大象传媒

Jimmy Boyd

I was born on the 18th April 1917 in Greenock, St Laurence St. As a matter of fact I was born on a Friday at 8 o鈥檆lock and my mothers brother was killed in France at 12 o鈥檆lock 鈥� one out one in. I was brought up and raised in St Lawrence St. The old man was pretty ill, he was dying actually, 鈥� this wee woman came up to me and said 鈥渋s that Jimmy Boyd? I said yes 鈥� what a fine looking man he was when he came up Arthur St in his kilt, then she changed tack completely and said 鈥� 鈥楢nd your mother put out a lovely washing!鈥� How can this nice wee woman 鈥� how can she see beauty in a washing hanging out?

I went down to Devonport with George McLure. He was to be an engineer and I a seaman. Half my class were Glaswegians and the other half Mancunians and Liverpudlians. The Glaswegians were always giving it 鈥� I belong to Glasgow 鈥� especially when they had been on the cider. I taught them the Green Oak Tree. George was sunk in the Java seas, captured and put in a Japanese POW camp. He heard the Green Oak being sung and was surprised to hear the singers were all from Manchester.

The first navy job I had was as a fireman. We ran round setting up hydrants, four man pumps and that. Then I was on HMS Cusey (?), a French packet steamer sent over from Dunkirk time. It was a wreck of a supply ship full of big black rats and no lavvy. The crew was just a steaming crew, stokers and seamen, just to keep it moving. All the crew had been involved in a sinking. Some of them would wake up screaming in the night. All of them were nervous. We put one lads hammock in the middle of ours so we could reassure him if he woke up in the night.

We had a petty officer on board who was building a bungalow in Cornwall. He would go ashore to catch the bus home via a patrol boat and the barracks. We would row ashore to where the bus picked him up and give him a wash hand basin we had unscrewed from the ship. 鈥楾hanks very much lads鈥�, he said.

I did my initial training at HMS Raleigh. A huge place with a vast parade ground sloping down to St Johns lake. We got shots of handling the squad for drill. One lad, a big handsome chap, who was a bit of a mother鈥檚 boy had us marching down into the lake. One bloke said 鈥� Hey Wullie, say something - even if it鈥檚 only goodbye. He couldn鈥檛 get the right order out. We went off to Scapa Flow to join the Rodney. The Rodney had 16inch guns. I met Alf Knaggs there who had married a girl from St Laurence Street, next to me. We were pals for years.

We went on convoys to Nova Scotia, going across at the pace of the slowest ship. A hundred and four ships doing 7.5 knots. The Scharnhorst attacked and sank a Chilean reefer and we got after the Scharnhorst. We picked up the Chilean crew on the way. They thought we were the Scharnhorst coming back for them and started rowing away. The first man on board was McGhee from Ann Street(in Greenock). We chased the Scharnhorst as far as French waters.

We had a fleet of destroyers coming from Nova Scotia and we took them to the Clyde. I was in Greenock often but seldom allowed on shore.
Once I took some Polish Officers on shore and saw my wife with the pram on the Esplanade but too far away to shout on. There had been a rumour the Rodney was coming in and she had come out to see. You could see the lum reeking, so to speak but you just had to live with it.

We were out dropping POW in Iceland and the Bismarck was near Denmark. We got to the point where we were going to meet it (7am). There were heavy seas that night and I was on watch 70 ft up. The ship rolled badly all night with the weight of its armour. You just held on, held your breath and prayed. The fog was almost as high as the look out post. You had a phone to report anything you saw. The Captain was an Ayrshire man. His battle flag is in a church down there. He gambled that the Bismarck would run for home. It鈥檚 companion cruiser ran for a South American port. The radio said the Bismarck was spotted 20 miles ahead. We were doing 24 knots, we were only meant to be doing 20. We caught her up and opened fire at 18000 yards and finished up 3000 yards away. We blew our own guard rails off. It was a big thing, the Bismarck was a prize. Getting revenge for sinking the Hood. Churchill wanted it sunk and it was quite a feat to find it in the North Atlantic without a radar or anything.

Later on we went to Iceland, patrolling from there to Greenland and then to the East. The Tirpitz was still there and we didn鈥檛 know what it would do. They would come out of the Denmark strait which had very changeable weather, wild.

We went to Boston for a refit. There was a place nearby called Quinzy. If you shouted Jock everyone on the street would turn round. A load of Scots went out there in the depression. I was in a house there and there were 16 Greenock families represented. One chap gave me a ring to give to his sister in Greenock. I had to refuse as I didn鈥檛 know where I was going and he wasn鈥檛 very happy. Then I went off to the Caribbean to ready the guns and practice. One of the RAF boys would trail a drone for us to shoot at. Once he radioed in to ask his CO to tell these sods I鈥檓 trailing the drone not pushing it; only he didn鈥檛 say sods.

Then we ran convoys to Malta. The Germans were in Bengazi, they just had to wait for you coming. We鈥檇 come through at night. The first convoy had 14 merchant men, two carriers, two battleships, four cruisers and 15 destroyers. We got three through. It was the worst convoy to be on. E-boats, u-boats, high level bombers and dive bombers. Things were pretty warm. The Rodney got a bashing. The Italians had big 3 engine planes that followed you over the horizon. We picked up Argyll鈥檚 on Gibraltar. They volunteered because they were bored where they were.

Back to Scapa Floe and I got leave. Got home and the next day I got a telegraph 鈥� I was going to be sent to Portsmouth to be a physical trainer. I trained a lot of foreign troops who were heading back to Europe. Later, when they thought they would have to fight the Japanese, island to island back to Japan they wanted to train a hardcore of medics and the like. But then the US dropped the bombs and that was it.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.