Description
Frank Diffell was called up into the Navy in 1943 at the age of nineteen.
He served on HMS Empire Anvil, a troop ship. His job on D Day was to control LCA’s, which ferried US soldiers onto Omaha Beach. Frank was in the first wave and took thirty-one soldiers of the US 1st Infantry Division to the most eastern sector of Omaha. The beach had some of the worst gunfire and unfortunately so many lost their lives there, and was under fire as he landed the troops.
Frank then continued to take supplies across to the Mulberry Harbours constantly taking fire.
He left the Navy in 1946; it was never a career for Frank. His father had started a transport business so for the rest of his life he spent driving lorries. Frank married and had two children.
Print taken from the book ‘A TIME TO FIGHT Living and Remembering WWII’
