大象传媒

I left school in 1936. Work was short at that time and the only choice was between shipbuilding and coalmines. My lifelong friend whose brother was under-manager of a coal mine helped me to get a job in the mines in Silksworth, County Durham. I started there and after six months my friend applied for entry into the Royal Navy.

Three months later he came home on leave and told me it was a good life. So I made up my mind and applied to the Royal Naval recruitment office to sit my General Knowledge test. I was advised that I had passed and two weeks later my career in the Royal Navy had begun. I was sent to HMS Pembroke in Chatham, Kent, along with fifteen other boys. We underwent three months of basic training in discipline, marching and gunnery and then joined a V+W class destroyer, HMS Wanderer, for two weeks of sea training and seamanship. We returned to Chatham as ordinary seamen (2nd Class).

The other boys and I were sent on ten days鈥� leave and returned to Chatham for dispersal to various ships. We assembled in the drill shed and were told by the drafting officer we were going to Dundee in Scotland to join a survey ship, HMS Scott, which was being built by Caledon shipbuilders. After builders鈥� trials and sea trials, the ship was commissioned on 23rd February, 1939.

We left Chatham to be fitted with surveying equipment and sailed from there three weeks later to Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, where we witnessed the floating of the last German battleship scuttled in 1918 as part of the German Grand Fleet which was captured there.

After two weeks in Orkney, we sailed for Aberdeen, Montrose, Arbroath and Dundee. While we were staying in Dundee, tragedy happened. HMS Torbay, one of the new subs on trials, sank in Liverpool Bay with great loss of life. Two members of the crew had married Dundee girls. The officer arranged a dance, with all the proceeds going to next of kin. HMS Scott was the first ship to hold a dance in the Empress Ballroom.

While the ship was in Dundee, my shipmate and I decided to go to the Vic Cinema in Victoria Road, where we met a very nice usherette and my friend Roy started writing to her. The next night she brought her friend and, when we left Dundee a week later, she and I kept writing to each other. Her name was Mary and Roy鈥檚 girlfriend was Margaret. The last time I had seen Mary was in June 1939 and the next time we met was in December 1941. We got engaged and were married on January 17th 1942. Our family has three boys and three girls. My friend was taken prisoner of war in Norway and his ship, HMS Havoc, was sunk. Out of 157 crew there were only seven survivors, who were taken prisoner of war. He never saw Margaret for four years. My school friend who got me to join the Navy lost his life in HMS Duchess, a destroyer, which was in collision with the battleship HMS Barham, with the loss of 187 men of whom my dear friend was one.

Our ship sailed for Dundee from the River Forth, surveying Port Edgar, Rosyth, Granton and Leith, and after completing these surveys we sailed for Berwick, the river Tyne, Sunderland, Hull and then down to Grimsby. I got seven days boiler- cleaning leave, after which we sailed for Dover, arriving on Saturday. War was declared on Sunday.

The ship sailed for Chatham and a number of the crew were discharged to barracks. They wanted volunteers to become asdic (later sonar) operators and I volunteered. I was sent to HMS Osprey for two months鈥� training and qualified as an asdic operator.

I returned to Chatham for drafting. The British Army had been defeated in France and every available vessel was commandeered by the Royal Navy to evacuate thousands of troops on the beaches. I was sent to Dover to join the crew of HMS Vanquisher heading for France. Five days later, the ship returned to Sheerness and I was sent back to Chatham Barracks, where I was told I was going to Scotland to join a destroyer that was in dry dock at Grangemouth. We sailed for Liverpool and, after minor repairs in Birkenhead, we escorted HMS Ark Royal and sailed on 20th July 1940 to form the escort group Force H to escort the Malta convoys from Malta to Gibraltar. The escorts were HMS Renown, HMS Malaya (both battleships), HMS Sheffield, HMS Manchester and eight destroyers, of which HMS Duncan was flotilla leader, escorting merchant ships with supplies for Malta and the Middle East. 18 months later, the ship was damaged by bombs and, after temporary repairs in Gibraltar, it was sent home to Chatham in December 1941.

En route to the UK, HMS Duncan sank a U-boat in the Bay of Biscay. We picked up ten survivors and landed them in Devonport. The ship sailed to Chatham, arriving in mid-December 1941. I was among the second half of the ship鈥檚 company to get leave and I came to Dundee to meet Mary, who was later to become my wife.

I went back to Chatham and was immediately sent back to HMS Osprey at Portland to do a further course on Sonar. After qualifying as a higher submarine detector, I was sent to HMS Poppy, a flower class corvette in Londonderry doing escort duties, mainly with Russian convoys PQ17. The ship was later damaged by shellfire and went back to Belfast for repairs. I returned to HMS Osprey for a refresher course and in September 1943, joined HMS Pelorus, an Algerine class minesweeper built at Lobnitz shipbuilders in Paisley. After completing trials, we sailed to Tobermory for more gruelling sweeping, gunnery and asdic exercising, as well as making visits to the Western Isles depot ship for asdic table expertise in the company of Rear Admiral Williams, the 鈥淭obermory Terror.鈥�

Six weeks later, including two weeks of strenuous training, we were there. We were kept at our wits鈥� end and it was nothing unusual to get a signal to raise steam with full dispatch and proceed to sea in a Force 7 gale on Christmas Day to engage the enemy. 24 hours later we arrived in Invergordon for more beach landings with the Black Watch and Seaforth Highlanders.

Two weeks later, we sailed for the Forth and arrived at the Port Edgar minesweeping headquarters. We sailed to Harwich to join the 8th minesweeping flotilla and get down to more hard work and station-keeping. In May 1944 we left Harwich for Portsmouth. By this time we realised that something was afoot and shore leave was restricted to 2pm to 4pm in a small place in the Isle of Wight called Sea View. By the end of May all leave had been stopped. There was a big build-up of American, Canadian, British and Polish ships and we were kept on full alert 24 hours a day. Our captain told us the final drive would be on 5th June. The wind on the Saturday was gale force from the south-west, so we had to steam about for the next 24 hours. By early next morning the wind had dropped to Force 2, the drive was on and our destination was Gold Beach. Later that day the wind had pipped up to Force 6/7.and there were many ships, landing craft and tugs towing ships for the Mulberry Harbour. On 7th June, the weather abated and things got moving in our favour. The carnage of men and the numbers of ships being sunk were unbelievable. The barrage from capital ships was devastating.

At about 07.30 on the fourth day I was on watch on the asdic set and we got the full blast of a Ratchet mine. The vessel had its fore end severely damaged and I was the only casualty. We were taken into Mulberry Harbour, then sailed back to the UK. The only shipyard was Jarrow on the River Tyne, where I was discharged to Newcastle General Hospital. Two days of intensive treatment later, I was allowed back to the ship. By this time the whole ship鈥檚 company were on leave, apart from five crew members and one officer.

My parents lived ten miles away in Sunderland, so I stayed there, reporting to the ship every day and to the hospital for treatment for Bilateral Nerve Deafness caused by an underwater explosion. I was certified unfit for further naval service and granted leave from the ship for three weeks, after which I returned to The Royal Naval Hospital, Gillingham, Kent and was medically discharged as being below the Navy鈥檚 physical standard. Six officers signed a Naval Hurt Certificate to certify that my injury was caused by enemy action. So ended my days in the Royal Navy.

I am now President of the Royal Naval Association Club in Dundee, which I joined in 1954, and am still very active in running the club. We support the Dundee Sea Cadets, as well as Capability Scotland and Radio Tay Charities.

Footnote

HMS Duncan was one of the few ships to sink two U- boats in 24 hours and we spent so much time at sea that we ran short of oil fuel. All this time we were searching for two submarines, one of which had been damaged by a swordfish from HMS Ark Royal. We picked up six survivors and, some six hours later, found another contact and pursued it for five hours to attack by depth charges. Eventually we sank her without any survivors. By this time we were about 100 miles from the Azores and the captain of the Duncan sent a signal to the Commander-in-Chief in Gibraltar for commission to Ponta De La Garda in the Azores for enough fuel to get back to Gibraltar. Ponta De La Garda was a neutral country.

Frederick Potter via Dundee Central Library

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