´óÏó´«Ã½

I joined the Royal Navy in 1926 and served with submarines and their depot ships between 1934 and 1947. At the outbreak of war in 1939, I was stationed in Hong Kong. In November 1940 I was sent to Belfast for the commissioning of a new submarine. On this visit I lost all my possessions including a dress uniform and ceremonial sword during a German raid on the port. By 1941 I had been transferred to the fleet depot at Alexandria in the Med, and then back to the Far East in a repair and maintenance role. In 1942 I returned to the Med and HMS Adamant, an ‘A’ Class submarine. Later I was servicing ‘Porpoise’ Class submarine minelayers, of which six were built.

In 1944 I was senior technical instructor at Blythe, Scotland. Many of the vessels I dealt with had been operational in WW1, and were quite old.

I remember the sad tale of Captain Wanklin, who took command of a vessel out of Malta in 1944 owing to the sickness of its usual captain. The vessel and Captain were lost soon after.

One of my proudest moments was in patching up an AMC (Armed Merchant Cruiser), a former P and O vessel on convoy escort which developed a cracked cylinder head near Mombassa. After 3 ½ days of temporary repair, the vessel was able to limp to Bombay on 3 cylinders for a proper repair at the well-equipped P and O yard there.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.