THE TORPEDOMAN

Ted Cordery, 95 Leading seaman torpedoman, HMS Belfast

I HAD FOUR BROTHERS in the Army who told me what a rubbish lot it was, so I volunteered to the Royal Navy instead, in 1942. After torpedo school I was sent straight to HMS Belfast and spent two years guarding the Arctic convoys, taking part in the Battle of the North Cape on Christmas 1943. We didn’t celebrate Christmas until 13 January 1944!

We were in the Irish Sea when we were told we were going to invade Europe. We sailed up the Channel past all the boats with tanks in them in the Belfast [supporting troops landing at Gold and Juno beaches]. It was choppy and those men in flat-bottomed boats must have been dreadfully seasick – I felt very sorry for them.

We arrived at 6am on D-day and opened fire on the German coastal forces with our six-inch naval guns. We were about half a mile from the beach. When the Army started going inland, our job was to fire over their heads at the Germans. It seemed to work – later we received congratulations from General Montgomery. But the scene when the British troops started landing was shocking. They were wading through water up to their waists with all the heavy equipment, and when they made it to the beach they were fired on. A number of landing craft didn’t quite reach the beach and lots of men who went into the deep water drowned. I saw them floating about in the water, which really upset me. All they went through to end up like that.

The sound was terrible. Guns firing all the time. Every broadside [volley of gunfire] pushes the ship over a considerable amount. You always had to be on the lookout for a Luftwaffe plane dropping mines, even for weeks afterwards. We were there until August. I have tragic memories of when those poor men came back to the ship wounded. On the beaches they were put on pontoons and carried out to Belfast. I would help carry them up to the flight deck. When I saw their injuries it broke my heart. Faces blown away, arms, legs. I doubted many of them survived. Those faces are still with me. When I think about them I can’t control my emotions. It was a very necessary operation but also a very costly one.

‘The sound was terrible. Guns firing all the time… You always had to be on the lookout for a Luftwaffe plane dropping mines’

Life after the war Left the armed forces: 1946 (retired as leading seaman torpedoman) / Lives in: Oxford / Family: married in 1944, one son, two grandchildren, two greatgrandchildren / Career: Fleet Street printer

Left Ted Cordery today, at home in Oxford. Below In his Royal Navy uniform. Cordery joined in 1942 and served for four years