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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bernie Hawkins and has been added to the website on behalf of Margaret Whitaker with her permission and she fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

During the War the Navy was short of space for training and other functions and took over several holiday camps. They were ideal as they had accommodation, dining facilities and open spaces. The Warner鈥檚 Holiday Camp at Puckpool Park, Ryde, Isle of Wight was one of these and was commissioned in November 1940, renamed HMS Medina. Used by the main Fleet Air Arm station at Lee-on-Solent for training, the ship鈥檚 company consisted of regular Royal Navy Officers and ratings, RN reservists and Women鈥檚 Royal Naval Service (WRNS) providing most of the pay, stores, catering and transport staff. I was a Leading WRNS in the Pay Office.

I鈥檒l describe HMS Medina. As you go in the main gates of Puckpool Park, immediately on the right, at the end of what is now a caf茅, there was a regulated police officer to ask for your identification. The rest of the building was our offices. Where the present putting green and swings now are, that was what we called our quarterdeck, where all the marching took place. Puckpool House was taken over by the Captain, Herbert Edwards. There was a gun emplacement on the Seaview Esplanade which was manned by sailors who took over the front room of Beach Cottage. The old Victorian gun emplacements provided locations for new anti-aircraft gun positions and were also used as a training area.

I remember on one occasion, we were in the middle of paying the men. The men had to line up holding their caps and the Pay Commander put the money on the caps. That was the way we paid them, always. There was a very nasty air raid on, lots of shrapnel falling. The Pay Commander said, 鈥淒o you want to take shelter?鈥� but, as pay was in progress you couldn鈥檛 really leave it. We thought we鈥檇 better be brave and risk it. A piece of shrapnel 鈥� a very nasty, jagged piece 鈥� came through the roof of the caf茅, whizzed past the Pay Commander鈥檚 cap, and embedded itself in the wall behind.

Later on, HMS Medina changed from being a strict training establishment for young sailors to a base for landing craft training support. Much of this was carried out by elderly reservists, many of them Thames lighter men who arrived wearing a mixture of civilian clothes and their old First World War uniforms. Captain Edwards, who had been used to young ratings giving him a smart 鈥渆yes right鈥� when passing was taken aback when a group of men gave him the thumbs up and shouted 鈥淩ight me old mate鈥� in broad Cockney accents! (One of the new arrivals was Dod Osborne, a highly colourful figure who before the War captured the public imagination when he took a fishing boat the Girl Pat, across the Atlantic amid talk of the Secret Service, gun-running, etc.)

We had a hint that D-Day was approaching when a directive came through from the Admiralty telling us to give the men three weeks money. We only ever gave them a fortnight鈥檚. Obviously the three weeks money was to tide then over until they came back, or whatever. We knew something was up.

Later on I was stationed on HMS Osborne, The Seaview Hotel, which had been requisitioned with Seaview Pier in 1942. It was the HQ of the Navy on the Island.

Very early in the War, a boom had been placed in Spithead, stretching from The Duver at Seaview on the Isle of Wight right across to Southsea. Its purpose was to keep out German submarines from entering Portsmouth Harbour and the naval vessels there. A gap was left in the barrier to enable our ships to enter Spithead waters (or Portsmouth) and this was guarded by a small naval vessel at each end of the gap 鈥� each one manned, I think, by an officer and six ratings.

One night towards the end of 1944, there was a terrific gale and I noticed that one of the gap-guarding vessels, the Minora, had vanished. It had apparently been sunk, but we heard that all the crew had been rescued by the Bembridge Lifeboat as soon as it was daylight.

Several months later the officer who had been in charge was brought into our office in a wheelchair, having need of some money! The cold night in the sea had severely damaged his legs and he had spent time in Haslar Hospital. And that was the last we thought we would see of him. However, after the War had ended 鈥� three years later I think 鈥� my husband and I moved to the New Forest, where I took a little job in a forest office. One day a man came into the office to pay for goods and I thought something seemed a little familiar. Yes, it was that ex-naval officer, recovered, except that the palms of his hands were covered in hair. He explained that during the night of the storm he had managed to tie each crew man on to the boom with rope, but one became unconscious and started to drift away. He gave him his own rope and had to cling on to the barnacled boom himself, where he sustained terrible injuries to his hands. Skin was taken from his thighs and grafted on to his hands, where the hair continued to grow.

Many years later I was listening to Radio Solent and the announcer was interviewing the coxswain of the Bembridge Lifeboat. He asked him to tell him of one the most interesting rescues, and he told this story. I phoned the coxswain after he came off air and he was so interested to hear more of this episode that he invited me to his home in Bembridge to exchange reminiscences at a little later date. Sadly he died before I could see him. He did tell me during our phone chat, however, that many years after the War he was on holiday in the Shetlands, and guess who was Captain of the little island vessel? Yes, the same ex-officer. Small world!

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