Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2013 | Page 30

INTERVIEW
Roy remembered being a young sailor
in Destroyer HMS Boreas during the
Spanish War. He had already become
a boy First Class Ordinary Seaman,
and at the earliest possible age was
promoted to Able Seaman – and as he
progressed he often found himself the
youngest of his rank in the whole of
the British Navy.
“During the Spanish War we once
waited just outside the three-mile
exclusion limit for a British merchant
ship that had been machine-gunned as
it left harbour. We were sent to lend
a hand, and that was the
role of the British Navy
of that era – a majestic
force representing the
might of the British
Empire right around the
world,” he said.
“We boarded the ship
and I was despatched to
look for people in need
of first aid. I ended up
in the lower hold where
I saw a woman crying.
She was about to give
birth, so as a teenage
sailor I was introduced to
midwifery at its crudest! I
later heard via Admiralty
Signal that ‘mother and
child were doing well’.
That experience showed
that in the Royal Navy
you were required to do
anything, anywhere.”
Roy was serving in
HMS Penelope in 1937
when he became engaged
in his third conflict
in as many years – the
Palestinian War. He said:
“By then I had reached
the dizzy rank of Acting
Leading Seaman. I was
very proud of it, the
only one of that age in
thousands of British sailors. But it
mean t I was invariably picked out for
special duties.
“Once I was switched to khaki
uniform and found myself on shore,
first driving a three-ton Army lorry,

and then driving a train. I had never
done anything like it before, but I was
put on the train’s foot plate, and told
to make sure it got there. I was given
a pistol and told to shoot anyone who
disagreed with the idea.
“Again that was part and parcel of
life in the Royal Navy, although none
of my training had prepared me for
midwifery, driving a lorry or being in
charge of a train!”
Roy’s promotions continued, and
he told me: “I am blessed that my
life seems to have been filled with

then but was not used to that type of
occasion. I often wondered ‘why me?’.
Fortuitously an opportunity occurred,
and I was on hand to fill it.”
At the start of World War II in 1939
he was a Sub Lieutenant Officer of the
Watch in a coal burning ship, HMS
Sutton, sweeping mines in the English
Channel. He said: “It was a strange
experience on my first day on board
seeing everyone carrying sacks of coal
around the ship. My Captain told me I
was to be his Correspondence Officer
looking after all his confidential
books and secret war
documents. My cabin
was fitted with a steel
locker, so if we were sunk
no one could find the
documents. But every
time I walked past the
locker I tripped over the
damn thing!”
Roy was trained to take
charge of the ship in the
absence of the Captain,
and his first experience
of minesweeping was to
clear a route through the
Channel for a convoy of
merchant ships that were
due to travel through it.
They swept meticulously
without bringing up
a single mine, only to
discover that the convoy
had already gone through
a few hours earlier without mishap!
In 1941 Roy was
transferred to destroyer
HMS Ashanti, where
he was introduced to
the ‘real horrors and
depravations’ of World
War II. He said: “We
escorted hundreds of
merchant ships which
were being attacked by
packs of U-boats and diving aircraft. I
remember vividly seeing ships blazing,
and hearing the terrible cries of men
in the water. We were not allowed to
pick up survivors so as not to become
a sitting target; we had to sail on to

'I am blessed that my life seems
to have been filled with these
one-off experiences'

30

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these one-off experiences. As a
newly-promoted staff officer attending
an official lunch, I once found
myself sitting between the King of
Norway and the King of Sweden. I
had gone beyond fish and chips by