大象传媒

1941 I was called up, so I decided to join the navy as a gunner. I was a good shot with an air gun. I went to Piwhelli in N. Wales, to a Naval training base, which was Butlins holiday place, and was taken over by the Navy, to train men as gunners. We were a special branch of the Navy, as we were sent to all types of merchant ships, during my four years, I had nine different ships We wore on our arms, the letters D.E.M.S. (Defensive Equipped Merchant Ships), with the barrel of a gun sewn above the letters. After three months' of training I was passed out as a seaman gunner. I was then sent to North Shields to join a ship. Also men were trained as army gunners on some ships, and they were known as the Maritime Regiment. My first ship was called the Eaglescliffe Hall, which was a coal carrier. This ship was brought over from Canada, with many more, to help in the war effort. We took a ship-load of coal to Battersea Power Station twice, and always went in a very large convoy, down the North Sea. The second time we loaded the ship at Seaham Harbour. At ten o'clock, on August 10th 1941, (my birthday). We were at anchor down at Sunderland, waiting to join the convoy, going down to Battersea Power Station. I was off watch and my mate Jock was on watch at the stern, I was reading a Secton Blake detective novel and all of a sudden there was a mighty crash. I jumped out of my bunk, and went up to my gun on the bridge. A German bomber had come from the port side and dropped two bombs, one into the hold, and never exploded, and the other one hit the side of the ship and went back over the side! The bomber turned round and came back on the sarboard side, and dropped another bomb which went into the engine room and killed the chief engineer. My mate Jock, also had his thumb blown off, and damaged his other fingers. We had two soldiers on board, they had a Lewis gun and both were badly injured. I was very lucky as no bombs were aimed at the bridge. After all this, I was taken to the Naval base at Sunderland, to wait for another ship. One day, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was standing by my bunk, when another sailor shouted out, "Does anyone come from Leamington Spa?" I looked round at the other lads and put my hand up, to see who it was. The young lad came down to me and we shook hands. He said, "Where do you live?" I said, "Shrubland Street". and he said, "I live in the next road, St George's Road." We palled up for a few days, and then he was called to join a ship. His name was Tommy Saul. Years after the war I found out, the ship was sunk by the Japanese and I never found out what happened to him. I stop and look at his name on our War Memorial, every time I go past it. Tommy was only 19 years old.

The next ships I served on were all coal boats, going to various ports down the North Sea, including the Isle of Wight. The various names of the other ships were Avonwood, Slatford, Ninerva, Themstone,, Ocean Bounty (oil tanker), which I went to New York on. Lancashire (troop ship), Monarch, (troop ship), Almanzora (troop ship). In 1944 I passed a course, as a maintenance engineer, on the troop ships. My last ship, the Almanzora, was the best one of the lot. On our way across, the Mediterranean, we were taking soldiers to fight in Italy. I went to check the gun in one of the gunpits, and some of the soldiers were allowed to keep watch with one of the sailors on watch. I looked over the gunpit, as I had to climb a steel ladder to get to the guns. A soldier on watch looked at me and said, "How are you, Mate?" I said, "OK, how do you like it up here?" Then, he said, to me, "You sound like you come from Warwickshire". I said, "Yes, I come from Leamington Spa". Hes, "So do I, my name's Ginger Woodward", who was a very well known boxer. One of the most interesting incidents I shall never forget is this. We were taking troops across the Mediteraneuan and I was looking over the side of the ship, watching the fish, when all of a sudden magnetic mine came floating past. I shouted, "Mine! on the starboard side". It was only about a yard from the ship! The captain turned round the ship to see if he could sink it. The soldiers had a Bofors gun but never managed to blow it up. All this was on the "Lancashire". Early April 1944 we took about a thousand American glider airmen from North Africa to Bombay, to fight against the Japanese. This ship took about a month and back. I had a week's leave, and then went back on board the ship. We set sail for North Africa again, and broughtmore troops to Liverpool for the D-Day landings. We were in Liverpool for three or four days and I developed a pain in my throat. We set sail for Barry Island, where we anchored. We were told then we were going to land the tropps somewhere on the French coast. This was lucky, or not, for me, as my throat was very bad. So the ship's doctor decided I would have to be taken to hospital, as I had an abcess on my tonsils, anda temperature of 102. A boat came from the quayside, and I was taken to a Naval hospital in Cardiff. When I got better, I went back to Liverpool, and joined the Ocean Bounty. This ship was a tanker, and we went to America to bring back high-octane petrol, for use in our aircraft. The ship was oil-fired, and coming back, black smoke kept coming out of the funnel. We were in a large convoy, and we were ordered to get out, as we were endangering all the other ships. We went at full speed back to Liverpool and arrived back a day before the convoy. I came off this one and joined the Almazora - another troop ship. My last voyage. We took Russian soldiers to Odessa, and brought back men, women and children to France. We then went to Glasgow, where I was demobbed in October 1945. I bet there's not many sailor's who sailed in nine different ships. 4 Coal ships, 1 general cargo, 3 troop ships and 1 tanker.

A year after my throat got better, the abcess came again I I had to go into hospital in Glasgow and have my tonsils taken out. I was 29 years' old. Two years after we were bombed, I was in Kirckaldy, when I met my mate, Jock, who had his thumb blown off on, on the Eaglescliffe Hall, our first ship!

I am now 90 years' old, and I still dream about these things that happened to me during the war.

For a good many years now, I have been collecting old postcards of Warwickshire, including Leamington. Also I like painting with water colours and I give them away to friends, relatives and Myton Hospice.

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