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Continued from Part 2
Back to Gibraltar and I was posted home. This was just before the ‘Ark Royal’ was sunk! I took passage home in a very small destroyer ‘Melbrake’ hunt class, about 800 tons, one of the smallest ships in the Navy — a corvette is 1200 tons. We had to pick up a convoy in the Atlantic and escort it home. There was a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay and we tossed and rolled like a cork. I didn’t feel too good but got used to it eventually. Very slow convoy, it was a bad time of the war and several ships in the convoy were torpedoed and sunk. We had many chases after Subs and dropped depth charges. I was on board a few weeks before getting to Milford Haven. I had a few weeks leave and went to my parents in Sheffield. I didn’t know anyone and was glad to get back, strange but true. I should now have been due for a spell on a shore base, but our C.O. had other ideas. He kept me in the squadron (820). Also, his senior pilot, senior maintenance C.P.O. and senior T.A.G (Telegraphist Air Gunner). I suppose I should have felt pleased! We re-equipped with aircraft and we joined a new carrier ‘Victorious’ but after a few weeks we got shunted over to another new carrier ‘Formidable’. I spent a few weeks at various Naval Air Stations working up to the squadron. I got a few trips up collecting new aircraft and checking out the ancillary equipment. This was a part of my job. The equipment had to be correct as stipulated in the aircraft inventory. There was also a fair amount of loose gear to be checked.
I flew with Mike Lithglow then a Lt. He was later to become the last Englishman to hold the world air speed record after the war. A super chap, he was later killed when as chief test pilot he was testing the new jet passenger plane VC10. I joined the ‘Formidable’ in Belfast, and took a boat from Stranraer to Larne. I had to have a whacking great carbuncle on my neck lanced at an army sick bay post on Stranraer station. I later had a spate of about six on board ship due to a lack of fresh greenstuffs etc. We all got those from time to time or something else. Pretty primitive getting them lanced in those days it was ‘oh yes, a slight incision will be necessary, lay on the couch’, no painkillers. Even tried the old bottle on them and pull it off by suction. We used to do it on our mates and they did the same for us. We sailed for the Indian Ocean to join ‘Repulse’ and the ‘Prince of Wales’ — battleships. Called in at Durban South Africa on the way — super place, we arrived at Ceylon, now called Skri Lanka, a lovely island. Colombo was very interesting with beautiful beaches. I couldn’t buy any films so couldn’t take many photo’s. We were base at Trincomalee further around the coast. The Japanese fleet was in the area. We sailed to search for them. Luckily, we didn’t find them or I don’t think I would be writing this. It was a dodgy time of the war. Things looked very bad for us all. After we sailed they bombed trincomalee badly so we were lucky we had sailed. Many of our ships were sunk including cruisers and one of our old carriers was sunk off Ceylon ‘Hermes’, also heavy cruisers ‘Cornwall’, Dorsetshire’, Exeter’, Ajax .Our battleships ‘Repulse’ and the new ‘Prince of Wales’ were also sunk with huge loss of life.
We did many trips across the Indian Ocean between Ceylon and Mombassa, West Africa. We crossed the Equator many times. It would have been wonderful in peacetime. It was beautiful at sea, the sunsets, flying fish, dolphins etc. The Seychelles Islands were also beautiful. Mombassa on the Zanzibar coast was noted for pirates and was an interesting place. We could get a nice meal ashore there. Our squadron disembarked to a small place in the wilds — Killindini — where a landing strip had been made. Very primitive but interesting and a nice change from the ship. It only lasted about two weeks. There was lots of tension at sea with the large Japanese fleets in the Indian Ocean looking for us. One of my stores on ‘Formidable; was right under the flight deck. To reach it I had to climb a vertical ladder about thirty feet high and get across a gap of about two feet. I don’t know what idiot designed them like that. It was horrible up there and a quick disappearing act was needed when there was a panic on. It was bad enough being in the hanger let alone being stuck up there.
On one trip we called into Bombay. Very interesting. The railway stations and public lavatories were very impressive looking buildings but houses on the outskirts were just hovels. Poverty and plenty all mixed up. Saw a huge burial area, a large concreted sloping circle with a hole in the centre. The vultures picked the bodies and the rains swept the remains down the hole. Awful smell and flies. I used to sleep on deck in harbour, as it was so hot below. Heard a shot once — we had armed guards patrolling in wartime and one of them had intentionally shot a messmate of his. He was whisked away and charged with murder and sent home. We had an officer who disappeared one night — he was disliked — you can guess at what happened — easy to do — it happened on quite a few ships then.
On one trip back to Mombasssa three of us were sitting right up in the bows where it slopes down. The skipper sent a matelot to say he wouldn’t stop the ship to pick us up if we fell in the sea, so we moved pronto. I had a nice little place on deck where I used to sleep, jus room for one only two inches of steel and a couple of wire stanchions between me and the deep blue sea. I shudder to think of it now. If we changed course at night and the sea swell got up a bit I had to grab my bedding and run. Wartime was definitely a young mans life. We used to play bridge a lot in the evenings if off duty. Same few of us played, I got quite good though I have forgotten how to play now. Also played Mah Jong. Terribly hot below decks, all scuttles closed in wartime of course. Sometimes if it was considered safe we could put the wind scoops in. I met many good types of men. All men joining up for the hostilities had joined the ships by now. I was looked on as an old hand by now as most men were on their first ship. It broadened my outlook a lot talking to so many different people, some already successful in their own business and from all parts of the British Isles. The very bright ones were called ‘lower deck lawyers’.
Back in the UK, I left the ‘Formidable’ and had a rest at a shore base, Cowdray Park. I was offered the opportunity of a commission but didn’t bother. I realise that there are more sailors on shore bases than at sea. Thousands never saw a ship all the war but I didn’t envy them being young, I wouldn’t have wanted not to go to sea.
I next joined 1771 squadron. We were the second after 1770 to pick up a new type of aircraft, the ‘Firefly’, a two or three seater fighter/bomber. We went to Yeovilton to work up and meet all the personnel. These were mainly green, just a few old sweats including me. We had various short stays at different airbases in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That’s what I liked about the Fleet Air Arm, plenty of variety. I got a few trips up in the firefly, very fast for its era. Went up with a C.O. an absolutely smashing chap, young Lt CDR Ellis ex battle of Britain pilot — then attached to the R.A.F. Sadly he was killed doing a night landing practise in the Firth of Clyde just before we joined the carrier. Night landings were then in their infancy. Everyone shaken and very upset but along came a new C.O. and things went on. Always seemed worse if it was an accident and not during an action. We were in Northern Ireland during a very cold spell, all billeted in the usual Nissan huts. Everything froze up, toilets the lot: - a miserable time. Melting a bucket of snow on the stove to get a dirty quarter bucket of water, digging latrines etc. I was on the back of a motorbike once with a young mad pilot. He couldn’t get round a bend and we went straight through a hedge into a field, not soft but the snow saved us.
Finally we were posted to a new carrier, ’Implacable’. We now had about four carriers and many small converted merchantmen and we understood there was a few new very small carriers built but didn’t really know. The front line fast fleet carriers were still only few. The few older ones ‘Ark Royal, ‘Glorious’, Courageous’ and ‘Hermes’ were sunk.
We sailed for the Pacific and we were to be part of a newly formed British Pacific fleet. It was a six-week voyage. Quite peaceful after the last few hectic years. Lots of flying — working up to efficiency, and lots of gunnery practice. Lost a few young pilots as usual, mainly in deck landing incidents. I’ve lost count of how many horrible crashes I’ve seen and can still remember. But, enough to put me off my initial enthusiasm for flying. Planes going over the side and crews just disappeared under the ship. Planes jumping the crash barriers and sliding into the planes stacked at the front of the flight deck. Planes hitting the superstructure of the carrier. Fires on the flight deck. All of these things were regular occurrences on carriers and these were in training! Went out via the Mad and Suez Canal. Just about got through the locks. Interesting going down the Nile — a £100 holiday now I suppose — across the Indian Ocean, again, to Perth. That is a super place and if I ever wanted to emigrate I think Durban in South Africa or Perth would be high on my list of choices. We went round to Sydney. The air squadron flew to a naval air station at Jarvis Bay, south of Woolongong. We were only there a couple of weeks. It was primitive but interesting, Kangaroos leaping around all over the place, at night tome mainly, if I remember right. Saw a horrible a crash there, right in front of me, one of our planes got into difficulties over the runway: - very low. The observer bailed out but he was too low and crashed into a tree, his parachute half out. The pilot crashed still in his cockpit. Both were killed of course. We sailed for the South Pacific, then further north. Our forward base was a small atoll not marked on any maps that I have it was called ‘Adoattol’. Sometimes we called in at ‘Manus’ in the Admiralty Islands off New Guinea. We wanted some long range extra fuel tanks and I went ashore and scrounged some off the Yanks. Got them some rum by way of payment. That’s one reason I was pretty popular with the pilots and chief of Maintenance. I could usually manage to scrounge the required spares if they were in short supply or not on board. I had an inventory of stores that we should carry and not allowed more — officially — but I knew the things that went unserviceable (u/s) more often and I kept a secret hoard of what I could get hold of. We had a lot of trouble with old hydraulic legs once and I got hold of a few. Exhaust manifolds was another thing needing replacement more often than the book of rules thought. I can even remember the inventory number: - 56DD/ plus a long number!

Story continued in Part 4

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