1210 Mjr. Willliam Wynn-Werninck British Army 19 MT Company Royal Army Service Corps  I sailed over to Arromanches from Tilbury with my unit, 19 Company RASC (MT) of some 250 vehicles, aboard the
Canadian built Liberty ship
Fort Brandon.
We anchored about 2 miles off Arromanches on the east side of the Mulberry Harbour.
That evening about 1000 pm a German bomber flew over us. There was some sp
eculation about what th
e plane was up to, the
feeling being that she was dropping acoustic mines. That night, fro
m a flat calm evening, it blew
up Force 5-6, causing the
Captain concern that
Fort Brandons
anchor chain could set off a nearby mine.
Next morning I watched our vehicles being unloaded onto the big Rhino barges run by the Sappers and went back to my cabin for
a wash and brush up before breakfast. I was just doing this when
there was a heck of a bang. I shot
out on deck where I was
appalled to see, 2 cables away, a corvette type of ship with her bows blown off to the 4.7 gun mounting. She was blowing off
clouds of steam but slowly got
under way, having eased the surv
ivors away, and started heading fo
r the beach adjoining the
Mulberry caissons. We were all saddened on deck as no lifeboat was lowered to help those in the water and, in particular, one
sailor who was manfully swimming
towards the beach a long way ah
ead. Lifeboats were not lowered
for fear of mines. I then
hurried back to my cabin and did three small
water-colour sketches of what I had seen.
In July 1994 I found these sketches and
wrote to Navy News to ask if anyone could identify the ship. To my delight the next
Navy News had several letters in it whic
h gave her name as HMS Orchis (K76).
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