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WAR RECOLLECTIONS: June 1940 - Dec 1945
By Valentine Burn

Royal Marines Plymouth Division

I am reliably informed that my independent journey started on 14th February 1917 in St.Mark鈥檚 Street, Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne and that we all moved to Alnwick in about 1920 to The Bungalow, Sea View Terrace. We all lived there until 1931 when, due to fewer jobs on the railway at Alnwick, Father got a similar job to that he had at Alnwick at Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. I had just started working at the Bookstall at Alnwick so continued there and lodged with my Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate so that I could keep my job. I was one of the few who left school at that time and got a job as there was then little or no support for unemployed people.

This system did not work out and I was soon living back at home and travelling daily between Heaton and Alnwick on a privilege ticket. With low pay, I still qualified for this concession. In the mid 1930鈥檚 I was promoted to Assistant at The Bookstall at Alnwick and then had to go back into lodgings due to an earlier start. I lodged with Mrs. Sproat, 5 Sea View Terrace 鈥� a place Father had also lodged when he鈥檇 first moved to the town. I continued lodging with her when she moved to St. George鈥檚 Crescent. After a spell there, I then shifted lodgings to Mrs. Appleby at 46 Clayport Gardens where I stayed until my call-up for National Service in June 1940.

When I was about 12 years old, I worked part time, from 5-7.00 pm on school days and from 9.00 am until 8.00pm on Saturdays with a midday meal break. It was not long enough to go home so I usually had sandwiches in the back of the shop (the shop is now Lillian鈥檚 Ladies Hairdresser, Fenkle Street).

When I registered for national service, I accepted the advice of the person behind the desk and went into the Royal Marines. He was probably a Marine NCO. However my call-up to the marines was deferred because of too high blood sugar in my blood, so the road to victory was delayed until June 1940. I was one of 44 men who became Hostilities Only Training Squad number 14. HO Squad 13 had started their training about a week before us but we both finished at the same time and did our passing out parade together, at the end of the war. Of these two squads, there were few survivors 鈥� from 14 Squad there were 12, from 13 squad just 6.

I then spent most of the next 7 months in Stonehouse Barracks, Plymouth being trained to be a good marine. Much of the time was just spent square bashing and at PT. There was also a spell under canvas in Cornwall and just before Christmas, a spell at Chatham learning the basics of naval gunnery. We were granted home leave from there and my journey to Newcastle took about 23 hours. The train was stopped somewhere in the Midlands because of a heavy air raid.

We returned to Plymouth and in January, about 10 of us travelled by train to Greenock to join HMS Furious anchored at the Tail of the Bank in the Clyde between Greenock and Gourock. That was an interesting experience as we were the first Hostilities Only personnel to join the Furious, most of the ship鈥檚 company had been on board for a long time before the war and many of them in those early days did not like the idea of civilians interfering, and of course, most of us had absolutely no idea of ship鈥檚 routine or anything of that sort. However, we weathered the storm and quite quickly made friends with many of them.

My first trip to Freetown had been with fighter aircraft to fly over Africa to join the 8th Army. Soon after we left the Clyde, we were ordered to shoot at a mine that was floating loose on the surface of the sea. We fired quite a lot of bullets at it but did not manage to hit one of its horns. The next 3+ years seemed to be spent mainly sailing some of the world鈥檚 oceans. These thoughts and recollections may not be in date order. I鈥檓 simply writing them as I recall them.

We were in the home fleet for some time, providing air support for some of the Russian convoys. The ship and its escort sailed about halfway before turning back from North of the Norwegian north coast. Much of our working time, when not on watch or at action stations, was spent chopping ice from the guardrails and other exposed surfaces. The sea spray and any moisture quickly froze and could cause the ship to become top heavy.

For this work we were provided with a small hammer, warmly clothed in balaclava, duffle coat and gloves. The maximum time we were allowed to work per spell was 20minutes, and then we were found work under cover.

It was about this time that we first met the Americans. They were in a few battleships and cruisers in Reykjavik Harbour, Iceland. We spent a few days there and on one memorable Saturday afternoon, 5 of us sailed a boat up a fjord for a good distance. An enjoyable trip 鈥� Iceland is a wonderful country, at least I thought so from the bit that I saw.

We also did a few trips taking planes for Malta, the planes were loaded on board in crates at Greenoak, and then RAF personnel came on board and assembled the planes during the journey to the Mediterranean. The pilots flew off when we were off the coast of Algiers, with the planes having been fitted with extra fuel tanks. We did several of such trips and on two return trips to Britain, I was part of a guard team keeping watch over two prisoners 鈥� a German and an Italian who had been mini-submarine operators, captured near Gibraltar about the time a British battleship had been holed and settled on the harbour base in Alexandria. This was caused by a limpet mine being attached to it by a man similar to our prisoners.

The next recalled action is what became known as the Malta Convoy, I and many of my colleagues at the time wondered about attempting such an operation at that time when the Germans and Italians had almost full control of the Mediterranean, it was claimed at the time that it was essential to maintain Malta, was that the real reason or was it a public relations exercise to boost some British egos.

At the beginning of the convoy there were about 14 merchant ships, battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers escorted an assortment of cargos and these. The Nelson and I think the Rodney battleships, Victorious, Indomitable, Indefatigable Eagle, and Furies aircraft carriers each with 6 destroyers as escorts, and there were also destroyers amongst the merchant ships escorting them. Almost all of these ships had moved through an area of the Med when a U-boat fired 3 torpedoes into the Eagle, at the time it was about 1 mile from us and we were busy flying off aircraft for Malta. This made it a more trying time for us because when aircraft are taking off or landing the ship has to sail into the wind in a straight line and cannot do any zigzagging as was the normal practice.

One man, on seeing the Eagle sinking, broke down and sat on the deck, crying and blowing up his lifebelt calling out that we would be next. The large number of men killed and wounded in this exercise and the many ships either sunk or damaged made it seem to me too costly an effort. Only about 4 merchant ships reached Malta. With the loss of the Eagle and the severe damage to the other 3 carriers, we got the job of 鈥淗鈥� force carrier, based in Gibraltar and did frequent patrols in the Med.

In any warship, many of the ships company have to work inside on lower decks. At the time we got the job with 鈥淗鈥� force, we had a Commander who had spent most of his naval career in destroyers, and when there were air raids he used to give a running commentary on how good or otherwise the aim of the attacking aircraft was. Many who could not see what was going on appreciated this information. They could of course feel the shock of the hits and near misses.

We had a charmed life for a good spell that came to an end giving us rather a rough time. As a result we had some new holes and there had been serious fire damage to both aircraft hangars, meaning we were not as efficient as we were required to be in that area at that time. After a couple of days in Gibraltar, we sailed out amidst strong rumours aboard that we were headed for the US. We were told that about half the ship鈥檚 company would stay with the ship, the others transferring to another British navy ship already in the US and ready to return to active service. Our destroyer escort was reduced to a minimum and we were to rely on our aircraft patrols to detect any enemy presence. It was soon discovered that someone was interfering with the aircraft. We had a 5th columnist onboard, the ship鈥檚 captain put the hangars out of bounds to all the ship鈥檚 company and ordered the marines to provide patrols to keep watching the hangars. I was one of the patrols and armed with a loaded revolver. The culprit was soon discovered and court-martialled on the ship. I was part of the escort to the court martial after which he was returned to Britain and interned for the duration of the war.

Our first stop was Jamaica for about 36 hours before Bermuda where I had a few hours ashore. Soon after leaving, lists of names were put on the notice boards of the men who would be leaving the ship after it arrived in America, docking in the Philadelphia naval dockyard. We stayed in America for about 6 months and were there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, finally returning to the Clyde when half the ship鈥檚 company were given a month鈥檚 home leave. The ship then sailed to Rosyth so the leave party had to rejoin the ship there. During our following journey across the Atlantic we had to endure a severe Atlantic storm, very strong winds and waves higher than 40feet. All the open decks were fitted with storm support; guide ropes and at times, the open decks were out of bounds to all. The storm lasted 48 hours and during one night, a severe wave caught us beam on causing a lot of damage with some lifeboats washed away, crockery smashed, lockers torn loose from their rivets and many broken limbs and other injuries.

The Commander who gave the running commentaries became a casualty in the invasion of North Africa aircraft from the ship attacking targets on land near Oran. His death was mourned by almost all the ship鈥檚 company and for several days it felt like a ghost ship. The assembling of the vast armada in the Med prior to the North African invasion was an unforgettable sight in an ocean where for years we had seemed just able to hang on. From horizon to horizon there was this huge fleet with battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, destroyers and all sorts of other ships carrying men and materials for the invasion. We split into groups and moved towards the area we鈥檇 been allocated. The battleships bombarded shore targets using their main armament and our aircraft also attacked land areas. Soon after the invasion we sailed into Oran harbour and stayed there for a couple of days.

When the Beveridge Report was published, it created a lot of interest but in naval ships there was little information despite having radio receivers on each mess deck. These were usually tuned to the forces programme, similar to Radio 2 today. When we were in harbour, some men were able to buy a newspaper, which were often difficult to acquire as everything was severely rationed. I cannot now remember the small portions of essential foods and other commodities that was the ration, non-essential foods and others were supplied on a points system, when you had used up your points for a period, you could not get any more of the points goods. As the years went on, the mixture of career men and HO men got nearer a balance and I think it gave us a much wider field of subjects to discuss although there were times when everyone had to concentrate on the only way to escape boredom so we talked about the Beveridge Report, after many discussions Leon Green and I talked to the ship鈥檚 Chaplain about the report. He was able to get a loaned abridged copy of the report that we read and discussed with him.

It was agreed that we call an open meeting in the ship鈥檚 recreation room that the Chaplain chaired. A naval Lieutenant and I addressed the meeting; having agreed which aspects of the report we would speak to, and then did our best to answer questions. About 40 attended and it went quit well.

Leon Green was another of HO14 squad having joined the Furious barracks with me but leaving a few weeks ahead of me in 1944. We were in different companies in barracks but both listed for HMS Golden Hind in late October 44. We boarded the troop ship Empress of Canada (it had been Empress of Japan) at Chatham and sailed through the Panama Canal to Australia, arriving about 6 weeks later a week before Christmas 1944. The journey through the Pacific was very interesting at times, especially watching small shoals of Flying Fish 鈥� their bright colours really worth watching. They seemed to fly as a group whereas the Porpoises seemed to do their above water flying both as individuals as well as part of the group.

The reason for our Australian trip was because by then the Navy had many ships operating in the Pacific Ocean and because they were engaged in operations against the Japanese, there was the possibility of causalities and the Navy needing replacements conveniently sited near the scene of operations. There was some confusion in England after our names were published on the barracks notice board. We had to parade to hand in all our seagoing equipment and were issued with shore service equipment. A few days later we had to parade again and reverse the procedure as the instructions had been cancelled. We were convinced that we were to be moved to the islands as snipers, because all those from Plymouth were rifle marksmen, fortunately for us this rumour proved to be wrong. The troopship had been a luxury liner with wide promenade space and walkways and had 3 or 4 tier bunks using most of the space.

The first few weeks of our stay in Australia were spent in bell tents in a camp on one of Sydney鈥檚 racecourses, then we moved to the harbour where we occupied a big warehouse. It also had space and shelter for a transport battalion, cars and other transport. My job was as gatekeeper. We had to check that all vehicles leaving the Warf had valid work permits. While I was at Woolamaloo Docks I caught a strange dose of tonsillitis. It made the doctor tell me I must not lift anything and he phoned for an ambulance that took me straight to hospital. For the first week or so I was strictly a bed patient then I was gradually allowed up for longer periods. When I got back to Woolamaloo I found that all my gear had been safely packed away. A strange thing about this tonsillitis was that I had another serious attack shortly after returning home. I had gone home to Newcastle but by Monday morning was a severe throat infection. The doctor was called out, diagnosed tonsillitis and this kept me in bed for a long spell. I have not had a repeat since then; the prescribed medicines must have cleared the problem.

I recall two separate incidents on the Furious concerning two different men. The first was during our first air attack at sea. The ship鈥檚 company were at action stations and after the first wave of bombers had passed overhead, we noticed that one member of our gun crew was standing as though fixed to the deck, some of us grabbed him and lifted him down the hatch, passing him to the ammunition supply crew out of the way of the ammunition cases which shot out of the breach at good speed. He could not move on his own. This was my first experience of what was, I suppose, a form of shell shock.

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