大象传媒

It鈥檚 very hard to go as far north as you possibly could. Close up to Bear Island. But the ice pack forced you south. Now, they had the Turpitz in Norway. They had the dive bombers on the Norwegian coast, and they had the submarine packs at the exit of the Bering Sea coming into the Kola inlet.
And of course, all the skippers were told the same. 鈥淣o heroics. If you鈥檙e hit, drive the ship ashore. You lose the ship, you鈥檒l save the crew鈥�.

The Russians, of course, were very hostile to us when we arrived. They had signed a non-Aggression pact between Germany and Russia. That non-aggression pact was broken when Barbarossa took place, and they invaded Russia. And of course, they just didn鈥檛 want to know us. And furthermore, all the convoys gathered in Valfjord, off Reykjavik. Near Reykjavik, in Iceland.

We were taking 2 things mainly. The Seafire, which was the equivalent of the Spitfire, and tanks. Now, the convoy I was on was all Seafires. The fuselages were coming from Canada. The hydraulics were coming from the States. The engines were coming from Britain. And all the rest of it was coming from various parts and parts. If we lost 4 ships, we eventually arrived at Murmansk, they got enough fuselages for 50 planes, enough engines for 20, enough hydraulics for 15. And they couldn鈥檛 understand, why don鈥檛 you put [enough on each ship to make a complete] Aeroplane when you arrive. They didn鈥檛 understand they were coming from all sorts of places.
They oiled us 8 miles out of Murmansk. If you were in Liverpool or Belfast you鈥檇 oil outside. You鈥檇 oil at Sydenham if you were in Belfast. Miles further upstream. I mean, I didn鈥檛 sit in the town of Murmansk [until a reunion last year].

Cold journey. It was bitterly, bitterly cold. If you sneeze, all the little globules of spit froze as they came out of your mouth. It was just like a walrus. It was the same for everybody. And of course, 2 minutes in the water and you were finished.

[corvette]
They were about a thousand tons. A hundred people aboard.
[depth charges]
Officially it was safe to drop then at 16 knots.
[sinking u-boats]
We didn鈥檛 sink any U-Boats then. The only action I was involved in where a sub was sunk was off the coast of Madagascar.
[in the Indian Ocean]
When the arctic convoys finished, the RN moved a lot of the ships to the Far East.

Those [medals] were all Russian. Every 10 yrs, they give you another one. So 40, 50 and 60 years, you get another medal. That鈥檚 how they accumulate this vast amount of metalware.

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