大象传媒

Geoff Rudd began his training in the September of 1939, where he trained on the HMS Ganges. He recalls how this training was very strict and earned him only one shilling per week.
In late 1940, when his training had finished he went to Clyde to join the HMS Fiji, on which he did sea trials up to the Scapa Flow where a patrol was despatched to watch the Denmark Straight. This patrol was known as the white patrol and operated between Iceland and Greenland. Geoff remembers that this experience was extremely cold. The whole purpose of this patrol was to intercept German battleships and cruisers, however this never occured as they received a message telling them that they were not coming so they were going to be moved to the mediterranean. On this command they were told to put away their arctic clothing as it was going to become a lot warmer, even though they were told his, Geoff remembers how atrocious the weather actually was. The ship went to Gibralter and then on to Freetown in Africa. This was to bring a convoy back from Freetown and go back to Gibralter.
After this Geoff joined Force H of the Ark Royal and sailed into the Bay of Biscay waiting for ships. From here Geoff joined many convoys in helping to transport ammunition and soldiers safely to places such as Crete from Alexander.
However on May 22nd 1941 the ship which Geoff was on was sunk. He remembers that many lives were lost as seven ships were lost that day. The ship which Geoff was on was the last ot go that day and prior to that they had dropped their safety rafts to help other ships so they had none for themselves when their ship began to sink. This was one of the reasons for the large loss of life from his ship. Geoff remembers swimming between 7.30pm - 12.00am before he was picked up by HMS Kingston which was a K Class boat which was a destroyer. This boat then took them back to Alexander where they were put onto the Strathmore P+O boat where they were then changed to the Empress of Australia at Durbon. Geoff remembers that this bot was not as nice as others that he hd been on and that it was infested with large cockroaches.
In September of 1941, Geoff came home to Scapa and joined the shore communications office and he would work on the boats filling in for anyone who was ill. However this was not the end of the war for geoff, as he got draft down to an Admirality receiving station in Shropshire. He remembers this did not feel like we were at war as it was so peaceful here. However on VE day he was draft to the Far East on smaller ships such as HMS Lordersdale, which he recalls was a hunt class destroyer. From here he went he went from the West coast of Africa and was there when the atomic bombs were dropped at Hiroshima. After the Japanese surrendered he went back to Durbon and then was posted home. This was then the end of the war for geoff.

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