Knighthood for Bay war veteran, 93
● Legion of Honour to be bestowed on former Royal Navy serviceman for participation in Normandy landings
Cold, wet and windy, with little time for fear, is how a Port Elizabeth nonagenarian and World War 2 veteran describes his experience on D-Day – a momentous occasion in history, considered to be the biggest land invasion by sea.
More than 70 years after enlisting in the Royal Navy, James Fisher, 93, will next week receive the highest honour for his participation in the landing on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, and will be knighted by the French government in an intimate ceremony at Alliance Française in Richmond Hill.
Despite his various other medals, London-born Fisher said he was elated to receive such a prestigious recognition.
“As far as I am aware, I am the only person in the Bay to receive this honour and even though I got a lot of medals over the years, this is great.
“It is the highest honour to receive for your service and I feel quite honoured because if I were still in the UK, I would then be ‘Sir James’,” Fisher said.
A grandad of three who still has plenty of pep in his step, Fisher will be presented with the Legion of Honour, which is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Speaking from his Walmer home on Wednesday, he described how he “just disappeared” from his family home and enlisted in the Royal Navy at the age of 17 in 1942.
“I was about six months from turning 18 when I joined but I was still treated like a man in the navy and upon joining we were told to hold out our right hands and a shilling coin was placed in the middle.
“Once you closed your hand you sealed your contract and there was no getting out – that was our first day’s pay,” he said.
Of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord on June 6 1944 – D-Day – Fisher recalls the huge waves coming at their ships.
But because they were aboard the navy fleet and restricted to ocean battle, they never ventured onto the shorelines with the land forces.
“People ask whether I was scared but I don’t think there was much time to be afraid because we always had something that needed to be done.
“It was cold, wet and windy on the North Atlantic and I can remember the waves were as big as apartment blocks coming at you.”
Jokingly attributing his good health and longevity to sleeping in a hammock for four years, Fisher said he had never seen an overweight sailor during his service.
“We slept in hammocks in a room with about 15 guys and because of the motion of the ocean the hammocks swayed from side to side.
“So you would have to judge your timing and pull the hammock down, then jump into it.
“Breakfast usually was a slice of toast and a cup of tea – we were lucky if we had a spoon of beans on it.
“Lunch was a piece of meat and vegetables – dehydrated potatoes that looked like mealie meal,” he said.
“The government did not believe in overfeeding and I guess that’s why everyone was in pretty good shape.”
Fisher’s role as a gunman included firing depth charges – intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating – and worked on two different ships during his service.
He said while this pivotal day in the war – which resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control – was necessary and bound to happen, it meant thousands of men lost their lives on those five beaches in Normandy.
Now living off a British pension, Fisher and his wife were invited to tour the UK in October 2017. They discovered he was among some 200 known surviving navy war veterans.
Of his tour of nine, he was the youngest.