大象传媒

Len Kitchen haslived in Hinckley for the past 25 years but during the war years he spent time in the South and in the Royal Navy.

Len left school at the age of 15 and joined Imperial Airways, who were based in Southampton. He had wanted to be a flight engineer when the war broke out but was too young so joined the Home Guard. This kept him occupied as by day he worked on boat planes and by night he often went up onto the New Forest to watch for fires. Southampton was a prime target for the Lufftwaffe and often pilots would drop bombs on the Forest in order to burn it.

As soon as he turned 18 he was released from his position with Imperial Airways and went to join the RAF. After taking the initial tests he was told that he would be put on a waiting list for joining up. Len didn't want to wait, and like so many young men was keen to get out and do his bit. Instead of the RAF, Len joined the Royal Navy and was transferred to an Escort Carrier, which toured the North Atlantic. While on board he trained to be a radar operator. Radar was a relatively new addition to the Navy and as such was always accurate and identifying the whereabout of the enemy. Len was also involved in communications between ship aircraft and the ship that he was on. Sometimes new pilots wanted someone to go up in the plane with them to sort out the communications, and Len often had to do this. The planes on board were called Swordfish and they were much better than other planes as they were relatively easy to land on deck. They were however extremely cold to fly in as they had an open cockpit and so those on board were at the mercy of the elements. While Len always came back from such missions safely, he remembers seeing many planes, usually with new pilots in them, trying to land on deck and missing the ship completely.

Len served on the HMS Kempenfelt and the HMS Pretoria Castle. He was present when Hong Kong was liberated and was one of the soldiers to help free prisoners of war at Fort Stanley. When the British liberated Hong Kong, Lens ship was met at port by a large number of Japanese soldiers who were heavily armed. He remembers the concern on ship that the Japs had not heard of their country's surrender and were ready to fight them on landing. The Japanese did however surrender peacefully and Len spent quite some time in Hong Kong during the latter part of the war.

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