had been in conflict with an E-Boat and was a priority.   I searched for an available Rhino and came upon freeman Sgt Ernie Maxwell whose crew were for the most part unshaven.   By this time we were all a bit "bomb-happy" and he greeted me with  “We haven’t seen an officer since we got here and we have had no relief". I answered with "What do you think we have been doing“. "Have you been able to carry on without damage”. When he said “Yes”, I replied “That's why you have been left alone".  I named those we had lost so far and promised immediate relief and 48 hours rest ashore.  He immediately softened and said "We are not in a hurry".  This was no surprise to me knowing that staying afloat meant an abundance of ice-cream and other goodies from American soldiers eager to learn first-hand what it had been like on D-Day morning.

My duties required me to keep in touch with SOFC, so my base was on LCH 317. I was his blue-eyed-boy as my Rhinos, carrying on average fifty vehicles at a time, were by far the largest of the ferry vessels. On one occasion I had sixty Bren-carriers on a Rhino as their shape allowed them to stow well.  Also on LCH was a Captain of Marines who was in charge of LCMs and LCVPs.  When a Rhino lost a propeller one of his LCMs would be lashed alongside a with a Royal Marine sergeant ready to take orders from the Rhino skipper.  Having taken up a position on the highest vehicle, the skipper would give orders by hand-signals to the two coxswains. Sometimes our skipper was a corporal and a Marine sergeant would not always observe the basic rule that you can “only have one captain”.  The situation was much worse when a Rhino had lost both propellers, for having three captains is even worse!

Eventually Tasajera arrived to act as a floating base for Rhino crews off Juno, and Misoa arrived off Gold. I was aboard Misoa when the great gale struck on the 19th June and I could not get ashore. During those four days Misoa dragged her anchor and then steamed a couple of miles offshore to drop and drag anchor again and again. All my TID tugs sheltered in Mulberry, and I must add at this point that they were remarkable craft but rolled so badly in rough weather that their mast resembled the wand on a metronome. The rest of my fleet finished up ashore. I enjoyed a welcome rest from what had been 20 hours-a-day non-stop from the day of our arrival. When the gale was over I began to scan the shore from Courseulles to Arromanches to discover where my fleet had finished up. This was done from an LCVP supplied by the Royal Marines. All went well until we hit a drowned-out tank. I was standing in the well just abaft a crossbeam amidships and my head hit it with some force. I came-to with the Royal Marine slapping my face and I saw floorboards were rising rapidly as we filled with water. We both swam ashore and reported the loss of one of his boats to Captain of Royal Marines on LCH. He was furious.

I was glad that all my TID tugs had sought refuge in Mulberry Harbour as we had lost a lot of Rhino engines and they were sorely needed. Rhino F28 was missing until we found her on the West side of Arromanches where she had battered herself to pieces over the four days, but the pieces were still afloat.

After the great gale many of our Rhinos were without engines and were often given the job of loading stores from cargo ships a mile off shore.  They were then towed to The Haven inside Mulberry Harbour by our TID Tugs. At half-ebb they were put ashore to dry out and be unloaded by crawler cranes and RASC lorries. In bad weather I had to decide when to stop the work and to bring my Rhinos in for safety. This often began with the message “Rhino adrift please send TlD” and this brought me into conflict with Col. Sayers and his docker sappers
who wanted only to improve their discharge-tonnage. 

On one occasion I had to stand-in for an injured fireman on one of my TIDs for twenty minutes until replacement was found. In that time I did not exactly enjoy seeing the bilge water slosh from side to side up to shoulder height as we rolled. In spite of this we had the comfort of seeing them heading into the weather and rising up and over the swell at the last second so that we never ploughed through it — always up and over. Richard Dunston had done a fine job in designing the bow section and those unknown ladies who built the TIDs have my gratitude and admiration.

I left Misoa and was billeted at Asnelles with the rest of the Company officers among whom was Lieutenant F.G.Royston, a man much older and wiser than I. He was given a free hand to gather a team devoted to getting all our craft back afloat. In addition he arranged for our bulldozers to knock down the sea wall just outside the eastern limit of Mulberry Harbour and to beach Rhino F100 to form a causeway ashore. To this he added our other two mined Rhinos joined end-on to form a floating pier, which became known as Rhino Alley. 

At 540 feet long, Rhino Ally was a semi-floating pier which allowed landing craft to come in on the ebb without the fear of becoming grounded. It became “the” way to come ashore dry for thousands of vehicles and tanks from the end of June until October.  It was a very busy place at tide time.

In July we received orders to release two TID tugs to assist at the newly liberated island of Walcheren. Sergeant Jack Hutson and Sergeants Ernie Maxwell were the skippers. The work they did there earned the praise and gratitude of the Dutch who had suffered much. Before he left us Maxwell had a confession to make. He told me that during his time at the port of Ouistreham two French Harbour officials had called to tell him that, as from a certain date, he would need a pilot to enter the River Orne.  He feared that his two-word reply might have unpleasant repercussions.  When I told Colonel Gaselee of the incident he said “Don’t worry, my reply would not have been half so polite”. 

In the weeks that followed we engaged in a variety of work. Landing Ships were able to berth alongside the Spud Piers in Mulberry Harbour and discharge vehicles from the tank deck and the top deck at the same time. Driverless vehicles were loaded from MT ships a mile offshore and this brought us into daily contact with the sappers of No 6 Port Operating Group who specialised in unloading ships. We often had 300 tons of general stores on a Rhino, everything the forces needed from bombs for the RAF to Duffel Coats for the Navy. On one occasion twelve Churchill tanks were loaded on a Rhino and when I watched her through field glasses it seemed that they were floating on water while men walked around them. My fleet of PBRs were mostly engaged in Mulberry Harbour loading stores from ships and then beaching to be unloaded by RB19 cranes. Loaded Rhinos would come in from ships offshore and berth temporarily at The Haven near the eastern entrance.  They would wait to be called in to beach a couple of hours after high water day and night. Colonel Gaselee‘s No 3 IWT Group were based at Courseulles and sadly 953 Coy was transferred to Colonel Ray‘s No 4 IWT Group who operated within Mulberry Harbour. No 6 Port Operating Group was led by Colonel Sayers, who had a pretty low opinion of us. In civvy street it was the practice for shipping and stevedore companies to blame all delays on lightermen. Sayers never waivered from this practice and Gaselee never waivered from supporting me when there was an incident. Ray was not so supportive and so for me it was not a happy time. ’
At last our troops broke through to Belgium and it was time to leave Normandy. Rhinos were left berthed in Mulberry and we were glad to see two LSDs. (Landing Ships Dock) arrive off afloat to take on board our PBRs destined for Ostend. These LSDs were self propelled floating dry-docks and when they left Normandy our job there was done. We left the beaches to continue IWT work in Belgium. We had been asked to survive for four days on the beaches and most of us had survived four months.  Sadly not all.
Someone in War Office discovered that more men were drowned on D Day than were shot. Within two days of our arrival at Ostend I was posted to Second Army Main HQ to assist Chief Engineer Brigadier “Ginger” Campbell. There were dozens of canals and river ahead of Second Army and my job was to assist in planning “The Opposed Crossing of Water Obstacles”. It was believed that a river man would have a contribution to make. Little did they know that l joined up at nineteen when only a fifth-year apprentice.  It was an exciting time with Ginger and it lasted until we crossed our last river the Weser.

 

But that’s another story.