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In March 1939 just 15 years old I travelled from Redcar to London overnight getting the cheapest fare in order to sit the civil service commissioners examination for entry into the Royal Navy as an artificer apprentice. It is regrettable today that the standard of service of safety is so fragile such a journey would not be even contemplated.

I passed and looked forward to September 1939 to join The Royal Navy for 12 years and any period up to that age beginning at Rosyth. However that was not to be due to the impending war. In October 1939 I began four years of apprentice training to be a fully-fledged maintenance engineer aboard a ship at Chatham Kent.

In November l943 I joined HMS Wild Goose to sail from Liverpool. As we left dock the Tannoy blasted forth A Hunting We Will Go! And Hunting we did the prey being German U Boats. We also escorted a troop ship across the Bay of Biscay notorious for U Boats leaving it near Gibraltar. That troop ship contained my eldest sister a nursing sister which received a torpedo just after Gibraltar. Rescued in a rowing boat and landed in North Africa my sister met and married a major in India with flowers from the Viceroy’s garden.

HMS Wild Goose was under the command of Lt. Commander Wemyss. We were called by the rest of the Flotilla Wemyss and his wild geese. Previously U Boats had been hunted and depth charges dropped with the ship at top speed. Wemyss changed all that and slowed down to seven knots working out more depth charges on target. It became known as a creeper attack and proved very successful.

But those powerful depth charges took their toll on us to. We started to leak almost everywhere. A simple remedy for leaks were small wedged shaped pieces of beech hammered into the leaks to say my assistant and I were overworked was a statement of fact.

Since the War and reading books such as ‘Perilous Waters’ ‘Relentless Pursuit’ ‘Fighting Commodore’ Roll on Rodney’ and a ‘Band of Brothers’ I realise war was a terrifying experience. Evidently at one time we were in a minefield, well ignorance is bliss!

One German U Boat surfaced on our starboard quarter, the crew got out and boarded the Wild goose before the U Boat sank.

Returning to Liverpool thousands of Wrens cheered us in as our Tannoy blasted out ‘Down among the Dead Men’. The Liverpool Dockers knew how many U Boats we had sunk because at each confirmed sinking we were given a double measure of rum and a replica of a rum jar was sewn to our pennant flying from the main mast.

It was front-page news in the Daily Mirror March 20th 1944. However we were glad to be back at sea by then we had had a lot of hospitality especially from our adopted town Worsley near Manchester. I for one fell down the town hall steps. The Naval Hospital at Seaforth caused several casualties with their alcoholic generosities

Rather strangely I was in the Naval Hospital at Seaforth recovering from surgery on D.Day. It was a blistering hot day on the Sunday and I was asked to choose a hymn for the service on the ward. I chose Eternal Father Strong to Save. One might say it was silly singing for those in peril on the sea but how apt for those on the channel invading France.

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