Orcadians are often reminded of the war years. Scapa Flow lies in the middle of the Orkney archipelago, the main base of the British fleet during both world wars, and the site of the sinking of HMS Royal Oak by the German submarine U-47 with the loss of 833 lives. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered the construction of causeways between the southern islands to protect the south-east approaches. These are still known as Churchill Barriers, and now serve as road links to the south isles. I moved to Orkney in 1987, and the history of the islands often reminded me of stories my mother told of her only brother, a sailor, during the war years, who had been in Orkney, and whose ship was torpedoed by a U-boat.
A year ago, when thinking about my uncle, I decided to 鈥済oogle鈥 the name of his ship, 鈥淏roadwater鈥 to see if I could find out more. The search threw up a site (http://pages.britishlibrary.net/chalkywhite/) created by 鈥淐halky White,鈥 an ex-serviceman who while doing some research, came across the story of HMS Broadwater. He lamented that there was no official memorial to the dead, and as a result of his efforts memorial services were held at St Mary鈥檚 church Broadwater in 1998, and at Chichester Cathedral in 2002 attended by HRH Prince Michael of Kent along with other distinguished guests from the US, Canadian and Australian Navies. Sadly my uncle was never traced in time for him to attend the services, but other survivors were present. Nevertheless I printed out the text from Chalky鈥檚 web-site and sent them to my uncle. He was thrilled to read the reports and hear about the services. Johnnie鈥檚 daughter Elizabeth has since put together some texts of dictations she made when visiting her father, and the text of his story comes from these.
Lest we forget!
David
I was born in Glasgow in 1959, moved to Edinburgh in 1971, married Jacqueline (nee Moodie), a native Orcadian in 1985, and we make our home in Kirkwall, with our two teenage sons Erlend, and Samuel.
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