'Buddy, just get us on a beach. We'll do the rest'

Except D-Day didn't go like that for Signalman Eddie Holloway.

What he thought was going to be a quick in-and-out of the Normandy beaches turned into five months on the choppy waters of the English Channel in a flat-bottomed boat with all the stability of mercury on a table top.

It was a consequence of being almost too good at your job. For after a copybook unloading of the tanks, landing craft 700 found itself with time to spare to be diverted to other tasks.

So instead of hastening back to the safety of Southampton - or limping back as many landing craft did - it was told to stay at sea and form part of a protective barrier around the huge battleship Rodney. Later it was used to ferry PoWs from France to Britain.

This was not necessarily how Eddie saw his war going when he volunteered for the Royal Navy in 1942. A service he preferred to the Army "because I didn't feel like walking a lot".

The Worcester boy from Whiteladies Walk and Samuel Southall secondary modern - who is now 79 and lives in Northwick Road - was promptly despatched to Portsmouth for training as a signalman at HMS Collingwood.

He was then assigned to landing craft and posted to Scotland and later Middlesbrough for a swift course in unloading tanks on enemy beaches.

"To allow them to get in close, the landing craft were flat-bottomed with no keel, which made them difficult to control," Eddie explained.

"You got them away from the beaches afterwards, by dropping anchor as you went in and then winding yourself back up the cable into the open sea.

"The danger, of course, is that craft would cross each other's cables, become tangled up and be unable to get away from the beach. Then they were sitting ducks for enemy fire."

Eddie's craft was number 700 and carried the reference P/J. P he knew was for Pompey or Portsmouth, but only later did he discover J was for Juno Beach, the landing area in France designated for the boat on D-Day.

The craft had two officers and a crew of 14. Eddie was the only signalman and his job on the bridge was to receive and send signals, by Morse Code, semaphore or flags, and relay information to the skipper.

Craft 700 then moved to Southampton in readiness for what was to come.

"We weren't told exactly what was happening, but we all knew it must be something pretty big," added Eddie.

"In fact, we thought it was probably an invasion at night because of all the night time manoeuvres we practised."

With the craft loaded with tanks from the Canadian 3rd Division, while they waited the soldiers and sailors lived side by side.

"They were great blokes," said Eddie. "But by and large soldiers couldn't wait to get off a boat and sailors were glad when they got off. Soldiers weren't always that good on the water, especially on a landing craft that rocked about a bit because there was no keel."

Then suddenly, after a false start one day when they were sent into the English Channel but told to turn back after a couple of hours, they were off.

"The weather was really bad, but the delays were causing problems. Everyone was itching to go and everything had been loaded up ready for some time. You can't hold that state of readiness forever.

"I think we caught the Germans a bit by surprise, because they never expected a load of idiots to go out in that sort of weather."

As craft 700 reached open sea, suddenly the enormity of the operation hit home.

"I'd never seen so much activity in my life," said Eddie. "There were ships everywhere."

As 700 formed itself up into a flotilla of a dozen landing craft, its skipper passed Eddie a huge sheaf of information papers.

"Read these and inwardly digest," he instructed. "And what are you like at swimming?"

Eddie winced. "I discovered then it said that if all the signalling systems were lost, it was the duty of the signalman to swim ashore with a message!"

The Allies were due to land on three beaches, codenamed Sword, Juno and Gold.

"We were supposed to be going to Juno," said Eddie, "but it was such a mess. When you practise it all goes fine. You have plenty of time and space. But when you're going in for real with a lot of ships around and they're firing at you from shore batteries, it's very different.

"Mistakes are made. It's no one's fault. These things happen.

"Because of the problems at Juno, we were told to switch to Sword. As we were going in, the skipper was scanning the beach saying 'Can you see a space? Can you see a space?' It was just like trying to park a car.

"As it happened, we had a clear run in. We dropped the door and the tanks went off copybook. Their engines were running ready and it was all over in a few minutes.

"The Canadians had been brilliant as we went over. When our skipper told their officer in charge, who was a Major, we were dropping them on the wrong beach, he never blinked an eye.

" 'Buddy, just get us on a beach,' he replied, 'and we'll do the rest.'

"As they rumbled away I often wondered what happened to them."

Job done, craft 700 turned for home and was making back to Southampton, when there was an order to move up alongside the battleship Rodney lying offshore to form a screen against possible attack.

Over the next few weeks, every time the battleship fired its huge 16-inch guns - nine of them in all - 700 shook.

Eddie witnessed the massive Allied bombing raid on Caen - "The planes must have flown over us, wave after wave, for about 20 minutes" - before his landing craft was switched to transporting PoWs.

"One time we went to Juno and there was this amazing sight, 300 Mongolian prisoners, guarded by two little Cockney soldiers.

"Apparently the Mongolians had been fighting the Germans on the Russian front, but switched sides after they were captured. We took them back to England where they were fed and cleaned up and I believe they were then sent over to Canada to work in the timber forests."

A day when everyone had a job to do...

IT'S an entry in Anne Frank's diary of May 22, 1944, that sets the scene best.

"All of Amsterdam," she wrote, "all of Holland, in fact the entire western coast of Europe all the way down to Spain, are talking about the invasion day and night, debating, making bets and... hoping.

"The suspense is rising to fever pitch."

All the more surprising then that D-Day caught the Nazis napping.

It almost beggars belief that a multi-national operation of the size and complexity of Operation Overlord could be mounted without its cover being blown.

Of course, Hitler and his commanders knew something was afoot and an attack from across the English Channel would come at some time. Whatever else they were, they were not fools. But to keep the invasion time, date and place a secret in the face of so much anticipation must rank as the all-time sleight of hand.

How it all unfolded is quite superbly told in the BBC book D-Day 6.6.44, which was published to accompany the epic BBC film of the event and the exhibition currently being staged in the Imperial War Museum.

The book uses Anne Frank's diary entry as its starting point.

From there, using original and re-staged pictures and a text which intertwines personal reminiscences with historical narrative, it relates how the events of that momentous day progressed.

Right from the pre-planning and assembling of the invasion force, up to midnight on June 6, when Field Marshal Rommel having raced back from Germany to his French headquarters at La Roche-Guyon to prepare a counter attack, the story is told in compelling fashion.

In particular, it introduces a series of quite fascinating, real life characters and charts their D-Day.

Among them are the brilliant American war photographer Robert Capa, who managed to get the first press pictures of the invasion back to England and then collapsed with the effort, and a baby-faced, 18-year-old German machine gunner, Corporal Franz Cockel, who crouched in a 5ft thick concrete bunker on Omaha Beach facing almost inevitable death as hundreds of GIs stormed towards him.

Everyone had a job to do on D-Day, whether they wanted to or not.

It also introduces us to Garbo, the spy, whose misinformation to the Germans led them to believe the invasion would take place at another time and location. Then there is the work of the daring French resistance volunteers, who covertly supplied the Allies with vital intelligence and often paid with their lives.

There is the story of the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who crash-landed in gliders before seizing both the bridge over the River Orne and Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal to become the first Allied soldiers to go into action in occupied France on D-Day. It took only 15 minutes to capture the bridges in an action that has since come to be regarded as one of the most memorable moments in recent British military history.

From the power struggles and the tactics of leaders like Eisenhower and Montgomery to the comraderie and determination of the men on the ground, it's all here.

In all, the book contains 160 colour and black and white pictures and includes archive photographs, images from the BBC film and official Government documents only recently released for public scrutiny.

It's a simple, uncomplicated, but fascinating description of a turning point in world history.

n D-Day by Dan Parry is published by BBC Books and costs £12.99. It accompanies a week of documentaries and dramas about the 60th anniversary. See our TV guide for details.

n We have five copies of the BBC D-Day book, DVDs and the audio CD to give away. Simply answer the following question: Which were the first Allied soldiers to go into action in occupied France on D-Day?

Answers on a postcard and marked D-Day Competition Day One should be sent to Evening News, Promotions Dept., Hylton Road, Worcester WR2 5JX to arrive no later than Wednesday, June 9. Usual Newsquest rules apply.