大象传媒

I am of an age where education was mostly for the privileged. You were expected to leave school at fourteen and take any job you could find 鈥� the boys became order boys and the girls didn鈥檛 fare much better as they were fodder for the laundries and other low grade jobs.

Germany invaded Poland on my fifteenth birthday and life was never to be the same again. I ended up working for Littlewoods in Hanover Street, who were making parachutes for the armed forces. I was just a little lad pushing the trolley around, feeding the sewing machines with bundles of nylon, but I was quite happy there.

Then along came the May Blitz, I was aged sixteen and part of your mandatory duties was fire watching. That particular night I was sent to our sister factory in Oldham Place, which was a five-storey building and about three hundred yards from Hanover Street. The bombing that night was very severe, buildings all around were ablaze and I was perched on the roof of this five-storey building and saw it all; funny I was not afraid. My place of employment was bombed and razed to the ground that night and a hundred yards to my left, the church in Berry Street was blitzed. It was a terrible night and a relief when the all clear was sounded. I had to walk three miles home as there was no public transport because of the damage and as I drew near to my home, an ammunition train on Breckside sidings was exploding about every twenty minutes, the noise was deafening and all the trees were covered in white gun cotton.

The next day I received a telegram from the Royal Navy to report to their office in Liverpool (I had volunteered to join when I was fifteen and thought they had forgotten all about me). I was soon on my way to a naval establishment in the Isle of Man which was named HMS St George. It was a completely new life for me, I had signed on to serve for twelve years. When kitted out for the first time I had underpants, this was new to me for I had been used to tucking my long shirt between my legs and yes, I had a tooth brush and a little drum of Gibbs tooth soap. I was also issued with two sets of pyjamas, I always thought only cissies wore them!

The discipline was very severe but best of all I was back to education. We marched to school every day with bagpipes and drums, hail, rain or shine. It was a great feeling and the teachers were all naval officers of the highest calibre.

It was in the Isle of Man that I was to witness one of the tragedies of the war. We were in one of the glens doing field gun exercises, when an Anson aircraft crashed less than a hundred yards away. I ran to the aircraft ignoring the shouts of my instructor to come back. As I stood in the centre of the aeroplane with dead bodies at my feet, I felt a tremendous sense of peace; I was surrounded by a spiritual aura, the silence was deafening but the sensation I was feeling could not be explained. I鈥檓 sure I was in the presence of some spiritual midwife who had come to rescue the very souls of these poor unfortunate airmen 鈥� I later found out they were six Australian air force men on a training flight. It may sound rather a tall story but to me it was a very personal experience, one that will be with me always.

Training over, I was off to my first ship and I joined HMS Renown at Scapa Flow. She was a battle cruiser, one of three in the navy, regrettably the other two had already been sunk by enemy fire - they were HMS Hood and HMS Repulse. However the old Renown proved to be a lucky ship and she was to be my home for the next three years. Life on a warship with a crew of over 1300 men meant that living conditions were not exactly 3-star. We slept in hammocks or on the mess deck and we lived as a small town. There was a hospital (sick bay), a school for those who wished to carry on with their studies, a shop, a clothing store and of course a church. We had prayers every morning and I think by the time I left Renown, I knew most of the hymns in the church hymn book.

Each man (and in my case, boy) had his own allotted duty, whether it was down in the engine room or high above on the bridge in the control tower. Every man was important, the boy on the lookout bridge, the seaman gunner at his gun turret, the stoker in the boiler room, the cook in the galley, the captain on the bridge 鈥� we all relied on each other to give of their best for the good of a happy, well-disciplined ship. Wouldn鈥檛 it be great if we, in civilian life, could work as a team for the benefit of each other instead of the rat race we have become so accustomed to?

Having served in the home fleet and after we had taken part in the North African campaign (Operation Torch) in which we landed the first army, which was mostly American, this was the turning point of the war, for it was the end of Field Marshal Rommel and the ousting of the Germans in North Africa. The war of course carried on and Renown was sent to the Far East as flag ship to the Far East Fleet 鈥� we carried an Admiral aboard. We were based in Ceylon, as it was then, and we spent a lot of time at sea and took part in the bombardment of Sabang. The Renown was ordered to return to the UK in March 1945, but alas I was not to return with her for I was drafted to join the destroyer HMS Paladin and therefore remained with the Far East Fleet. I was a little sad at leaving the Renown for it had been a happy ship and had taught me that education was not only the written word but also seeing, observing and digesting.

The Paladin was a different kettle of fish. She was much smaller with a crew of about 120. We had what was called canteen messing, which meant that each mess was responsible for its own catering. You could prepare whatever meal you wanted and then take it to the galley where the chef would cook it for you. Each day at eleven in the morning, the bosun鈥檚 mate would pipe over the tannoy 鈥淯p Spirits鈥�. This was a call we would all look forward to, for we were issued with our daily rum ration. It was also a special occasion, for rum was our currency and you shared your ration if it was your mate鈥檚 birthday or if he had done you a favour by taking over your watch, or had lent you a few bob to go ashore.

The war in Europe was now over and the people were celebrating victory (and rightly so) but the fighting forces in the Far East were soon to be forgotten. In July 1945 the fleet was rehearsing for the invasion of Japan and were at sea with the Kra Isthmus, which is in the Malay Peninsula. We were attacked by kamikaze pilots, one of our minesweepers was sunk but thankfully all aircraft were shot down. Three or four weeks later the Americans dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on the 6th of August. Japan was to surrender on the 14th of August and at last it was all over.

There had been a lot of controversy about the use of the atomic bomb and the argument still goes on to this day, but it should be remembered that had we invaded the mainland of Japan, allied casualties would have been very heavy 鈥� it was estimated that one million people would have been lost on both sides.

Now the war was over, were we returning home? Not yet. We sailed to Singapore and saw first hand how the Japanese had treated our prisoners of war. Their plight and skeletal bodies brought tears to the eyes and we took some home and gave them the home comforts they so sadly missed.

It was January 1946 when we arrived in Portsmouth, no bands or civic dignitaries to meet us but we secured the ship and I left for Liverpool for some well earned leave.

What about the Renown? She surely must be ready for the breakers yard, but the Old Lady (as she was affectionately called) had one proud task to perform. On August the 2nd 1945 she was moored at Plymouth Sound, when she proudly received on board His Majesty King George VI along with many senior diplomats and service personnel. They were to entertain Mr Harry S Truman, President of the United States of America who had arrived in Plymouth aboard the USS Augusta.

HMS Renown was subsequently scrapped but her spirit lives on in the men who served in her, for even to this day, more than 60 years on, the Renown association still meet every month on Merseyside and have their annual meetings at different venues around the country.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside's People's War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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