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I was called up in 1943 and reported to HMS Royal Arthur at Skegness in October. This had been Butlin’s Holiday Camp. After initial procedures were completed, I was transferred to HMS Duke at Malvern — which is now the Radar Establishment. Here we were given our basic training. At the end of December I was moved again to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to attend Rutherford College for radio training. After six months it was a journey south to Fareham, Hampshire to HMS Collingwood.

Here I had six months training on radar as a mechanic. By this time hostilities had ended but the training went on. There followed two months practical work in Glasgow repairing equipment brought in from ships, returning to work.

In December 1945 I joined my ship HMS Mauritius at Liverpool. She was in Gladstone dry dock coming to the end of a re-fit. We were soon at sea and, after proving trials, sailed to Malta where we were based. I left the ship in 1948 to return home and be demobbed.

Though the war was over, the ship was sent to various situations. We went to Trieste several times for a month at a time because of tension between the Italians and Yugoslavs over that area.

We went to Corfu with two destroyers and another cruiser and while sailing through the International channel between Corfu (Greek) and Albania, the two destroyers hit mines, believed to have been placed by the Albanians, with the loss of a number of seamen.

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This story was contributed by Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service, Solihull Libraries by kind permission of the original contributor. It was originally contributed to Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service's collection in 2005 (Ref: NC Solihull Historical: Reminiscences 2005/24).

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