大象传媒

I was in the Merchant Navy when the war broke out on passenger liners. Some of the ships were requistioned and transformed into auxillary cruisers under a T124 agreement where Merchant Seaman came under the discipline of the Royal Navy as long as they served on that ship. My job was to push the shells out to the gunners on "The Foylebank."

In Summer 1940. we were in Portsmouth waiting to sail, but with no idea of where we were going to sail to. We had just Portsmouth, hardly got out when we were attacked by German bombers. If I remember rightly it was mostly incendiary bombs - some of my mates were killed and eventually the ship was lost. Survivors were taken off the ship and taken to Portsmouth Barracks. Luckily we were still close enough to Portsmouth for the authorities to reach us quickly.

That night I was violently ill and I was taken to Royal Naval Haslar Hospital at Gosport. I knew I had been inhaling lots of cordite during the bombing and I remained in hospital for 6 weeks whilst it was cleared from my lungs.

Once I had left hospital, I was given a lot of convalescence time to recover fully - and when I was called up again in 1942, it was decided that it was better for me to go back into the Army. So I became a wireless operator in the Royal Signal Corps.

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