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This story has been entered by a volunteer on behalf of Mr Hubbuck. The author has seen and agreed to the People's War House Rules.

At the beginning of WW2, I was a drawing office apprentice in Central London and as such I went through the big blitz and soon got used to seeing headless, armless and legless bodies. I was very lucky as I missed problems in some cases by minutes. One of my worst memories being when I had to get to Kings Cross underground station to get my mainline train home. We were held off one night for half an hour. Eventually we were let out to a scene of utter chaos — a battalion of Canadian soldiers had just arrived from Liverpool en route to the south coast. The air raid sirens had sounded but the men were not allowed to take shelter as the company Commander had insisted they form into ranks for inspection. The station was hit by two land mines. There were bodes everywhere, falling out of the cast iron roof structure where they were blown — hundreds killed, it was all hushed up.

I joined the Navy in 1942, got put into Combined Operations at the start of the invasion force. In 1944 my ship was blown to bits and I spent 10 hours in the water, catching pneumonia several times, plus another chest condition meant I was unfit for further service. I was discharged with a disability pension and told my life expectancy would be to 1950, but I’m still here and still get the pension.

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