THE 70th anniversary of D-Day and centenary of the Great War bring memories and mementos of those days into focus.

East Lothian itself was little disturbed by WW1 beyond the building of airfields at East Fortune (originally a blimp base from which airships would patrol the North Sea for U-boats) and at Drem (originally called West Fenton and a base for the US 41st Aero squadron).

But another item from that era is still with us, hidden beneath the waters off Broadsands.

At very low spring tides, jagged metal a long way from home breaks the surface, metal that was formed in Pennsylvania steel mills and riveted together at Cramp Yard in Philadelphia.

The USS Stockton (flag DD-73) was a 1,125-ton Caldwell-class destroyer with a crew of 100. At 310ft-long with 18,000 s.h.p. engines, she was capable of 30 knots and unique for having three screws and three funnels (others of the era were two-screw and four-funnel).

Commissioned into the US Navy in November 1917, she escorted Atlantic troop convoys, chased U-boats off Ireland, then was laid up in 1922 until de-mothballed as one of 50 lend-lease destroyers that saved Britain’s convoy bacon in 1940.

In RN service, she was renamed HMS Ludlow (flag G-57) and allocated to the Rosyth Escort Force.

Extensive periods in dockyard and coastal use only means she proved unreliable for ocean-going escort work. In 1944 she did make it as far as Normandy, escorting a Mulberry Harbour over to Arromanches, but subsequent groundings damaged so much she was laid up, stripped of equipment.

In late WW2, East Fortune was home to No 132 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit using long-range Beaufighters for shipping strike training. Large wood and straw targets on Westerdunes were used for firing practice. These worked well for machineguns but the new 60lb rockets on twin quad racks left nothing but debris. Something more robust was needed.

The surplus Ludlow and its 1,000-plus tons of solid steel seemed the answer, so she was moored off the Black Murphies nearby.

When the massive curtains of water thrown up by the eight rockets of the first strike dispersed, only her masts were above water and the RAF had a new anti-ship weapon. Salved post-war by Easingwoods of Dunbar, just the keel and bottom plating of our piece of America remain.