大象传媒

My father was taken prisoner in 1939, right at the beginning of the war. He was serving on HMS Van Dyke, which was loaded with a WW1 gun and called an armed merchantman!. Three marines were put on board and the crew issued with naval uniforms. Prior to saiing my father had his photo taken in naval uniform. I was five year old at the time and for the next five yeears I associated thiis photograph, which was of a thin man, with my father. One Saturday afternoon in 1945 I came home from the Saturday Matinee at the cinema and there was a stranger in naval uniform in the parflour and my mother was crying her eyes out. She assured me it was my father but having only sseen the photo I expected a thin man but this was a little fat fellow. Apparently after his releaase from POW camp he was in the hands of the Russians and had little food. He spent some time in hospital in Egypt, where he put on a lot of weight, prior to coming home While a prisoner two of his brothers were taken captive having gone down on separate ships and ended up in the same camp as himself.

Unlike the Royal Navy and Army, whose wives received pay during their captivity, merchant seamen were unpaid after being taken prisoner and my mother supported us by working in a munitions factory in Kirkby.

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