D-Day 75
A personal account of a Yorkshire lad’s experience aboard a landing craft support vessel on D-Day
Like so many who make the journey to Normandy on or around June 6, Jo Halford has personal reason to attend. Her father, Geoff Bulless, was there 75 years ago. As a 19-year-old, Geoff had joined the navy and after some rudimentary training was drafted onto a landing craft support vessel. His was LCS 259 commanded by 2d Lt E A. Tiplady RNVR, a former policeman of Beverley, East Yorkshire.
Geoff’s own account of his experiences appeared in a copy of The Yorkshire Post soon after he returned and, despite being brief, described his involvement with a postevent Yorkshire directness.
“I remember D-Day most vividly. I was just 20. That’s where it all started as far as I was concerned. I was in the Royal Navy and I was on a landing craft support vessel. Before sailing, the skipper called the gun crews into his cabin and briefed us regarding our targets. Our beach was code named ‘Juno’, one among five on the Cherbourg peninsula. Our task was to give the soldiers, in our case, Canadian infantry, protection on their run-in to the beach. If we could make the defenders keep their heads down long enough for the…
