大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Website by Sutton Coldfield Library on behalf of A.L.Wills. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was living in Central Dorset and working as a farm labourer when I joined the Boy鈥檚 Service of the of the RN in 1943 at the age of 16. After initial tests at Dorchester ( Dorset) I then went a few months later to Southampton. The following day with a number others we went by train and boat to HMS St.George on the Isle of Man. There we were quarantined for 3 weeks whilst indoctrination, innoculation, vaccinations etc took place.

HMS St.George was pre war, a holiday camp with rows of linked chalets overlooking the sea and about 2 miles from Douglas. The camp housed some 600 boy entrants in various stages of training in visual signals, wireless telegraphy or seamanship. I was designated to the latter which lasted nearly a year.

Discipline was strict in all aspects. Reveille was at 06.30 and lights out at 2100. Between these times it was a constant round of parade ground, seamanship and gunnery instruction. Educational subjects and sports were held every afternoon in winter and each evening in summer. School, for which we had to march 4 miles each way, alternated with sporting activities. Whilst soccer was the favourite pastime we were regularly detailed to participate in most other ball games, athletics, boxing and milling. The latter is a form of non-defensive boxing and I believe peculiar to boys service. Many would call it character building.

Swimming was taught to those like myself who were unable to swim. Until the required proficiency test was passed we were not allowed outside the gates on shore leave. All swimming was done wearing only your 鈥渂irthday suit鈥� except when taking the various tests when you had to don a 鈥渄uck suit鈥� which was made of heavy canvas material. (A left over from sailing ship days I think).

Later in the course we were introduced to boat work, rowing and sailing. At the regatta held in Douglas Bay I won a second place rowing medal for being a member of a 16 man cutter鈥檚 crew.

Uniform was provided. With all the activity which caused us to be always hungry most boys grew considerably, fortunately the clothing provided was too big in the first place so we had space to expand. Not only did we have to mark all items of kit with our name carved from a wooden block and called a 鈥渢ype鈥�, but we had to sew the name in black thread for white items and red wool for black/blue items. In winter we wore blue suits but in the summer the white duck suits. The latter we scrubbed on the bathroom floor every Saturday. Black boots and blancoed knee length gaiters were the norm.

Local leave was granted on alternate Wednesday, Saturday and Sundays from 1300 - 1800.

Main leave was granted every 4 months. We had to make our way unsupervised by the ferry to the mainland at Fleetwood, then on to your final destination. For me, living in Dorset this meant train changes at Crewe, 2 main line stations in London plus the intricacies of the underground, Waterloo, Poole and finally Blandford. Trains were always crowded with people in uniform and you were unlikely to get a seat. The journey depended entirely on the state of air raids, delays etc and would invariably last about 36 hours. At Blandford I then had a 6 mile walk for seemingly always arriving there at dawn. The village bus ran 3 days per week and not until 1230. Being in uniform there would be chance of a lift some part of the way. However with severe petrol rationing there was little vehicular traffic on the roads.

Returning to the Isle of Man meant putting the whole scheme in reverse. The RN had a zero policy regarding lateness which, if incurred would involve the loss of privileges, pay and leave.

Still only 16 years of age I did not find travelling daunting at all and revelled in the responsibility. The various steam locomotives was an added attraction and at the time I thought seeing them was just great.

My First Ship

In August 1944, I took my final leave from HMS St.George before I joined the fleet aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable at the Northern Anchorage of Scapa Floe in the Orkney Islands. Another long train journey.

Within an hour of joining the ship she put to sea. I was completely lost on board but eventually managed to find my way around. We docked at Greenock where I had more leave. During wartime the movement of ships and their personnel was secret and were not discussed but I indicated to my Mother that with the lack of requirement for such a ship in Home Waters there could only be one destination. At the time the ship was still on the secret list and my mother wondered whether she would ever see the name in print. From this leave, Mother saw me to the station and onto the train, the first and only time. If she was worried for my future safety it was not revealed. She must have had some apprehension for my sister was serving on a mixed anti-aircraft gun battery at Bristol and my father had recently died. What lay ahead for her son?

After leave we sailed to Portsmouth for five days in dry dock. In November of that year we sailed for the Far East calling for fuel at Algiers, Suez Canal, Columbo and finally, the beautiful harbour of Trincomalee, which was then in the country of Ceylon, now named Sri Lanka. After spending a few weeks working up to operational readiness, we sailed for an attack on the Japanese held oil installations on the island of Sumatra. This was my first time in action against the enemy. A couple of weeks later we carried out another such attack at a different location on Sumatra. Instead of returning to 鈥淭rinco鈥� we made our way to Fremantle in Australia for fuel. This meant we had, en route, crossed the equator where for centuries ships have paid homage to King Neptune. In naval parlance it was the order of the day for 鈥渉ands to dance and skylark鈥� and be initiated into the mysteries of the deep via a ducking stool and a very large canvas tub of dirty water, complete with ferocious bears who ensure you have your fill. I have a treasured certificate which proclaims my membership. After our short stop off, for a few hours at Fremantle, we then sailed onto Sydney where we arrived on my 18th Birthday to a tumultuous welcome for our exploits had preceded us.

After a couple of weeks in Sydney, time spent on a few days leave, repairing, fuelling and storing ship, we sailed for the Admiralty Islands to make up the task force for the invasions of the island of Okinawa. On April 1st, the first day of the attack, we were hit by a Japanese kamikaze suicide plane at about 0745 on Easter Sunday morning. For the next 6-7 weeks, our planes kept up a near constant attack on the Japanese supply lines to the island and many losses were sustained. During this time, all our supplies were bought to us by the fleet train over thousands of miles. Conditions inside the ship were difficult for there was no air conditioning, little ventilation and temperatures would be extremely high, as would the humidity. Food was either tinned or dehydrated varieties and not too plentiful.

Flying would commence at dawn, around 04.30 Pacific time and we would therefore be at action stations from then until dusk at about 1900. My job during flying on/off was that of extra aircraft handling party manning the wheel clocks at the side of the aircraft. On landing I used to help fold the wings and generally help with the manhandling of the aircraft. At action stations we had to wear full anti-flash gear which covered exposed parts of the body, i.e. the face, the neck, hands and arms. It was noisy in the turret, full of cordite fumes and hard work. Because of the nature of the enemy attacks, we would be firing mainly over short periods.

The idea was that the ship would put up an effective barrage so that enemy suicide planes flying through would be hit.

We returned to Sydney in late May for leave, repairs, restocking of all essential goods for the final assault on Japan. Late July found us back in the forward area off the coast of mainland Japan carrying out bombing raids on anything that moved. The attacks by the kamikazes continued, although the ship had several near misses we were not hit again. During late August, the planes were used to search for POW camps. On September 2nd 1945, we sailed into Tokyo Bay, being part of the American task force and the only British Aircraft Carrier. We proceeded back to Sydney with about 200 hundred Australian POW鈥檚. A few more days relaxing leave there, then we proceeded to paint the outside of the ship in naval peacetime colours ready for our 鈥渟how the flag鈥� cruise to Wellington, Pitcairn, Bay of Plenty and Auckland in New Zealand.

We left Sydney for the last time in January 1946, calling at Melbourne, Fremantle, Cape Town, Freetown, Gibraltar finally arriving at Portsmouth in March 1946 to a fabulous welcome home where my Mother, younger sister and several relations came to watch the ship come in and come on board to see for themselves what the inside of an aircraft carrier looked like.

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