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This story has been submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from CSV Berkshire on behalf of Mr Henry Smith has been added to the site with their permission. Mr Henry Smith fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I joined the Royal Navy 9th January 1938, as a boy seaman, doing my initial training in H.M.S. St Vincent, a training establishment in Gosport.

I had been working on Herm Island in the Channel Isles. After completing the training courses. I was drafted to the newly commissioned town class cruiser H.M.S. Glasgow. I joined the ship in early ’39. It was to be one of the escorts to the Royal Yacht taking the King and Queen with their two children, to Canada and USA. There was quite a lot of activity getting spruced up, to make the ship presentable for its duties. Memories are fading now on details but the day arrived when we set sail across the Atlantic. This I suppose is what my romantic ideas were all about, sailing the seas to foreign lands. Even though at the back of all our minds was that the war clouds were gathering. We soon arrived at the entrance of the river to Quebec, the city where their Majesties were to commence the combined tour of the two countries. The escorts were detached to pay courtesy visits to various seaports. Glasgow went to Nova Scotia. Where I met my first girlfriend, an innocent one as it turned out. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay.

The ship then moved on to New York, where the Worlds Fair was set up. I do not remember much about the Fair. What I do remember quite vividly was being approached by a man purporting to be a boxing manager. He told me that he had heard all about my successes in the ring, and painted an alluring picture of what he could do for me as my trainer, and of course the money I could earn. I said that I would think about it, but had no intention of doing so. Two of my mates went ahead of me whenever we went ashore from then on. It was not to be, the persistent nuisance caught up with us two days later. I was glad that there were three of us; else I think he might have abducted me. What I didn’t tell him was that I hated boxing, and that my successes were only because I wanted to get it over quickly, and it was pure luck when I did win. One member of the ship’s boxing team was supposed to have ‘jumped ship’. Several of us who had known him well doubted that. Perhaps he had been abducted! Several years later, one of my old mates wrote a letter telling me that the boxer, ‘no names no packdrill’ had been inducted into the US navy and didn’t survive the war. Apparently he had had a few successes in the ring before the Yanks came into the war. My mate knew his parents, so it probably was true.

Whilst the Glasgow was in harbour, the Royal family inspected the ship. There was much titivating up and the ship was dressed overall with flags and bunting. During the visit we flew a huge Royal Standard.

I did get to see the whole family quite close up. I was a messenger and whilst making my way along one of the passage ways below the upper deck toward the wardroom, the Master-at-arms called out ‘Make way for the King’, I immediately stepped into an empty office that had its door open, where I stood to attention while they passed. The officer to whom I had to pass on a message was near the back of the group. Phones were not to be used during the visit, hence the messengers. The officer said ‘well done lad’ as I handed over the envelope. I must say, that double above pleased me.

Apart from 4 messengers, the remainder of the ships company were ‘fell in’ in their various divisions on the upper deck, so I was lucky to see the whole family close up, almost within touching distance. Yes! It made my day and put the icing on the visit. All too soon we were on our way back home. The Royal family came back by air.

By now, although the routines were about the same, they were geared to preparing the ship for war. More stores and ammunition ready for the wartime compliment. The ‘bull’ was still well in evidence, but in the after thought it kept discipline well to the fore. Being the summer, it was much more bearable to scrub the upper deck with the long handled scrubbers in bare feet, I much preferred to squeegee the water away, though I never mentioned it. I had long before joining Glasgow, twigged that it was far better to give the impression that you hated something that you were doing. That way it would almost invariably mean that you got the job that you wanted. It worked most of the time that I was in service. But there was the occasional clever one who thought the same way. Most of the time I was lucky to be able to circumvent the adverse aspect.

Came the day war was declared. The previous week we had been at sea playing at war, closed up at action stations watch and watch about. This was very tiring for me, because previously as a boy seaman I’d had full nights sleep, now as an ordinary seaman I was lucky if I had more than 4 hours. I felt that mans time as opposed to boys time was too hard. As a boy seaman the time served was not counted in the 12 years I’d signed up for. In any case I became quite used to the routines.

September 3rd. We had started the day closed up at action stations. Mine was on the centre gun of ‘A’ turret, the cordite handler, at which job I became quite adept. We had the record for the fastest time for loading and firing the gun, for quite a while. We were beaten by the bootnecks (Royal Marines) when the strap on one of the cordite cases broke as I was hauling it out of the chute. No excuse was the verdict. We were stood down from action stations. I went to the canteen flat to be near a tannoy speaker, where I heard Mr Chamberlain’s speech, finishing with ‘we are therefore at war with Germany’. As I stood there one of my companions said ‘cheer up Smithy, it isn’t the end of the world’. It could well have been, I was one of the lucky ones.

The war was dramatically emphasised the following day, the tannoy came alive and we were urged to listen to the Captain. ‘A German submarine has sunk one of our liners, the Athenia, we are making all speed to her assistance.’ Soon we were making around 30 knots into at least half gale. The ship was jolting and shuddering, pitching, rolling and almost coming to a halt as we hit the larger wave. We were at action stations. ‘A’ turret was being pounded by tons of water. The turret had its back to the incoming seas and it was impossible to walk, everyone was hanging on grimly. Suddenly the ship seemed to be trying to dive to the bottom of the sea, and an enormous crash came as a huge mass of water hit the turret. The inch or so of armour plated back, caved inwards before returning to shape. This caused an anti aircraft shell to shoot from its stowage and careen around the turret, we all kept our feet well out of its way. The shell was finally captured and made safe. Being a proximity shell i.e. one that explodes when it is near its target, we were sweating a bit, that it might have exploded in the turret itself, but the turret captain assured us that it was not primed. The rest of us were not so sure. I know I wasn’t.

The ship then slowly but surely began to rise higher and higher we were all hanging on wondering. Then she started to settle out. The ship was turned and then slowed whilst the damage was accessed. It looked bad, the focastle deck was stove in a little, and 3 of the 4-inch thick stanchions were bent underneath the deck. The damage was considered not too severe and the ship proceeded on its mission. Arriving in the area we were too late to pick up any survivors. But the ship scoured the area with our anti submarine detection equipment, with no success. We then returned to base where repairs were completed. The ship joined ‘H’ force patrolling the North Sea. On one patrol whilst the force was making a high-speed zig zag turn on a very dark night; Glasgow rammed one of our escort screen destroyers. As many spare hands as could be spared were on the upper deck helping the crew of the destroyer to board us. I believe that a couple of members of Glasgow were presented with bravery awards, for going on to the stricken destroyer to search for and bring out any survivors not able to get out on their own, then reporting to the Captain when it was cleared of all personnel. The Destroyer was subsequently sunk. It was about this time that a German Submarine got into Scapa Flow and the Royal Oak was sunk. This concerned me and the mates of our training class, several men, including my best mate, who was the best swimmer in the class were lost.

Life on board, except on occasions like the fitting of anti magnetic mines belt, went on routinely. The next tragedy was the invasion of Norway. But that is another story.

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