David Stack
When Seaman David Stack sailed into the Cowes Roads at the beginning of June 1944, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
Aged just 19, he was on board the Ulster Monarch, an Irish Sea ferry commandeered by the navy for use as a D-Day troop carrier. They had fitted new derricks to take six new Landing Craft Assault (LCA) boats and were practising landings with troops near Penarth on the Welsh coast.
In the days just before D-Day, the Ulster Monarch received orders to sail to Southampton to prepare for troop embarkation. As soon as the troops were taken on board, the weather changed and the invasion was delayed while the commanders waited for cross-channel conditions to improve.
The landings took place on different beaches at different times, to catch the high tide as it progressed up the coast. Around 7.30am on D-Day, David was off Juno beach helping to board troops in the LCAs and ferry them to the shore.
“We’d been working in the dark since about 4am getting everything ready. I mean in the dark because you couldn’t show lights. As dawn broke and the Germans looked out they would have seen this huge fleet of ships – I don’t know how many for sure, perhaps around 1,200 of them. It must have really spoiled their breakfast!”
For the next few weeks, David’s ship crisscrossed the Channel, between the Normandy Beaches and Southampton, carrying supplies – including ammunition, armoured vehicles and a battalion of ATS girls, amongst whom was Mary Churchill.
“She was the most cheerful of people,” recalls David, “she came down on to the lower deck and the guys had a bit of fun with her – asking if she knew what her dad was going to do next!”
David saw out the war in the Royal Navy and when he left the service in 1946, he went into industry. Starting as a trainee engineer, he progressed to industrial engineering and was soon promoted into management. When he finally retired in 1991, he had become UK managing director of an international engineering company.
It wasn’t until his retirement that David became a St Dunstaner. He had started to lose his eyesight in one eye to macular degeneration and when vision in his second eye began to deteriorate he knew he needed help.
David became a St Dunstaner in March 2002. Over the past six years, David has benefited from St Dunstan’s help in many ways.
A St Dunstan’s welfare officer regularly visits David at home to assess his needs. The lifetime loan of a CCTV electronic reading aid made a huge difference to David’s life, enabling him to read more easily and keep in touch with all his paperwork. To help David maintain his independence at home in Devon, St Dunstan’s has also installed railings up the side of his steep driveway to help him get to and from his front door more easily.
“St Dunstan’s have been kind to me in very many ways. They’ve given me information I need, they’ve helped with equipment and improvements to my home. I also go to St Dunstan’s reunions each year and when I get a visit from my welfare officer she always asks if there is anything I need.”
A growing number of ex-Service men and women are desperate for support: more World War Two veterans are losing their sight and more young British soldiers are at risk of returning home blind.
The reality is that we cannot meet this growing demand without you by our side. Please help us give more blind heroes an independent future. Please support St Dunstan's