大象传媒

The early years
It was just two days after my 15th birthday, 3rd September 1939, when the war began. I was serving an apprenticeship as a trainee draftsman at a small engineering company, in Everlin Road, Mitcham manufacturing capstan lathes.

My elder brother, Jim had already joined the Territorial Army before the outbreak of war and was called up for service immediately. It was a strange situation at that point in time, because although we were at war and had sent a British expeditionary force over to France, no fighting had yet started. This situation carried on for some considerable time, it was labelled the 鈥榩honey war鈥�.

Meantime at home we had been issued with I.D. cards and gas masks. People that were not called up for service were directed into war work of one kind or another. Air raid wardens were appointed; special police and fire service personnel were reinforced. All road signs were removed on major roads, large concrete pillboxes were built at cross roads. Checkpoints were set up, manned by the army; anyone travelling on the roads was stopped and had their I.D. cards checked. It was compulsory to carry your I.D. card and gas mask at all times, they were carried in small cardboard boxes and slung over your shoulder with a piece of string.

My brother Jim had been sent to man a search light battery at Forest Row, East Sussex. At weekends I would cycle down to see him from our home in Carshalton, Surrey. On arriving there for the first time I found that I wasn鈥檛 the only visitor there because many of his soldier pals had relatives visiting them also. Some of them had brought cakes, jam tarts and sandwiches etc; one parent had brought with them a wind up gramophone and records. This became a regular event each weekend, the gramophone would be playing and people would be singing, it would be one big party. Suddenly everything changed.

Hitler had invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. In four days of ruthless bombing Holland fell and by June 1940 France had also fallen but not before we were able to evacuate several thousand British and French troops from Dunkirk - now we stood alone.
My other brother George had joined the LDVs, (local defence volunteers), later to be known as the Home Guard. At first there were hardly enough rifles to go round for the regular army after our losses at Dunkirk, so the Home Guard had to improvise by drilling with broomsticks to train for combat. I myself was working at the engineering factory making components for aircraft as well as fire watching at the local air raid wardens. I did this throughout the blitz; often I would be putting out incendiary bombs with the aid of a stirrup pump or smothering them with sand bags. Frequently they would explode and send out flaming magnesium, which would start more fires. By then my brother George was called up and had joined the RAF as ground crew.

Called Up
It was on 16th February 1943 that I was called up; I was given a preference as to which service I wished to join. Not wishing to kill anyone in cold blood I chose the Royal Naval patrol service mine sweeping division, hoping to save a few lives rather than destroy them.

I reported to a hall in Wellesley Road, Croydon for a medical examination and an IQ test and was soon on my way to a training camp at Alsager near Crewe, bang in the middle of the country nowhere near any sea, it was called HMS Excalibur.
My six weeks intensive training at HMS Excalibur was soon over; I was then on my way to HMS Loch Invar. Which was situated at South Queens ferry by the Forth rail bridge. For four weeks I received further training in open waters. After Loch Invar I finally arrived at my port division, which was HMS Europa at Lowestoft. After completing a gunnery course I was soon on my way again to HMS Fortitude.
By mid 1943 I was aboard a fleet sweeper carrying out escort duties. We would sail north towards Iceland pick up east bound convoys from the United States and Canada and took them around the North Cape to the ports of Murmansk and Archangel in Russia. After three such trips I was on my way again back to Lowestoft where I completed a course on M L Craft. That completed I was on my way again with six other ratings to commission a new boat at Gare Loch on the Clyde, the ML was to be my home for the next year. After completing our trials on the loch under the command of two very young sub lieutenants, three more crew joined us, they were all specialists in their field; radar, echo sounding and asdics. We now had a complement of eleven.

Normandy Invasion
On 21st January 1944 we headed south to Falmouth, Dartmouth and then Pool. At Poole we had another rating join us before we set off for Portsmouth to our new base HMS Hornet in Gosport. It was from here that we sailed regularly over to Normandy and other places along the French coast collecting data on underwater defences etc. On several such trips we placed civilian people ashore, one of them being a woman in the SOE. We did this for several weeks coming back home as day was breaking.
Because of the equipment we had aboard our orders were to scuttle the boat if the enemy intercepted us. There were 5 scuttling charges set at strategic points on the boat. I myself would have had to trigger the charge on the mess deck if the order was given.
It wasn鈥檛 long before we had a new task to perform. This was escorting Landing Craft Tanks (LCT鈥檚) along the coast from Portsmouth to Newhaven during daylight; staying there overnight and then escorting them up to Dover.
We would then return them back to Portsmouth during the night. This procedure we repeated several times, escorting the same landing craft each time. We all know now that this was all part of a bigger plan to make the Germans think that the Allied forces would land near Calais rather than the intended target or Normandy.
Although I was a Royal Naval service rating, somewhere along the line I had been loaned to Coastal Forces and attached to Combined Operation. We were finally expected at HMS Hornet at Gosport, which was to be our land base.
It was from here on 4th June 1944 that we were assembled in a hall along with 500 personnel from gun and torpedo boats to be addressed by Admiral Little. They had posted armed guards outside the hall. I was not sure whether it was to keep us in our others out.
He told us that this was the day that we had all been waiting and training for, Operation Overlord. He went on to say that we were the vanguard of a greater force that had ever been assembled. He then wished us all good luck and added that his thoughts would go with us. At this point we all booed him and were marched back to our boats and ordered not to discuss anything with any other ratings on the base.
Later that day we set sail out of Portsmouth and splice the main brace (extra tot of rum). The channel was quite rough with a force 8 gale blowing as night fell. It was about 2am when we were ordered back to base, we were very tired when we got back to Hornet as we had been on action stations all night long and were glad for some shut eye.
It was not long before we set sail again; the sea was as choppy as the night before, our destination Normandy. Although we were wooden constructed boats, we would still be vulnerable to magnetic mines. The hull was further protected by degaussing gear, consisting of copper wire, which was fastened around the hull and energised by an electric current. This neutralised the boats magnetism, giving us complete immunity from magnetic mines. This enabled us to pass through a minefield with relative safety (this night and many nights before).
6th June 鈥� 0400hrs we sighted the fleet sweepers steaming towards us through the minefield. In the half-light the sea was still very choppy, now force 6. We had been heaved to over a synchronised buoy that was sending out a signal for the fleet sweepers to home onto towards the landing beaches. Our job was then to shepherd small landing craft within the swept channels. Overhead the dc3鈥檚 Dakota鈥檚 were flying over, towing gliders behind.
On the radio the Marseilles was playing as paratroops were dropped over the ground before us, unlike anything we had ever seen before. The whole sky was filled with our own aircraft, it was a glorious feeling.
We were to be attached to the corvette HMS Dakus that was amassing information on sword beach whilst maintaining radio silence. At that time we were collecting information for them, by going alongside ships that had been disembarking their cargo, asking how many prisoners, casualties (walking and stretchered) before they returned to the UK.
One morning one of lads went forward to take the line from Dakus, which we would be tethered to overnight. Just then a Stooker dive bomber got a direct hit on Dakus, causing considerable damage to the signal ratings mess deck.
There is always a lighter side of happenings going on, the rating that had gone forward to release the line had been reading a magazine, which he had tucked into his lifejacket. As the bomb exploded he ran back towards the foredeck holding the magazine over his head for protection. The lads ribbed him rotten for the next few days, offering him a newspaper or magazine whenever he came onto deck.
About 10 days after the landing we were returning back to the UK. Escorting a few small ships, in front of us was a small coaster; suddenly there was a large explosion. The coaster had disappeared, with lots of debris floating on the surface. We saw survivors floating on the surface. As we approached I threw a heaving line towards one of them. He grabbed hold of the line and almost pulled it out of my hands. I asked him to grab hold of it so I could pull it in. I stood on the lower step of the side ladder and helped him aboard. As I did so a second man appeared alongside me holding something under his arm, which he thrust towards me. 鈥� Take this first鈥�. It was the ships cat smothered in oil. I handed the cat to one of our crew and then helped the man aboard. I saw another man floating past and grabbed his jacket. We were able to pick up 8 survivors in all.
The first was a young lad my age who was in shock. He wanted to give me his cigarette lighter, the only possession he had. The chap with the cat was not badly hurt. The third man must have been the engineer. I sat him on a locker on the deck and held is head upright. Blood was oozing through a wound at the top of his head, large enough to fit my fist in. He asked me not to bother with him laddy, but to look after the others. He was a typical Scotsman, old enough to be my father. I ignored his request and tried to give him first aid. Hoping that we would soon be able to transfer our patients to a larger ship with better facilities. We did not have to wait too long as we were able to pass them over to a destroyer which was coming up behind us.
On arriving back at Portsmouth for some unknown reason we were told to tie up alongside HMS Dolphin, the submarine basin. As we tied up alongside a signal came aboard that King George the VI was reviewing. Having only one white rolled neck jersey, I had to wash it quickly due to some blood on it from the survivors of the coaster.
It wasn鈥檛 too long before we were asked to line up on the foredeck, in our white rolled neck jerseys, white sea boot socks and leather gun boots. It seemed ages before anything happened.
In the meantime I felt my jumper stretching, it was round my knees and my hands disappeared up my sleeves, I was standing in a pool of water. Luckily the King did not look our way, it would have been funny if he had seen 6 young ratings, one of them looking as if he was standing in a nightshirt.
It was sad when we had to leave the ML, we had all become like brothers. Coastal forces no longer required us, so it was back to minesweeping.

Norway & Russia
My next ship was HMS Redwood. Lieutenant Commander Fiddler (of Fiddler鈥檚 Tested Seeds of Reading) was our commanding officer. We called him Big Jack, because he was 6ft 3in. A Norwegian minesweeper had been torpedoed off Belrock, Dundee. We were sent to replace the lost vessel. As Lt Co Fiddler was the senior officer he also took over control of the flotilla of Norwegian minesweepers.
It was in Dundee that I was to meet my future wife.
On coming alongside the quay in Dundee there was what I thought was a Norwegian sailor with his back to us. I shouted at him to take my heaving line, so I threw it at him and it hit him on his neck. It was not until later that I found out that he would be my future brother in law.
Our job was to sweep minefields between Dundee and Aberdeen, 6 mine sweepers were involved, one following the other in an overlap fashion. Dan buoys were dropped in the swept channel. We had cleared 30 mines that day, several of us decided to celebrate our good fortune.
We went to a dance hall called the Embassy, situated near the New Road Bridge. A matlows prized possession is his cap. Dancing with girls at that time, you always handed your cap to the girls to hold whilst your were dancing. At that time most of the dancing was 鈥渆xcuse me鈥� dances, it was mostly women that would excuse the men. I had seen this particular girl that stood out and began to dance with her. A second girl came up and excused us. After this dance I went back to dance with the first girl, the second girl excused me again. When this happened for a third time the girl that I was dancing with told her to take my hat as well and thrust it at her. As soon as the dance was over I went back to the first girl. She was dressed in a smart costume jacket with red top blouse, she looked absolutely gorgeous, her name was Zena. I asked why she didn鈥檛 come back and excused us again? Her reply 鈥淲ho do you think I am?鈥� For the rest of the night I continued to dance with her and refused to be excused.
Near the end of the evening I noted she was talking to a Norwegian who had asked her whether he could walk her home. Zena said that her brother was walking her home, an excuse to enable me to walk her home. I took her home, as I was leaving her house it started to rain. Zena went back in doors and came out with a RAF greycoat , she told me to put it on otherwise I would get soaked. The next day I returned the greycoat and found out that Zena was in the WAF鈥檚 and that she was on leave at that time. We began writing to each other regularly.

End of Part 1 of 2
Part 2 see article A8484230

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