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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sue Manning-Jones on behalf of John Barton with his permission. Mr Barton fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

We were bombed out twice while I was waiting to join the RAF. I had finished my engineering course and was hoping to get in as a pilot but no luck. At first I went into Motor Transport then I joined the 129 Spitfire Squadron and they immediately put me on re-fuelling aircraft. I then did a commando course and was posted to 13 Squadron on Blenheims.

In 1942 shortly afterward joining 13 Squadron we were told we were going away but we were not told where. We were taken to Liverpool, kitted out and boarded RMS Scythia. We had been afloat some days when on the night of 11th November 1942 we were torpedoed just a few miles from Algiers harbour, whilst I was asleep. We had been sleeping wherever we could and in the hold where we were there was a wooden hatch. The torpedo came just under where we were sleeping and the force of the explosion went through the hatch and so saved our lives — there were only two or three casualties, we were very lucky.

We were then taken to Algiers without kit or anything — we had lost everything - and then to a transit camp for a couple of nights before being taken to Blida aerodrome, just outside Algiers, to be rekitted and the squadron reformed, ready to join the North African Campaign.

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