大象传媒

My name is Bill Martin. I was called up in 1941, when I was 19, and joined the Navy - I thought the Navy was the best of the three options. I went through the training period and ended up as a seaman/ radar operator in a minesweeper.

The first operational voyage I went on was a convoy, PQ17. We met up with the other ships in Iceland. After a few days, as the German fleet was thought to be near us, the convoy was ordered to scatter, so it was every ship for itself. It turned out to be the convoy with the most serious casualties in that particular run.

I was still young; it was very cold - you would die if you fell in the water. We were attacked from the air, and there were submarines around, but I didn't really have time to be scared - I had a job to do, helping load guns, but even so, it wasn't very nice having bombs dropped on you. The worse thing about it is that you're so helpless to influence things at all. I know now that scattering the convoy is considered to be a great error, and this has influenced how I think about people in command ever since.

We altered course to a place north of the White Sea, and joined with some other ships to make a mini-convoy. We were still under attack. After this we had a few nights in Archangel, and then we were sent out to search for survivors.

We spent some months up around North Russia. We didn't have any fresh food - just corned beef and ship's biscuit, and perhaps some rice, and we couldn't get anything from the local people, who didn't have much either - but there was a good line in local-brewed vodka!

Later on the first aircraft carriers came in - converted merchant ships - and convoy casualties were reduced. We eventually got back in December 1942, without any attacks because the weather was so foul.

I was also involved in the D-Day landings, sweeping a clear passage so that other craft could come in.

On a personal note - I shouldn't have been with PQ17 at all. I had had orders to join a destroyer, the Harvester, but a friend asked to exchange with me so that he could go with his mate on the Harvester. This was agreed by the drafting officer. This was the most important decision of my life - when I returned from North Russia I learned that the Harvester had been lost on Atlantic convoy work, and that both my "sub" and his mate were among the many fatalities. PQ 17 was the price I had to pay for surviving the next 50-odd years!

Looking back, I feel a bit cynical about it; war is stupid and doesn't solve any problems - so politicians take note!

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