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This story was added on behalf of John Abrahams by Holly-Anne Rolfe of London CSV volunteers. The author is aware of the site's terms and conditions.

This is the story of how the ship I served on was sunk, twice on the same day, exactly four years apart.

I served in the Royal Navy as a qualified radio officer from March 1940 to September 1945 during which time I made several trans-Atlantic and cross-channel crossings, and sailed all around Africa.

I was sunk twice, the first time whilst crossing the Atlantic, in my ship ‘The Jersey City’, which had about 70 men on board, on the 31st July 1940 and second exactly 4 years later on the 31st July 1944 crossing the English Channel when my ship ‘The Fort Kaskaskia’ was hit on our 7th trip back from Normandy.

This second time, we made our way slowly back to shore with a hole on our side about the size of a bus, beaching eventually at Dungeoness near Gravesend. I had dumped all our codes and secret papers in a weighted bag overboard and so we had no signalling capability and it wasn’t until we saw a destroyer in the distance and eventually communicated with this that they told us we had just worked our way through a minefield.

Once at shore, they told us the ship had to be sailed all the way back up the coast to Newcastle to be mended. We didnt fancy this journey through the North Sea very much at all, especially with this great hole in our side! The journey took us about 2 weeks and then it was off on another mission!

I always remember the date, as you can imagine, but I don’t sail anymore.

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