My
father died in 2009 and never said much about his war and my own
memories are fading now. I believe he was proud of his involvement and
joining HMS
Westcott, his
first ship, at nineteen changed his life, and not always for the best.
His fondest memories were of his time on HMS
Westcott because of the sense of
comradeship he felt but he went on to serve on HMS
Helvig, a mine-layer (or floating
bomb as he called it).
He almost didn’t join up and could
so easily have been killed, when a jettisoned bomb exploded on the
footpath in front of him as he watched from an open door the German
bombers returning after their raid on London. The house had to be
demolished.
The two stories I remember best
were the ramming of U581 and seeing HMS
Eagle
hit and sunk with one of his best friends aboard. I recently discovered
that some of Westcott’s signal staff had been assigned to the
Eagle so
it could have been one of them.
He liked sleeping in a hammock and
told me he got 6d (equivalent to 2.5p) a time for colour washing black
and white photos of wives and sweethearts for fellow shipmates. He
liked to be smart and his bell-bottoms were always pressed (as can be
seen in some of his photos). I remember him talking about the orange
boats that came out from the Azores and watching out for Spanish
trawlers spying. They liked escorting the larger capital ships because
they would get fresh bread. He also described the changing weather,
from Atlantic gales to the heat of the Mediterranean.
The captain during his time on HMS
Westcott
was
Cdr Bockett-Pugh and he spoke fondly of the skipper although he was
a disciplinarian. He kept a Winchester rifle on the bridge and the crew
were taught to use it as he believed that even sailors needed to know
how to shoot straight. I still have the mascot his mother made for my
father out of one of his sister’s dolls of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs
dressed as Cdr Bockett-Pugh (on right).
He recalled being knocked over
trying to fire a stripped Lewis gun during an air raid and spending
time reloading Oerlikon magazines. He was very scathing about the
Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon and US escort ships that wouldn’t stay
in formation.
After his death I found his service
record, his medals – never worn and still in their original packaging –
and a number of small photographs of friends and crew-mates, mostly not
named.
