WHEN I FIRST moved to the North Lincolnshire village in which I now live, there was a small, discreet plaque behind the war memorial that caught my attention. It was not an imposing monument, nor did it offer any particularly dramatic clue as to what had happened there, but there was something about it that …
The RN Service History of Francis Wand FOR THOSE OF us interested in family history, there is something oddly compelling about official military service records. Unlike memoirs, they are not written to amuse or delight. Unlike family stories, they require no sentiment to soften the edges. They are, quite simply, administrative documents – written in …
A Warship for Uncertain Times IN MY PREVIOUS post — 'May They Both Flourish' — I looked at what it was to be sailor aboard the Royal Navy's County Class cruiser, HMS Shropshire, during World War Two. Here, in a post that will draw a curtain on the series covering my father's wartime naval experience, …
A Sailor's Life Aboard HMS Shropshire & the First Arctic Convoy IN MY RECENT post, “Wet, Cold and Always Tired,” I explored the harsh realities faced by ratings who served aboard Britain’s corvettes during the Second World War. Now, I turn to a very different warship — the Royal Navy’s County-class heavy cruiser, HMS Shropshire. …
Life Aboard a WW2 Corvette THEY WERE NEVER meant to be heroes. Small, hastily designed, and built in civilian shipyards more accustomed to whalers than warships, the Royal Navy’s Flower-class corvettes were born out of urgency. In 1939, Britain faced a familiar nightmare: the slow strangulation of its lifelines by German U-boats. What was needed …
'Out of the approximately 37,000 trained U-boat crewmembers in World War II, only about 6,000 survived the war to return safely to their homes in Germany.' Hans Goebeler - 'Steel Boats Iron Hearts' FROM TIME to time on this blog I return to two very different passions and pursuits: the submarine war of 1939–45, and …
Discovering Küehne + Nagel’s Dark WWII Past WHEN I worked for the shipping and transport giant Küehne + Nagel, I was pleased to be a small part of the global logistics heavyweight. It was a company built on precision, reliability, and efficiency. Containers, tilt trailers, freight rates and manifests: this was the language of our …
Introduction IF YOU'VE READ my posts 'Fallen Eagle' and 'Lost Souls' you will know that my son Josh was, for several years, a member of one of the UKs premier World War Two re-enactment groups. (Right) Josh portraying a Gefreiter [Lance Corporal] of the German 21st Infanterie Rest time at the field kitchen (Left) Manning …
MY INTEREST IN The Battle of the Atlantic runs deep. You see, both my grandfather and my father served in the Royal Navy during wartime. During WW1, my grandfather, then a Chief Petty Officer, was a master gunner aboard the iconic battleship, HMS Dreadnought. HMS Dreadnought A couple of decades later, in WW2, my father …
SOME FASCINATIONS begin in childhood and never let go. For me, one such allure was the silent menace of submarines—sleek, powerful vessels gliding unseen beneath the waves. In later years I found something similarly captivating on land: the commanding presence of smartly painted, intelligently-designed heavy lorries—powerful machines that appear as stunning and substantive as any …
