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Eastern Fleet 1943 - 45 HMS Kenya

Soon after Christmas 1942, I was drafted to HMS Kenya, a Fiji Class Cruiser, and joined her at Scapa Flow....

A Post Card From Dunkirk

Comment This card with its message hastily scrawled on the wrong side, was written by my Uncle Joe on the...

Coming Home After VJ Day

I got home, and the first sign I saw of England was the white cliffs of Dover. You hear an awful lot...

Foden's War

Still no joy, and then finally I was called up and went into the Royal Navy ending up as an air mechanic...

Reminiscences of Dunkirk by a Royal Navy Leading Seaman: Robert Lawson

In June 1940 at the age of 21, I was at Chatham Gunnery school, when we were asked to make crews to...

Bunting Tosser

I was breaking my neck to be in the Navy but my father wouldn't allow me to join up - so at...

Mine Laying/Sweeping

This is a story about my father who is sadly no longer with us,and to this day I miss so much,he was...

Landing Craft at Omaha Beach

I was with them when they landed on Omaha beach at about 6.30am. We spent about three weeks going over to...

What War Does to Ordinary People

One sunday when I was in my early teens, I wanted to watch a war film on TV, something my Dad have...

Foreword to Eyewitness on Firedrake

The first two parts cover my service on the HMS Princess Victoria, a converted ferry to a minelayer, and on...

Two Unforgettable Days in My Life

Serving in the Southern Pride, based at Freetown West Africa escorting ships to ports Lagos, Takoradi etc,...

Russian Convoy Incident

What had happened was that an aircraft had come in to land and had crashed into the end of the flight deck....

Per Mare Per Terram

By 1939, prior to the outbreak of WW2, he was on the HMS Southampton bound for the Americas with the King...

A Weekend Away from RAF Henlow

A colleague named Easter from Tooting and myself from Acton decided we were going to go home for a week-end...

Anti Submarine Patrols on D-Day

We operated in Escort groups, and patrolled along defined lines, ours being from the Isles of Scilly across...

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

I then served in two cargo ships and three free Norwegian tankers during the war, being torpedoed by U302...

The cold weather at sea

The weather was absolutely freezing but we still had to go up and down the mast....

The Untold Deaths of WW2

My father worked as an apprentice in Portsmouth Dockyard prior to WW2. He rose to become a Chief Petty...

A Lifetime in the Navy

Boys were sent on cruisers and I joined HMS Birmingham at Scapa Flow on her return from Norfolk Virginia...

Brother Jack

When I was a kid of about 8/9 I had 4 brothers in the Navy, Jack, Mick, Dave, Jimmy... A few days...

H.M.S.Fiji

He was rescued by the destroyer H.M.S. Kandahar which along with H.M.S.Kingston saved a large number of his...

Engineer Apprentice

I was sent5 to Scotland doing maintenance on Swordfish, Walrus, and Spitfires. I went back to Coventry, but...

A Warm Canadian Welcome

I then joined up the Fleet Air Army and pilot trained at Sealand, Chester for twelve months before being...

HM Rescue Tugs by John Topping

John Topping, now aged 76 voluntarily joined the Merchant Navy in 1943, aged 16, as an apprentice... John...

A Man from Tunbridge Wells

At this time there was a great shortage of sailors so William volunteered for the Navy and was posted to...

Recycling Scotch

However, one of the crew who were all Scottish, , John Campbell, the Chief Engineer, in peacetime had been...