大象传媒

This story is written by the son I never saw. My wife was 6 months pregnant when I was killed in action.

I was a career member of the Royal Navy. I had enlisted long before the war started. I was a Stoker Petty Officer in a minesweeper on the Russian Convoys.

These ships were small wooden craft, made so because their job was to remove mines including magnetic ones. If the ship's hull was made of wood then it would not attract the magnetic mines.

This in turn, of course, meant that they were more vulnerable to attack because their hulls were more easily destroyed than metal ones. This was compounded because they were also comparably small craft.

In the event we were attacked by a U-boat in September 1942 whilst on Russian Convoy duty. They put two torpedoes into our hull; the reader might imagine that with a wooden hull there was not much left.

In spite of being below decks, through working as as a stoker PO, I did survive that attack. I was in the freezing North Atlantic water but was picked up by a fishing boat. A U-boat (probably the same one) then also torpedoed that boat and I was killed.

I loved my country and believed in the cause of freedom, but I left a pregnant widow, plus a young son of 6. I wonder how the world is today? Was it all worth it?

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