大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 war site by Forbes Inglis on behalf of George Macleod and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I came from Middlesbrough and when I was sixteen and a half in April 1944 I joined the Merchant Navy. The ship was called the Richmond Hill. As an apprentice I had to serve four years, learning navigation, maintenance, etc.,

My first trip was to Normandy in 1944. We spent six months on trade between Normandy and English ports moving supplies, vehicles, you name it we carried it.

The crew consisted of 42 merchant seamen and 40 mixed Army and Navy personnel who were gunners, operated the barrage balloons and carried out other duties to defend us. We had one Observer Corps aircraft spotter whose job it was to stop us shooting down the wrong planes.

One time we took German prisoners back to London. They had soldiers guarding them. The Jerries were a bit arrogant and stroppy.

The night before, London had had a bad V1/V2 attack. When we docked the London dockers were waiting for the prisoners with hooks and the army had to face out to make a gangway to protect them.
鈥淭hat took a bit of the arrogance out of them.鈥�

My ship was never hit and, although we had a few near misses, I never got my feet wet.

At the end of 1944 we crossed the Atlantic to New York. It was a different world. They had no blackout. There were neon lights in Time Square and abundant supplies.

We loaded there and sailed to Bombay. We were there for VE day. We got three days official leave. I was only seventeen and a half and I had a great time.

I stayed at sea for 20 years before coming ashore in 1963.

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