A little more about James' time in the Marines, and a lovely memory of meeting his wife Millie, to whom he's been married for over sixty years...

There was one man by the name of Warrant Officer Chivers. He inspected the lines. He asked me, “Can’t you stand up straight?”

“I am, sir,” I said.

“Put that in the book!” he shouted.  I had to stand still in front of the mirror for two hours then, as a punishment.

I think he wasn’t born like a normal person, Officer Chivers, he was poured out of a big jug, with neither mother nor father, so he was just standing there, a fully formed Marine, nothing else. You couldn’t imagine him being anything other than a Marine.

As I progressed I was put in charge of a landing craft, I was promoted to coxswain. There were forty four troops, most of them crouched under the gunnels, twenty men on one side and twenty on the other.

It had two big V8 engines. It was a flat bottomed boat, so it could be pulled onto the beach and land the troops on sand and mud and pebble beaches. Pebble beaches were the best for landing. It was buoyant because it was filled with thousands of polystyrene balls, filled ping pong falls that looked like expanded treacle toffee. It wasn’t bullet proof but very few people were killed on landing crafts.

After three and a half years I was posted to a training squadron, where I taught other officers about navigation.

It was on one of my visits home that I first saw my wife, Millie. It was the second week in July. Millie was working as a confectioner, doing an apprenticeship in a village across the river from where I lived, a big shop in Rawley. There was this lovely girl standing outside on the step, wearing a short dress and she had flour on her hands and knees.

They’d been baking only twelve rolls a day, but when Millie started she churned out God knows how many muffins and cakes and buns. She ordered more flour and more yeast, and told them to get a new oven. The manager was astounded.

So I met this girl, and all I could think of was, what a nice person. I had no experience of romance. We saw each other, and wrote letters, and there was an affinity. We had lunch in a restaurant of a beautiful shop, and then later I met her parents. Mr Pearson supplied the meat, a lovely piece of roast meat.

I spent time with Millie’s grandfather too. He had a 1927 Alvis motorbike, and we worked together on it, got some new tyres for it. I think that was why he accepted me, in the end.

                                   WW2 Landing Craft