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Submitted to 大象传媒 Radio Kent 鈥淧eople鈥檚 War鈥� by Andrew Green on behalf of his late father, Robert 鈥淏ob鈥� Green and his late uncle, Sidney 鈥淪am鈥� Green. He fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My father and uncle were both living in Hawkinge at the outbreak of the war. Their father had died in 1937 and their mother and a sister were to be killed in an air raid on Hawkinge Aerodrome in September 1940.

They both went to sea鈥︹��

Sidney (Sam) Green 鈥� 鈥淯ncle Sam鈥�.

Sam was by far the most travelled member of the family.

As an 18-year old sailor in the wartime Royal Navy, he was shipped with a hundred or so others across the U-boat infested Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia and thence by train across the continent to Seattle on the North Pacific coast of the United States.

Here, he helped commission a newly built warship, HMS Ranee, a Ruler Class escort aircraft carrier.

Bringing her back to the UK via Panama, they put in at the US naval base at San Diego, California, where, during a run ashore he and a few others were arrested and briefly imprisoned for under age drinking 鈥� in the US you have to be over 21!

Returning to the UK, at Scapa Flow the ship was first involved in training pilots in deck-landings, then operated as part of the escort screen for at least one convoy to the Russian arctic port of Murmansk.

Shortly after, the ship was sent to the Indian Ocean to join the newly re-formed British Pacific Fleet sailing to join the Americans as they island-hopped towards Okinawa.

Once in the Pacific, HMS Ranee acted as a ferry carrier, taking aircraft and fuel to the forward bases as the advance toward the Japanese home islands continued.

During most of his time in Ranee, Sam鈥檚 post was in the wheelhouse, at the helm, so he could proudly say that he had 鈥渄riven鈥� around the world!

As an adjunct to the above, Sam was always ready to defend the Americans against the charge that they had an 鈥渆asy鈥� war often levelled by people in Britain.

Their war, he said was in the Pacific, and he told a story of sighting a large number of American sailors floating in their life jackets like a great raft. A boat was lowered to check for evidence of their ship, and to check for survivors. None were found, and when a boat hook was used to drag a body in toward the boat, it was found that the legs and lower torso had been eaten away by sharks.

This sight was repeated several times as Ranee made its way across the Pacific.

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