- Contributed by听
- CovWarkCSVActionDesk
- People in story:听
- JOSEPH BECKET
- Location of story:听
- BARENTS SEA, INDIAN AND PACIFIC OCEANS
- Background to story:听
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:听
- A5858058
- Contributed on:听
- 22 September 2005
This story was submitted to the People's War Website by Chloe Broadley of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Joseph Becket and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understandsd the site's terms and conditions.
I had never seen the sea before I went into the Navy as a stoker at the age of eighteen. First I was in convoys to Russia on H.M.S. Duke of York. I was in the last great sea battle - it lasted two days,December 25th and 26th. I had just come off watch when action stations went. I was sent to the magazine - the Marines locked us in, told us they wouldn't let us out until the water came up to our chins! the cordite was kept in the magazine, it had to be loaded into the shells. There was one big broadside of fourten-inch guns and525s - I thought the end of the world had come! During the battle we were given soup. When they were clearing up after it was all over, they found the ship's cat, drowned , at the bottom of the soup pan! We sank the Scharnhorst - picked up twelve German survivors. They were afraid we were going to hand them over to the Russians, but we took them back to Scapa Flow and handed them over there. I did the convoy run several times. I still have the medal I got from the Russian Embassy.
After VE Day I went on to a destroyer, the Wizard. We sailed to Burma, and we were in Tokyo when they signed the peace on a US ship in the harbour. Then our ship went to Sandar to get the POWs out. We had to lift them up, we could have thrown them they were that thin. We took them back to Tokyo Harbour - all the ships sounded their sirens, the crews lined the sides and threw their hats in the air - it was a sight! Then we went on to Guam. The POWs went to Australia to get fattened up before they went home.
I was demobbed in 1946. I had married the girl next door when I was twenty and she was eighteen. "Where you been? Your'e late!" they said to me when I got back.
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