- Contributed by听
- nt-yorkshire
- People in story:听
- Gordon Thomson
- Location of story:听
- The Mediterranean
- Background to story:听
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:听
- A9032276
- Contributed on:听
- 31 January 2006
During the war I was enlisted into the Navy, where I served as leading seaman LR2 on HMS Dido as part of the Malta convoys. One of my most vivid memories was of the Stuka dive bombers attacking the Alexandra to Malta convoys that I was on. There were an awful lot of men and ships lost in the Eastern Mediterranean during the course of the war. It was a very restrictive existence in that we were all on 24 hour duty and slept only when we had time to, and all we ever had to wear were uniforms overalls or firing clothes.
One of the strangest tasks that we had to undertake during this time occurred when a cruiser was blown up and we were responsible for picking up the survivors. However we also had to pick up as many body parts as we could, like limbs and torsos so all those killed could be given some sort of a proper funeral. Body parts were sewn into canvass bags and weighted down with a practice shell. It was my job to sew up the canvass bags.
I had two brothers, one of whom was not called up until after the war.
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