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This story was told by John McDonald to East Ayrshire library staff at their People’s War Tea Party on the 11th June 2004

John McDonald was called up to the Royal Navy in 1943 after working in the cutting room at BMK carpet factory in Kilmarnock. He first trained at Malvern Links and then on H.M.S Frobisher and after 6 weeks John went to Portsmouth for a further six weeks training. After this training period he was a qualified stoker. He then joined the hunting-class Destroyer H.M.S Brissenden as a second class stoker and advanced to first class stoker during the next two years.

John saw action during D-day – the Destroyer patrolling between Caen and Bayeux – and he then went back onto normal patrol duty until he was demobbed in 1947. He was in Discharged Group 57. The route home was through the Medoc route in the south of France, then up through France by train and across the Channel back to Portsmouth.

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