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Transcribed by Jo Knight

Stan was in the convoy sailing to New York in 1944. In those days the convey would head for the fog banks off Newfoundland to shield them from the submarines. Being in the convoys in the thick fog could be very dangerous because one ship could sail into the back of another one.

Stan was only 17 years old and he was the engineer’s mess room boy. On the ship they had 6 DEMS gunners. One morning he went up on the deck looked over the stern of the ship in the distance he could see a plume of water following the ship, which he thought, was a periscope.

2 gunners were there so he shouted to them to alert them to the periscope. And they both said to him ‘go and tell the captain quickly’. He started heading towards mid-ships when he suddenly thought ‘ hold on’ so he went back to the gunners. Why don’t you two report it to the captain, as you are the gunners? They still tried to persuade him to tell the captain. He suspected something was fishy here. When they could see he wasn’t going to fall for it — they both burst out laughing and explained to Stan. That the plume of water was infact called a fog buoy. This is a safety measure for the ship behind to see so they did not run in the ship in front. .

This was done with a sledge towed behind the ship on a piece of rope.

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