大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Margaret Walsh of The Royal Star and Garter on behalf of John Reed and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I started off on the Arc Royal. We were in the Mediterranean heading for Malta. I was a gunnery officer. Lord Haw-Haw said many times "We've sunk the Arc Royal." We went over and bombed the city where he lived. Admiral Sir James Somerville, a real gentleman who was in charge of the Forces, said, "Now he'll know where we are."

My wife was very worried because she didn't know whether the story was true or not. I told her that if we were sunk she would hear it from the Ministry not from Lord Haw-Haw. It was a very worrying time. You are so many miles from home - all you do is worry.

When we went to Normandy on D Day one of the soldiers went over the side not realising it was so deep. He was swimming around not able to get back on board. We went to pick him up and went as far as we could up the beach. We dropped anchor. He was in the water then and swam to shore so that we could pull him back to the ship.

Then they gave me a landing craft. We went to the Far East and met up with the Japanese. My last job was making them surrender their swords - disarming them. On one occasion one of the Japanese said that he'd rather give up Tokyo than give up his sword. I said "Give up your sword, no messing!"

I asked the sailors what they wanted the swords for. They said, "when we meet up with the Americans there'll be any amount of money for these. The Americans will make up stories about how they captured the swords."

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