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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Elsie Rose Cripps, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

During the war I worked as an accountant in a shipping office, this was regarded as a reserved occupation as some of the ships were ocean going and bought wheat etc. from Canada. Several were attacked by U boats and sank, even though they were in convoys and guarded by destroyers and had anti machine guns and depth charges on board. If the ship was sunk and the precious food cargo lost the crew usually escaped in life boats but were often attacked again by the U boats or bombed when near a German air base.
We also had heavy air raids around Teeside, North Yorkshire where I lived — one of the heaviest on 25 July 1942 the day I married, but we escaped damage to our house.

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