大象传媒

THE RIGHT AGE TO JOIN THE SERVICES

Just the right age to join the services, I was just 19 years old. I volunteered more or less right away. I received a broken nosed at rugby almost the day that war broke out, with the result that I had to have an operation, so there was a certain amount of delay, but yes I volunteered then for the R.A.F. What influenced me was the fact that when I was at school all my friends went into the R.A.F. and I didn鈥檛 want to be the one that didn鈥檛 go into the R.A.F., and it was the thing to do to be fighting the enemy in a very exciting way, so that鈥檚 the reason I went in.

I had a re-occurrence of my nose problem and had to have that redone. I was told that as a result I was unfit for flying duties, because my sinuses and whole breathing were severely affected, and it was obvious that I couldn鈥檛 continue in the flying services of the R.A.F.

I had to have an operation to clear the problem in my nose so it took a little time for me to find, or at least my parents to find the right surgeon, which they eventually did. He did a wonderful, but rather brutal job on my nose and cleared up the problem which has never bothered me since. So then I felt back to fitness and I volunteered for the Navy.

The first thing that happened, I went to HMS Collingwood in the Portsmouth area and it was a place you did initial training by listening to people talking about certain aspects of the Navy, and preparing yourself for ship-board duty. I was told I was likely to be a sailor with ordinary duties on board ship.

At that stage I hadn鈥檛 been to sea, so I didn鈥檛 know if I would be sea-sick, (and I was). Sickness is something that almost everyone who goes to sea suffers from, but what I learnt fairly early on was that you could be violently sick quite frequently, but as long as you were able to carry out your duty, it then became less of a problem.

The first ship I was appointed to was a hunt class destroyer called, I think HMS Hunt and they used to be on coastal duties, based at Sheerness. I was asked if I would like any particular part of ship and I said I would like to be a gunnery officer, or a gunnery type because at that time I was only an ordinary, seaman coming up to be an able seaman, and they duly decided I would go to Devonport dockyard for a gunnery course, so that鈥檚 what I did, and I was then as qualified gunnery rating.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by June Woodhouse (volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of an anonymous author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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