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Dad was called up in July 1939 aged 20 years and went to a recruiting station with two friends from Berwick upon Tweed. He joined the Navy and they joined the army and were both killed in action.
Dad did his initial training in Chatham Barracks in Kent and after his stay there was assigned to the only ship he would serve on for the duration of the war. She was called H.M.S. Suffolk and was a county class heavy cruiser.
He served in the North Atlantic and Russian convoys and also in the South Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans.
His memories of the North Atlantic convoys were of merchant ships being sitting targets for the German U-Boats, with speeds as slow as 4 knots.
The Russian convoys with the extreme cold meant the crews having to chip the ice off the super structure. Also the crews were not allowed to go ashore in Archangel and Murmansk.Whilst helping to moor the Suffolk in the Firth of Forth dad nearly drowned in midstream. It was his and a shipmate's job to do this but the weather was very bad that day and they were both thrown out of their boat. Dad was pulled out almost immediately but his mate was in the water for a long time and recovered afterwards after being in a bad way.
Dad's most memorable incident was when the Suffolk and her sister ship the Norfolk were patrolling the Denmark Straits looking for the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. The Bismarck was sighted from the Suffolk on May 23rd by able seaman Alfred ‘Ginger’ Newell.
Both ships came under fire and Dad said if there had not been a bank of fog the ships would have been sunk. He did not see the Hood explode as he was at action stations below decks but its sinking was seen from the Suffolk’s bridge. Dad said he came up form below decks and saw the Bismarck and it reminded him of being like a castle in the water.
After the sinking of the Hood the Suffolk and Norfolk shadowed the Bismarck until the Suffolk had to break off the pursuit to return to Scapa Flow to refuel.
‘Ginger’ was taken down to London to speak at an enquiry about the incident and to be decorated.
Dad was off the coast of Burma and Sumatra on Victory in Europe day bombarding the Japanese military on the chain of Islands known as Nicobar.
He saw many things during the war such as the abject poverty in many countries especially India. He was also struck by the way the indigenous people were treated in South Africa. They could not walk on the pavements in Cape Town because of apartheid.
He was a Petty Officer in the Navy and his service number CMX65817. William Blackett’s war was told to his sons Gordon and Kenneth.
Dad was 86 years old on 11th August 2004.

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