大象传媒

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This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygather, Martine Knight, on behalf of Jack Pidgeon. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

I joined the Royal Marines as a bugler in 1943, aged 14yrs. The pay was 8 shillings a week, of which 2 shillings had to go into a Post Office account.
After passing out I joined the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable.

Later we set sail for Perth, Western Australia. We stopped there for a couple of days and were made very welcome. We left Perth and headed for Sydney where we had a berth at Woolloomooloo. After a couple of days at sea, in the early morning, the ships radio was tuned to London so that we could hear all the VE Day celebrations.
HMS Implacable had a terrific welcome at Sydney and, after a couple of days there, we left for the Pacific and joined the British Pacific Fleet as flagship. The Admiral onboard was Vice-Admiral Sir Phillip Vian. We spent some time around the Solomon Islands, went North to the Marshall Islands, then on to the Philippines, calling at Manila for mail. When we needed oil a tanker would come alongside and transfer oil to us.

The British Pacific Fleet moved to within 350 miles of Japan and we were called to action stations. At that time we did not know what was going on. The 'H' bomb was dropped and we learnt later that a tidal wave was expected, but this did not happen.

VJ Day came and went. HMS Implacable sent off all aircraft, pilots and aircraft handling personnel and replaced them with 2000 beds and medical staff. We went to Hong Kong and took on board Australian and New Zealander ex-Japanese POW's, who we took to Sydney. We then returned to Hong Kong and loaded Canadian, French Canadian and English POW's who we took to Vancouver.
On the way to Vancouver we called at Honolulu, the Naval base at Pearl Harbour where the sunken American Fleet is that brought America into the Second World war.
Once we reached Vancouver people treated us like hereos because we had brought their loved ones home.

Back in Sydney for the victory march the Royal Marine band was first in the parade and, as I was the youngest person to have served in the Pacific, I led the parade. I can tell you now that, despite being 5'6 1/2" I felt 9 feet tall!

On May 5th 1946 we left to return to England, heading into the Mediterranean, where we saw coming towards us a French Battleship, flying an Admirals flag. It was our duty to salute her. Over the ships tannoy came the orders to "Attention!"
"Face to port and salute!"
"Fire saluting gun!"
I was on watch on the bridge at the time and no sooner had the saluting gun gone off when the battleship started flashing us on her signal lamp. The Captain turned to a signalman and said, "What is she saying?"
"Direct hit!" was his reply.
The seaman whose job it was to clean the gun had left a tin of metal polish in the barrel!

Jack's Journey was nearly over. We had crossed the equator some 13 times and the International Date line twice.

I did not know that on returning to Plymouth the medical condition I suffered from would put me in the Royal Naval hospital for 13 months and I was then discharged from the Royal Marines.

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