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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Norman Alvey, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In 1943 I was a radio mechanic serving with 816 squadron on the escort carrier HMS Tracker. This formed part of Captain Walker’s escort group and provided air cover for merchant convoys moving east and west over a 700 mile gap in mid-Atlantic which could not be reached by shore-based aircraft. Flying operations at sea are hazardous. Not only do aircraft have to take off and land on a short, heaving flight deck but the carrier has to leave the comparative safety of the convoy and steam into wind. Carriers cost far more than aircraft so, if a plane crashed on the deck, no time was spent on manhandling it forward in front of the crash barrier. It was pushed over the side at the nearest point after giving the technicians a few moments to salvage what they could. I found it quickest to knock the securing clips off radio equipment with a mallet and cold chisel. The squadron flew Swordfish, slow old biplanes, but faster than U-boats. One suffered a burst tyre and its three-man aircrew went overboard with it. Fortunately they were all picked up by the little rescue tug.

Once, when we were due to turn back towards Britain, the sea was extremely rough and Captain McGrath warned us to hang on as he made the attempt. A plumb line we had rigged in the radio workshop showed a roll of 51 degrees from the vertical before the manoeuvre was abandoned. One swordfish broke loose from its moorings and careered around the hangar deck. We could not restrain it until the ship returned to a more even keel when we redoubled its lashings. Petty Officer Radio Mechanic, Johnny Mann, removed our plumb line. During the upheaval one of the carrier’s engines had shifted and we obliged to carry on to America to get it fixed. First we went to Argentina in Newfoundland, one of the bases leased to the United States in return for some old destroyers. The Americans had not been there long but already there were bars, cinemas and supermarkets — unlike Scapa Flow which the Royal Navy had used for years. Steaming south we reached the dockyards at Norfolk, Virginia where the damaged engine was replaced calmly and quickly. Work on many other ships was going on day and night — another instance of the awesome productivity of our ally. On the way home a Swordfish caught fire in the hanger deck. It had been armed with rockets and the CO of 816 Squadron, Lt-Commander Nottingham, a South African, stood immediately behind these, directing operations, until the fire was quenched. Rockets had not featured largely in Atlantic operations but, later, they were to prove very effective in the Arctic.

On this trip U-Boats had been sighted but, despite depth charging, no sinkings had been confirmed. However, Germans dodging us could not attack the merchant ships which reached Britain safely. That was our prime object.

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