大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's war site by Ann Mann, library assistant at Congleton Library on behalf of Martin Brazier and has been added to this site with his/her permission. THe author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
In June 1941 I joined the Royal Navy, I was 18. After training I was assigned to the "Coventry". We were used to hearing the sound of gunfire and explosions but hoped we'd never be on the receiving end.On 14th September 1942 this all changed when a Stucker German aircraft hit us. The noise was deafening, just terrifying. The German aircraft machine gunned us as we went down eventually hitting the ammunition store which immediately blew up starting a blaze on board causing loss of life and terrible suffering due to the horrific burns that the men received. No human being could stand the intense heat which burnt through the soles of our shoes.
I dived overboard and kept swimming as fast as I could to avoid being sucked down as the stern went down. I met another chap in the water and we stuck together, talking to each other to keep our spirits up. After about 8 hours we were picked up by the Dulverton, a British destroyer. I had a piece of shrapnel in my back from the bombing, luckily we managed to remove it.
We were taken to Alexandria, a large port in Egypt where we stayed in a school and lived on rice for breakfast, dinner and tea for 14 days.
After this I was sent to Suez and became a Naval police patrolman for 2 years. During this time I met a jewish man who had lost all his family in the gas chambers. Back home I had been reported missing, my mother didn't know whether I was alive or dead. Eventually she received a letter that I had given to a sailor some months before whom I knew was returning to England. In this I wrote that I was safe and living in a hot country, we weren't allowed to disclose our exact location due to security reasons.

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