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I joined the Royal Marines early April 1940 at the end of the phoney war. Myself and about 100 contemporys were conscripted as cannon foder. A few weeks prior to April a German Submarine got into Scapa Flow and sank the Royal Oak with 1300 men asleep on board. Equal to that it was felt nessesary to send troops to the base for defence purposes. The Germans had already over run Norway and Europe and were facing Scapa Flow. We were only trained for 2 weeks before being sent to Scapa Flow. We didn't have a rifle between us. We only had a steel tube with a bayonet attatched to defend the base. Our Defence Officer Captain Tracey decided the best way to defend the base was to dig big holes and stand in them and wait for the Germans to try and pass us then stick them with our bayonets! But within a week the holes were full of water so that wouldn't have worked. The base was also protected with barage balloons and 1 came down into the water. Everyone thought it was another submarine attack and all hell broke lose. It was pandemonium. We were eventually armed with American rifles but our amo didn't fit!

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