Old Gaffer

In my time in the Navy, the people most respected as groups, were the Submariners and the Divers. Not totally because of the risk, but because the conditions of their training and work were the toughest. Subs were merely lethal weapons first and last, and the comfort of the men was well down the list… Continue reading Royal Navy 1941 to ’46 in order, Life on a Small Ship

For four days the stunted little warship had writhed and hammered her way through the green bowels of the storm until the most hardened member found himself praying. In their selfish agony a few prayed for death, little caring its cause or how many would die in its accomplishment. Men of sterner stuff prayed for… Continue reading Royal Navy 1941 to ’46 in order, The change of the Watch

Food was in short supply throughout the war, we were not starving in the true sense, but our diets were insufficient to maintain that layer of fat which we might have carried just before the war and by 1944 I weighed only ten and a half stone with a ribcage like a washboard. I now… Continue reading Royal Navy 1941 to ’46 in order,Fiddles,Food and tales of Chicanery

There was no dearth of extroverts in the Navy, the trick was trying to avoid them. We were a great mixture in that class going through Leydene Signal School. There were sailors who had been telegraphists and had spent years at sea and knew every dodge in the book. They would tell you that if… Continue reading Royal navy 1941 to ’46 in order, Chats Round the Pot-bellied Stove

From the IOM we were sent to Petersfield, in Hampshire, to the Naval Signal School called Leydene. We were only to be in Leydene for about ten days and in that time we had to learn the workings of some ten transmitters and receivers together with all the ancillary equipment, so it is unsurprising that… Continue reading Royal Navy 1941 to ’46 in order, Leydene On The First Occasion.

After three months in Newcastle we left for the Isle of man where we were billeted in boarding houses on the front at Douglas. Further along the front, similarly housed but behind barbed wire, were the Italian internees, mostly harmless waiters and restaurateurs who would probably have been a greater asset to the war effort… Continue reading Royal Navy 1941 to ’46in order, Three Weeks on the Isle Of Man