大象传媒

Personal war experiences began on 3rd September 1939 when our family listened to Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 broadcast to the nation at 11 O鈥機lock 鈥渁nd consequently our country is at war鈥� etc. I was 16 years old and had started work in the City of London, and the worries to my parents accentuated by First World War experiences was very apparent to us all.

My friends and myself joined Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) which became the Home Guard and we formed a team in St James鈥檚 Hospital SW12 to repel the enemy with armbands, pikes, ancient rifles from WW1 and to help casualties from the Blitz, which indeed hit London very hard, including Battersea SW11 where we lived.

On to the Royal Navy where after six months training hard, we found our draft to Western Approaches and the North Atlantic in Corvettes. These ships were the hub of convoy protection with Destroyers guiding and guarding the convoys of 60 鈥� 100 ships back and forth across the Atlantic from Liverpool Mersey and the Clyde bound for Canada, USA and back. I had crossed this route 24 times before I was 21 years, meeting death and destruction, ice-bergs, whales, vicious weather and constant alert watch keeping, 4 hours on, 4 hours off, day in, day out, month in etc for years in some of the worlds worst seas, and food shortage as we chased and challenged U boats with convoy after convoy in what nowadays is known as the battle of the Atlantic. Some battle I can tell you!

Eventually we left Liverpool command bound for Portsmouth and D-day June 1944, where we engaged nightly in battle with E boats from the French coast and their gunmen were accurate as we were. That went on for weeks until our task became clear when my ship HMS Gentian ( all Corvettes were named after flowers ) was ordered to escort tugs containing ammunitions from South Coast area to the British area of the invasion, Sword Beach and I readily recall what our fate would have been if enemy bombers had attacked for there were a number of barges and tugs going at a rather slow pace ! We saw a huge Armada of ships, Planes, Gliders, troops and you name it going to the beaches of Normandy and the rest is History.

One incident in the Atlantic does however remain with me, for I sighted a Torpedo advancing towards my ship in clear water at a steady rate of knots and I screamed at our Captain 鈥淭ORPEDO GREEN 45 鈥� 鈥� or words to that effect and he immediately ordered rapid change of course 鈥� Hard to Port鈥�, which happened and the problem was solved, and in that very British way said Captain 鈥� 鈥淲ell Done !鈥� to me 鈥� 鈥淲hat, no extra tot of Rum ? 鈥�

I then was drafted to Battle Class Destroyer HMS Armada built on Tyneside and after working trials in North Sea, and Western Approaches 鈥� again - we set sail for far East via Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Ceylon, Singapore, and all round Australia to Perth, Darwin, Cairns, Townsville and Sydney, by which time the surrender came and peace prevailed: and so back to UK and peace 鈥� perhaps.

I still keep in touch with some shipmates and associated sailors and chat about it all and the future - No more war 鈥︹�ver.

RRJ Adams
Leading Signalman, Royal Navy.

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