大象传媒

I am reliably informed that my independent journey started on 14th February 1917 in St. Mark's street Byker Newcastle upon Tyne and that we all moved to Alnwick in about 1920 to The Bungalow, Sea View Terrace, we all lived there until 1931 when, due to fewer jobs on the railway at Alnwick, Father got a similar job to that he had at Alnwick at Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, I had just started working at the Bookstall at Alnwick so continued there and lodged with my Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate, this, so that I could keep my job, I was one of the few who left school at that time and got a job, there was then little or no support for unemployed people. This system did not work out and I soon was back living at home and travelling daily between Heaton and Alnwick on a privilege ticket because my pay was so low I still qualified for this concession, in the mid 1930's I was promoted to Assistant at The Bookstall at Alnwick, I then had to go back into lodgings because I had a much earlier starting time in the mornings, I then lodged with Mrs. Sproat, 5 Sea view terrace [Father had also lodged there when he first moved to his job in Alnwick] I continued lodging with her when she moved to St. George's Crescent after a spell there I shifted lodgings to Mrs. Athey Narrowgate I had my 21st. Birthday during the time I lodged there then I shifted lodgings to Mrs. Appleby 46 Clayport Gardens, and lodged there until my call-up for National Service in June 1940
When I was about 12 years old I worked part time, from 5.00pm to about 7.00pm on school days and from 9.00am until 8.00pm on Saturdays with a mid day meal break it was not a long enough break to allow me time to go home, I had sandwiches in the back of the shop [the shop is now Lillian's Ladies Hairdresser Fenkle St.]
When I registered for national service I accepted the advice of whoever was behind the desk and went into the Royal Marines, he probably was a Marine NCO my call-up to the marines was deferred because of too high blood sugar content, so the road to victory was delayed until June 1940. I was one of 44 men who became Hostilities Only Training squad number 14, HO Squad 13 had started their training about a week before us and we both finished our training at about the same time, so we did our passing out parade together, at the end of the war, of these two squads there were few survivors, 14 squad there were 12, and 13 squad there were 6. I then spent most of the next 7 months in Stone-house barracks, Plymouth being trained to be a good marine, much of the time was spent square bashing and P.T. there was also a spell under canvas in Cornwall and, just before Christmas a spell at Chatham learning the basics of naval gunnery, we were granted home leave from there and my journey to Newcastle took about 23 hours, the train was stopped somewhere in the midlands because of a heavy air-raid. We returned to Plymouth and in January about 10 of us travelled by train to Greenock to join HMS Furious anchored at the Tail of the Bank in the Clyde between Greenock and Gourock. That was an interesting experience as we were the first Hostilities Only personnel to join the Furious, most of the ship's company had been on board for a long time before the war and many of them in those early days did not like the idea of civilians interfering, and of course most of us had absolutely no idea of ship's routine or anything of that sort, however, we weathered the storm and quite quickly made good friends with many of them.
My first trip was to Freetown with fighter Aircraft to fly over Africa to join the 8th. Army, soon after we left the Clyde we were ordered to shoot at a mine which was floating loose on the surface of the sea, we fired quite a lot of bullets at it but did not manage to hit one of its horns, the next 3+ years seemed to be mainly sailing some of the world's oceans, these thoughts and recollections may not be in date order, I am writing them as they are recalled. We were in the home fleet for some time, and during that time provided air support for some of the Russian convoys, the ship, and its escort sailed about half way then turned back from north of the Norwegian north coast. Much of our working time, when not on watch or at action stations, was spent chopping off ice from the guard rails and other exposed surfaces, the sea spray and any moisture quickly froze and could cause the ship to become top heavy. For this work we were provided with a small hammer and were warmly clothed in balaclava, duffle coat and gloves, the maximum time we were allowed to work per spell was 20 minutes, then we were found work under cover It was about this time that we first met the Americans, they were in a few battleships and cruisers in Reykjavik harbour Iceland, we spent a few days there and on a Saturday afternoon I and 4 others sailed a boat for a good distance up the fiord, it was very enjoyable, Iceland is a wonderful country, at least I thought so from the bit that I saw.. We also did a few trips taking planes for Malta, the planes were loaded on board in crates at Greenock, then RAF personnel came on board and assembled the planes during the journey to the Mediteranion, the pilots flew off when we were off the coast of Algiers, the planes were fitted with extra fuel tanks. We did a few of these trips, and on two return trips to Britain I was part of a guard team keeping watch over two prisoners, a German and an Italian, they had been mini-submarine operators, and had been captured near Gibralter, at about that time a British battleship had been holed and settled on the harbour base in Alexandria, this was caused by a limpet mine being attached to it by a man similar to our prisoners.
The next recalled action is what became known as the Malta Convoy, I and many of my colleagues at the time wondered about attempting such an operation at that time when the Germans and Italians had almost full control of the Mediterranean, it was claimed at the time that it was essential to maintain Malta, was that the real reason or was it a public relations exercise to boost some British egos. At the beginning of the convoy there were about 14 merchant ships, battle-ships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers escorted an assortment of cargos and these. The Nelson, and, I think the Rodney battle-ships, Victorious, Indomitable, Indefatigable Eagle, and Furies air-craft carriers each carrier had 6 destroyers as escorts, and there were also destroyers amongst the merchant ships escorting them, almost all of these ships had moved through an area of the Med when a U Boat fired 3 torpedoes into the Eagle, at the time it was about 1 mile from us and we were busy flying off aircraft for Malta, this made it a more trying time for us because when aircraft are taking off or landing the ship has to sail into the wind in a straight line and cannot do any zig zagging as was the normal practice One man, on seeing the Eagle sinking, broke down and sat on the deck, crying and blowing up his life-belt calling out that we would be next. The big number of men killed and wounded in this exercise and the many ships sunk and damaged made it seem to me too costly an effort, there were only about 4 merchant ships reached Malta. With the loss of the Eagle and the severe damage to the other 3 carriers, we got the job of "H" force carrier, we were based in Gibraltar and did frequent patrols in the Med. In any warship many of the ship's company have to work inside, on lower decks, at the time we got the job with "H" force we had a Commander who had spent most of his naval career in destroyers, and when there were air raids he used to give a running commentary on how good or otherwise the aim of the attacking aircraft was, this information was appreciated by the many who could not see what was going on. They could, of course, feel the shock of the hits and near misses when they happened, we had quite a charmed life for a good spell, but it did come to an end, we had a rather rough time, and, as a result we had some new holes and there had been serious fire damage to both air-craft hangars, this meant that we were not as efficient as we were required to be in that area at that time, after a couple of days in Gibraltar we sailed out and there was a strong rumour in the ship that we were headed for America, after a couple of days at sea we were informed that we were, in fact, headed for the USA We were told that about half the ship's company would stay with the ship, the others would transfer to another British navy ship which was already in America and ready to return to active service. Our destroyer escort was reduced to a minimum and we were to rely on our aircraft patrols to detect any enemy presence, it was soon discovered that someone was interfere ing with the aircraft .We had a 5th columnist in the ship, the ship's captain put the hangars out of bounds to all the ship's company, he then ordered the marines to provide patrols to keep watch in the hangars, I was one of the patrols we were armed with loaded revolvers and there was a frequently changed pass-word. The culprit was soon discovered, he was court-martialed on the ship, I was part of the escort at his court-martial, he was returned to Britain and interned for the duration of the war Our first stop was Jamaica where we filled up with oil, we were only there for about 36 hours our next stop was Burmuda, I had a few hours ashore there Soon after we left there lists of names were put on the notice boards of the men who would be leaving the ship after it arrived in America. We next arrived in Philadelphia naval dockyard. We stayed in America for about 6 months and were there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, where they severely damaged or sank a big part of the American navy, we returned to the Clyde and from there half the ship's company were given about 1 month home leave, the ship sailed to Rosyth so the leave party had to rejoin the ship there, the customs officers at Greenock were not as strict as they were at Rosyth. During our journey across the Atlantic we had to endure a severe Atlantic storm, very- very strong winds and huge seas with waves more than 40 feet high, all the open decks were fitted with storm support guide ropes and at times the open decks were out of bounds to all. We were in the storm for about 48 hours and one night a very severe wave caught the ship beam on and caused a lot of damage, some boats were washed away and most of the mess-deck's crockery was smashed, tiers of lockers riveted to the decks were torn loose, there were also many men injured, with broken limbs and other injuries. The Commander, who gave the running commentaries, became a casualty, in the invasion of North Africa aircraft from the ship attacked targets on land near Oran, he was killed there, his death was mourned by almost all the ship's company and for the next couple of days the ship was like a ghost ship, this was unusual because when there were casualties the friends of the killed or wounded felt sorry for them but there was also the [not expressed] feeling that it was better him than me. The assembling of the vast armada in the Med. prior to the North African invasion was an unforgettable sight, in an ocean where for years we seemed just to be able to hang on there was a huge fleet, all round us there were Battle-ships Cruisers Aircraft carriers Destroyers and all sorts of other ships carrying men and materials for the invasion. Everywhere we looked from horizon to horizon there were ships spaced out. We then split up into groups and moved towards the area we had been allocated, the Battle-ships bombarded shore targets using their main armament and our aircraft also attacked land areas. Soon after the invasion we sailed into Oran harbour and stayed there for a couple of days.
When the Beveridge Report was published it created a lot of interest but, in naval ships there was very little information, we had radio receivers on each mess deck but they were usually tuned to the forces programme, similar to radio 2 today. When we were in harbour some men were able to buy a newspaper, these were often difficult to get because everything was severely rationed, rationing was very severe, I cannot now remember the small portions of essential foods and other commodities that was the ration, non-essential foods and others were supplied on a points system, when you had used up your points for a period you could not get any more of the points goods. As the years went on the mixture of career men and HO men got nearer a balance and I think it gave us a much wider field of subjects to discus although there were times when everyone had to concentrate on the job in hand, there were also many long periods when conversations, discussions etc. were the only way to escape boredom so we talked about the Beveridge Report, after many discussions Leon Green and I talked to the ship's Chaplain about the report, he was able to get for us, on loan, an abridged copy of the report, we read it, had some more meetings with the Chaplain and it was agreed that we call an open meeting in the ship's recreation room, the Chaplain chaired the meeting and a naval Lieutenant and I addressed the meeting, we had agreed which aspects of the report we would each speak to, and then do our best to answer any questions from the meeting, it went quite well and there were about 40 at the meeting. Leon Green was another of HO14 squad, he joined the Furious with me, left it a few weeks ahead of me in 1944, we were in different companies in barracks, but we were both listed for HMS Golden Hind in late October 44. We boarded the troop-ship Empress of Canada [it had been Empress of Japan] at Chatham and sailed through the Panama Canal to Australia where we arrived about 6 weeks later, just about 1 week before Christmas 1944.The journey through the Pacific was at times very interesting, watching small shoals of Flying Fish suddenly take off and later land to go again below the sea, was marvellous to see, their bright colours were really worth seeing, they seemed to fly as a group but the Porpoises seemed to do their above water flying as
Individuals and also as part of the group.

The reason for our Australian trip was because by then the Navy had many ships operating in the Pacific ocean and, because they were engaged in operations against the Japanese there was the possibility of casualties and the Navy needed replacements convienialty near the scene of the operations, there was some confution in England after our names were published on the notice-board in barracks鈥� we had to parade to hand in all our sea-going equipment and we were issued with shore-service equipment. A few days later wee had to parade again and reverse the procedure, the instructions had been cancelled. We were convinced that we were to be moved to the islands as snipers, because all those from Plymouth were rifle marksmen, fortunately for us this rumour proved to be wrong The troop-ship had been a luxury liner with wide prominard space and walk-ways, these had three or four tier bunks using most of the space.
The first few weeks of our stay in Australia were spent in bell tents in a camp on one of Sydney鈥檚 racecourses, then we moved to the harbour where we occupied a big warehouse. It also had space and shelter for a transport battalions cars and other transport, my job was as gatekeeper. We had to check that all vehicles leaving the Warf had valid work permits. While I was at Woolamaloo Docks I managed to get a strange dose of Tonsillitis, it made the Doctor tell me that I must not lift anything and he phoned for an ambulance which took me straight to hospital, for the first week or so I was strictly a bed patient then I was gradually allowed up for longer and longer periods. When I got back to Woolamaloo I found that all my gear had been safely packed away. A strange thing about this Tonsillitis is that I had another serious do shortly after I returned home.
I had gone home to Newcastle but by Monday morning I had a severe throat infection, the doctor was called out and he diagnosed Tonsillitis, this kept me in bed for a long spell.
I have not had any more since then; the prescribed medicines must have cleared out the problems.
Two separate incidents on the Furious I recall, they concerned two different men, and the first was during our first air attack at sea. The ship鈥檚 company were at action stations and, after the first wave of bombers had passed overhead we noticed that one member of our gun crew was standing as though fixed to the deck, some of us grabed him and lifted him down the hatch and passed him to the ammunition supply crew out of the way of the ammunition cases which shot out of the breach at a good speed. He could not move on his own.. This was my first experience of what was, I suppose, a form of shell shock.
When we returned to harbour he quite quickly returned to barracks. Another incident was after the Eagle was torpedoed; the Furious was flying off fighter aircraft to Malta. During flying off on this scale we were at 鈥渁ction stations鈥�. While flying off or on aircraft the ship had to sail in a straight line into the wind to assist the aircrafts take-off or landing. A few aircraft took-off then the ship turned round and came back to about where it had started the exercise, then repeated the process until all the aircraft had got Fairborn鈥檚 for one way we could see the Eagle from our gun position, and it was then that an experienced member of our gun-crew broke down crying that we would be next and sat blowing up his life-jacket. It was a traumatic experience, fortunately he recovered and we carried on.
The German battle-ship Tirpitz for a few months was anchored in a fiord in northern Norway and aircraft from the Furious carried out some raids on it; to do this we sailed across the North Sea then the aircraft flew over the ship and bombed it. They had a very difficult job, not only had they to contend with the antiaircraft fire but they also had to cope with the high steep slopes of the sides of the fiord. They did some damage to the Tirpitz but unfortunately we lost some aircrews and aircraft.
After operating for a long stint in the Mediteranian we returned to Britain, one night while coming through the Bay of Biscay we changed from cruising stations to action stations. Shortly after we had closed up the Commander broadcast quietly that they had received a message from the Admiralty that there were 9 U-Boats operating in our area, we resumed cruising stations after daylight when we got to Britain we joined the home fleet at Scapa Floe, we spent the next few weeks on operations in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, We then moved to Liverpool-to the Gladstone Docks near Bootle, there we prepared for some maintenance work to be done Bootle at that time suffered a week of intense air-raids with heavy bombing and incendiary bombs, after a week of this we moved to Belfast. I think the intension was that we should have the work done there. The Germans thought differently, Belfast had a few nights of very heavy air raids, again with heavy bombing and incendiary bombs. One night, I had been a-shore with Billy Burke (a fellow Marine whose home was in Belfast) we had just gone to bed when the air raid started, we stayed in bed for a while but when the bombing got too close for comfort we got up. That night we extinguished 12 or 13 fires, they were mostly in attics where we had to crawl as flat as possible to keep below the dense smoke.
One morning when I walked back to the ship I had to walk on splintered glass, the shops at that time had very big plate glass windows and the suction caused by the explosions had pulled the windows out and shattered them on the pavements and roads. When I got back to the Dock Yard I had to make a detour because the dock where the ship was berthed was closed off, a land mine had floated down, during the air raid and the cords that held the parachute and land mine together had rapped around the steam pipe that protruded from the brow of the ship. The bomb-disposal people dealt with the land mine.
We soon left Belfast and had the work done in Gibraltar and we had another spell of Mediterranean cruises.

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