Hi,
I am trying to find any information about my late father, Dennis Bodman. Dad died in 1982 when I was 17 and I never really knew about his time in the Navy. A few years ago my aunt (his sister) came across a journal he had written during June 1944, which covered the D-Day operation and mentions some of the boats taking part: MTB 687, MTB 723, MTB 681 (Dad's boat), MTB 666 and MTB 685.
The journal also details the sinking of MTB 681 on 9th June 1944 - Dad was a gunner and luckily his only injuries were a lost big toe(!) and a dent in his head. My mum has the original newspaper cutting of this and I have been able to get copies of three other accounts, one by another crew member of 681, one by a crew member of another MTB who assisted in the rescue and one by the commander of 58th Flotilla, Ken Gemmill. The journals mention several MTBs and also a few names and I am more than happy to send copies to anyone who may be interested.
If anyone has any information on the 58th Flotilla, or remembers my Dad or MTB 681 I would love to hear from you! I do have other various bits of information which may seem disjointed but could perhaps help someone else -so if anyone thinks I can help their search please let me know.
Thank you so much for reading this!
Meli