大象传媒

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

I was in the Royal Navy between January 1943 and July 1946. We had a year's training, in Holyhead, Scotland, S. Wales among other places. I was on a Dog Boat, named Toto by our Skipper after the dog in The Wizard of OZ. There were 28 men in each crew. HMS Wasp was a base we operated from in Dover, but we went all over the place during this time.

We worked out of Great Yarmouth in January and February preparing the flotilla. There were 8 in our flotilla. On D Day we operated from Newhaven.

We travelled to Italy, The South of France, North Africa, and ended up in Yugoslavia. Three of our boats were lost, hit by mines.

While we were in Yugoslavia, we had an emergency call from the Harbour DML [Motor Launch]. We found it blown up half-way up a hillside. The Partisans were looking for bodies. You had to be very careful with the Partisans - you weren't sure who was a friend and who was an enemy. We weren't allowed to go ashore there - it was too risky.

We had a wonderful comradeship among the men. One of them, Ray Tagg, still comes to visit me.

I enjoyed myself. When you're young [18-21] you have no fear.

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