Interview with Charles Meacock

Interview with Charles Meacock

Charles Meacock saw an advertisement for motorboat crew in a newspaper and decided this was the role for him. He had been a Sea Cadet on the Thames for many years and loved life on the water. He had to wait for some time before he received his first posting. One of the first encounters he had with his crew was when they were despatched to destroy a balloon that had come adrift from its mooring. On another occasion they approached a destroyer and he was struck by the whiteness of the men. It was only as he got nearer that he realised they were burn victims and they would be ferrying them to shore for onward travel to hospital. Charles served in the UK and abroad in the Far East, Cyprus and the Middle East.

02:42:15 audio recording

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AMeacockC[Date]-01

My name is Charles William Meacock and I’m ninety four ongoing. I joined the RAF in July 1941 and I responded to a newspaper article re-motorboat crew and was asked to go to Cardington to be asked by officers and two NCOs what I knew about boats. And after I had described my connection with boating which was through Scouting and the River Thames they recommended that I should be ACH/MBC. I went home on the Voluntary Reserve and nothing happened so in August I wrote to them and asked them when they were going to call me up. And twice I did this and in October 1941 they called me up and I went to Cardington where they collected a number of us and sent us to be kitted out at Penarth in Wales. That was October 1941 that that occurred. Our uniforms were tailored. As far as mine was concerned the only thing was my trouser legs were very long and they shortened them successfully for me. From Penarth we were sent to Initial Training Wing at Weston Super Mare and there we joined a squad that was to be our permanent training squad under the direction of a corporal. With that we went through a whole series of exercises with guns bayonets. Also hand grenades and shooting at targets and on that occasion none of us seemed to hit the bullseye and of course on the return to Weston itself, Weston [unclear] where we were being trained an officer came out and he took us to town over our shocking rifle exercise. And it was later found out somebody had reset the sights on the rifles and of course we had no chance of hitting the board. So the corporal selected five lads, took them around the pits with rifles, they shot up and they’d all hit the boards so in fact we all passed our test. Having completed a load of exercises over a period of six weeks they decided to add a further week and make commandos of us. So we climbed over wire netting, we wrestled with one another until they were all satisfied that we would make very good airmen capable of defending ourselves and that was it. That was the end of the course so we had a passing out parade and the commanding officer with his entourage stood on a dais and saluted us and we marched off into history as far as they were concerned. The following day the corporal came out with a sheet of paper and read out names and said, ‘All of you report to the office to get your posting material.’ And we were a bit unfortunate. We were right at the very end of this procedure when he called out my name and I was the only one that was there for motorboat crew. So I received my travel warrants and some coupons and we had a week’s leave and I went home to my home and from there after a week where I thoroughly enjoyed myself with my family I got on the train and headed for Great Yarmouth and that was in December 1941. Having got to Yarmouth I was put into a billet and told to parade the next day which I did and this went on for two or three days and I thought I’ve been here before. I’ve done all this. So I did as we were instructed at Super Mare to take two paces forward. So I did. The corporal was up at the other end of the squad called out, ‘That airman get back.’ So, of course, I did as I was told. But that evening I walked down the front and I saw our sergeant and I said to him, ‘Sergeant, could I have a word please?’ And he said, ‘What do you want, airman?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve done all this before at Weston Super Mare. I thought I was coming up here to go on to boats.’ So he said, ‘Right. Leave it with me. Parade in the morning as usual and we’ll see.’ So of course, I did and in the morning I was called out and I had to report to the office and on reporting to the office they said, ‘Get your kit, put it in the fifteen hundred weight.’ And that took me right along the front to a lovely hotel and I was greeted by a corporal who said, ‘Welcome.’ And he said, ‘Now, your job is to clean the marble staircase and clean all the brass on the door up there but you don’t go in. That’s the commanding officer of East Anglia.’ So with that I said. ‘Yes, corp. What am I here for?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re here to clean the stairs and clean his brass on his door.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m supposed to be on launches, I think.’ So he said, ‘That’s being sorted out.’ And within a few days of doing the cleaning of the stairs and the brass I was told to get my kit and to report outside where there was a fifteen hundred weight with two other airmen who just completed their course at Yarmouth and they were MBCs. So, the fifteen hundred weight took off and he headed for Gorleston and when we got to Gorleston the tide had set the launches low and so all we actually saw was the deck stars with the RAF duster. Having booked in with the office the flight sergeant in charge of the unit said, ‘Right. Get on that fifteen hundred weight and he’ll take you up to the Cliff Hotel. So we were sent up to the Cliff Hotel into the care of a corporal cook who was in charge and he said, ‘Your job is to clean this place up ready for the troops to occupy.’ He said, ‘Because all the lads are billeted out on town and they will shift into this place when you’ve got it ready.’ Well, after about a week the three of us had got it all ready. He had said, ‘Sort yourself out a room on the first floor and that will be your room while you’re here. So that all done was fine and the last thing to happen was coal and coke shot out into the car park and that of course went into the bunkers but some came out through the holes underneath where you’ve got a supply, and the corporal said, ‘Well, look, tidy that up. Sweep them bits and pieces around and make it look neat.’ The next thing was the flight sergeant of the unit came up to inspect and he said, ‘Oh, that’s fine. Now, you know, go and make the beds up for the sergeants —’ because they were on the top floor, ‘And we’ll be all ready for the inspection.’ So up came the CO of the unit then and he had a look around and he congratulated us. We got the boilers all going so the bathrooms, showers, water oh there was plenty supply of hot water when the lads wanted a bath or a shower. We happened to have a shower and a bath in our room. Anyway, when the CO looked around he said, ‘That’s a bit of a mess that coal and coke.’ And he whispered something and he said, ‘Fine lads, you made a good job.’ Now then, the flight sergeant came over to us and said, ‘Get some whitewash and whitewash that coal and that coke.’ And then the following day the officer commanding at Anglia came up. I think he was a wingco. I beg your pardon, a groupie and he came up inspected the place and said, ‘This is fine. Ok.’ And that was it. Dismissed. What occurred next was the corporal cook said to us, ‘There’s a bucket of spuds down there. Peel them.’ So of course, we got down and peeled the spuds. And then there was some parsnips. ‘Peel the parsnips.’ And then it was, ‘Fill up the coal skuttles and the coke skuttles and make sure that all the boilers were working.’ So that there was plenty of hot water for the lads whenever they wanted it and with that all done I thought this is a bit odd. I’d volunteered for this business to be on boats. So one day I said to the corporal after we’d peeled the potatoes, ‘Can I go down and have a look at the boats?’ So he said, ‘Oh yes. Certainly.’ So I went down and looked at the boats and I was leaning. They were about the tide had brought them up so that I could lean on the gunnel and look into the wheelhouse and I got a tap on the shoulder. Turned around, it was a flight sergeant so I stood strictly to attention as we’d been told at the ITW and he said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said, ‘AC1 AC2 Charles Meacock.’ So he said, ‘No. What’s your name?’ So I said, ‘Well, AC2 Charles Meacock.’ He said, ‘Look, my name’s Leslie. What’s your name?’ I fell in. ‘My name’s Chas.’ [laughs] This was nothing like we were taught at the training wing. All very friendly. So he said, ‘Interested?’ So, I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, 'Well, come aboard.’ So I went aboard with him and he took me down into the foxhole, explained all about the foxhole, the four bunks there. Three for the deckhands and one for the wireless op and then he took me up into the wheelhouse. ‘These are the trotters. These are the telegraphs, and your job would be to polish the woodwork and polish the metal.’ ‘Right you are.’ And he said, ‘This is the chart table.’ And on it was a chart of Gorleston. So I said to him oh that’s the Scrobies over there on the chart.’ So he said, ‘What do you know about boats?’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m an MBC. I’ve got a book about boats and,’ I said, ‘I read it.’ So he said, ‘Well, what are you doing up at the Cliff Hotel?’ I said, ‘Peeling potatoes.’ He said, ‘You should be down on the boats.’ So we came down on the boats. He got us down there and what he did he put me on his boat and there was a lad, Tommy Ladd, a Londoner, he put him on 1T2 and the other lad was Freddie [Sorden] and he went on to 125 HSLs, whalebacks. And that was it. Well, my job was to polish the woodwork and the brass on the control panel and that was that. Now when there was a callout there used to be a claxon that made a din of a noise and wherever you were in Gorleston you could hear it so they knew that was a callout. If you were at the pictures they’d flash up on the screen, “HSL crews return to base.” And of course the lads would come and they’d put to sea. But at that point in time I was told to get off the launch. So waved goodbye to them, they went out and they managed to pick up a crew. I think it was a light bomber crew and brought them ashore and that was that. Well, I thought, well you know being kicked off the launch when the business was on I wasn’t happy about so on the next occasion the siren went I was in the foxhole loo and I thought I’m stopping here until I heard the boat get underway and then I appeared. And of course I went up into the wheelhouse and the coxswain said, ‘Go in to the sick bay.’ Where the second coxswain was and the second coxswain said, ‘Right. You stay here for the moment.’ And what they were going out for was a convoy had gone up and one of the balloons had come adrift and of course the heavy cable had pulled it down to floating on the sea. So with that the launch was sent out to dispose of this balloon and I was put up in the forward gun turret and of course when we got out there Leslie cut the throttles, put it in to neutral and she did rock and rock. Well, I think we must have shot every fish in the North Sea and nearly brought the sun down. But in the end he said, ‘Right. You three lads get some rifles, get clips of bullets and line the deck there and open fire when I tell you.’ And he called out, ‘Open fire.’ They did do and eventually they put enough in the balloon for it to sink and we returned to base again. Having shot the balloon down we returned to base and they did a little top up on the fuel and I spent much of my time on board either fishing or reading a book on boating in general. Then there was a callout where what had happened in the meantime one of the deckhands, LAC had been sent away for a coxswains course and so in fact I took his place. And there was a callout and that was an aircraft down off Cromer and it was lovely in the year itself but by God when we got out into the open sea there was a gale on out there. But I wondered how I was going to fare but we got going and they headed for Cromer. Well, we were somewhere near Cromer where the crash had occurred when they got the RTB. Return to base. So of course, the coxswain turned the launch around, the skipper gave his course and we headed back to Gorleston. It transpires that Blog who was the Royal Naval lifeboat man he’d been out and picked them up and got them ashore and in fact they were back on their unit by the time we got up there. So, we returned back down to Gorleston but unfortunately on the way down I’d fared very well as a seaman but the, one of the fitters opened the communicating hatch from the engine room to the sick bay, in came a load of petrol and I was terribly sick. I took a belly full of that and I was terribly sick and when we got back to Gorleston and I was helped off by one of the wireless operators. A Jock. A Scotsman. Jock Bryce. He helped me off and the land started rocking. Well, I don’t remember him getting me back to the Cliff Hotel but he did and he wrapped me up in my bunk and said, ‘There you are. Have a good night’s rest.’ So that was it. Going off to sleep I thought I don’t like this game. Seasickness. Terrible. But there was nothing I could remuster to. I wanted to be aircrew but I had a fast pulse and that stopped me from being a pilot. So woke up in the morning, breakfast and down. Helped to clean the launch up and I went into the chart room and saw all the bits and pieces laying on the table so I put them in their containers and then I went down into the foxhole and I began to read my book. A few days went by and nothing occurred in particular. And then one night up at the cliff we heard tremendous confusion going on out in the North Sea which indicated that there was a convoy going up and the Germans had come out from Holland and were having a go at it and our boys were having a go back. And that’s how it went. Well, in the morning we got a call around to a position of Felixstowe and we pulled, before we pulled up alongside the destroyer there was a whole line of sailors who wore white and I thought it must be, I wondered what this whiteness is. But when we approached it transpires that they’d been badly burned when a mine exploded under the destroyer and it had badly burned their arms. Well, we were asked by the officer on board, the Naval officer to take them into Felixstowe which was the nearest port as they’d radio’d for ambulances. So we took fourteen of them. Bless them, they wanted to have a smoke but they were sitting on a thousand gallons of petrol in our sick bay so that we had to refuse. But Leslie opened her flat out and we got them back to Felixstowe. We then returned to the destroyer and asked if they’d like us to come in and get a hydrant to help pump the water out because she was low in the water and the officer said, ‘No. She’s alright. We’ll make it.’ And of course, once she too also came out and she had about the equivalent number aboard, fourteen and we got them into Felixstowe. So when we got back to Gorleston we literally parked 130 up ahead of 125 which was the stand down launch at the time which left a gap between the two of us. So 132 came back and Flight Sergeant Brown who crops up later came in and his job was to park 132 in between 130 and 125 without bumping either of them. Well, unfortunately he managed to hit one of them and that meant beer all around which that launch paid for at the local pub that evening. One of the merits. Time went by and as I say we joined them in December and we were now getting around to May and we were called into the offices and told that, ‘You are posted.’ Now normally we were made aware that if you joined up as a u/t and were put on an Operational Unit for six months to get some idea of the difference between string and rope and various aspects of sea life on Air Sea Rescue or Marine Craft and with that we were fast approaching May. Well, we were told to pack our kit and put them in the fifteen hundred weight as we were in fact posted to Lyme Regis and the lads said, ‘Oh that’s one of the best postings going.’ So alright. Thank you very much and we went to the station, got on the train and got off I think it was at Waterloo and got on a train to go to Warmwell or go to Warmwell which was a station, a parent station for Lyme Regis. So we were booked in there and they said, they fed us and said, ‘Right. You’re here for the night. We’ll run you to Lyme Regis tomorrow which was number 37 ASR and MCS. So we got down to Lyme and it was a lovely lazy sort of place but there was a new ST on the slipway that had been delivered the week before and it was one of the new type broad beam forty footers air sea rescue seaplane tenders with two Perkins diesel engines. Now, we were told to have a jolly good look around the place. Get accustomed. We were given bunks and lockers to put our gear in and went down below and the sergeant said, ‘Well, have a jolly good look around. Go down the hold and see what’s what.’ Well, we saw them painting this boat and the next day we get the job of joining them. We were given paintbrushes to join them and paint this boat. So it was a black hold, grey [unclear] and upper deck work was yellow. And she was to be ST 1506 so that was that. I managed to get the job to paint.
[phone ringing – recording paused]
Having painted 1506 and got her serviceable there were loads of lads there, LACs, I was an AC1 and so was the next lad for we found that we were posted on to 1506 and the corporal coxswain was Warren, a very nice chap. And so that was it. We were now the crew of 1506 and the other lad, Harry, I can’t think of his second name said, ‘Charles, you take over the lead role please because you’ve had experience at Gorleston.’ So I didn’t argue. I said, ‘Alright Harry. I will.’ And that was that. Well, life was pretty comfortable down at Lyme. Nothing much seemed to happen and the section was divided into two halves. One was Air Sea Rescue. That was us, ST 1506 and the other was Marine Craft and their job was to go up daily to Selsey Bill where there was a mooring and aircraft experimental aircraft came out from Walmer and tried guns and bullets and all sorts of things because Chesil Beach was out of bounds to everybody so that that’s where the bullets flew when they were going in. And we, we occupied the Yacht Club room at the end of the Cobb at Lyme Regis and there was a telephone there and if anything occurred the office would ring the extension. But nothing much happened until one day it did ring and we were due to launch that day and the CO said, ‘The Coast Guard have spotted something on the horizon. Go out and see what it is. Take some rifles and be careful.’ Well, when we got out there it was a little tailing boat really with a very old man, he apparently was a fisherman and a young woman aboard and they had escaped from Guernsey or Jersey. I’m not quite sure. And anyway, we drew alongside. Got them aboard. They’d nothing aboard. No water, no food and of course we didn’t have too much to give them so we turned, turned around and headed for Lyme to get them back where another launch came out to take in tow their sailing boat. But when we got them ashore of course the military police took them over. An article did appear in the London papers about the rescue launch at Lyme Regis picking up this elderly man and this young woman who had now joined the ATS. Shortly after 1506 was serviceable and had made a rescue of the fisherman and a young lady that had got away from the Channel Islands a new launch was brought down by road. Another Air Sea Rescue ST which was to be numbered 1515. Well, we all mucked in and got her painted, anti-fouled and everything and made serviceable and Corporal Warren, myself and Harry, and Ben, Ben Hayward who was a fitter. I can’t remember the wireless op but we all transferred onto 1515 and Corporal Goldsmith and his crew who were on older boat were given 1506 and we did a duty with them twenty four on and twenty four off. Again the summer months buzzed by but Lyme was notorious for storms and when the storms come up from the Atlantic of course Lyme being a bay really took a bashing and there was one occasion when I think it was the 1506 was moored on the outer moorings because the harbour ran dry at Lyme and so there was a set of mooring buoys about a mile off shore in deeper water ready should we want a duty boat. And we were all at lunch and the sergeant came in, he said, ‘There’s a gale on. I want a volunteer coxswain to go and bring in 1506.’ And of course, they all put their hands up and he picked up a coxswain, LAC coxswain Dave Barns and Dave had been a Selsey Bill fisherman and he was a man who really knew the sea. And he then said, ‘Right. I want a deckhand to go with Dave.’ So of course, we all put our hands up and he, the Sergeant Bill Clark, Bill Kerr picked on me and he sort of looked over at Dave. Dave put his thumb up and that was it. So Dave and I were destined to go out in a gale and bring this ST in but all I’m going to say about this it was a fight. It really was a fight. I’ve seen prop shafts and props in the underbelly of a boat time and time again but they’ve been on a cradle there for painting but this time they were being lifted up by the sea and we’d got to get on board that thing somehow or another. And we did so. We did so. Dave rode, we actually rode. It was not a powerboat used. It was a rowing boat and he rowed in close to it. One minute it was up in the air the next minute it was down in a trough and he got it just right and I got a painter for the dinghy we were in and he said, ‘Right, Charles. Jump.’ And I jumped and I landed down in between the containers of the engines a bit shattered but that was the least of things. So I made fast the dinghy and he then started to haul himself in towards 1506 and when it was just right and he’d got it right bless him he jumped aboard. So he went into the wheelhouse and started the engines and I went up forward and when he gave me a tap in the windscreen I let the mooring chains go and the sea got hold of us and was running us down very fast onto the beach. But he managed to get around ultimately and we got into the harbour. Our reward was three cheers from the lads and a cup of nice tea. After that I got pictures of one launch completely smashed to smithereens and the other one is up on the beach with all its underworks gone. So no medals for that.
[recording paused]
We were moved on in time now to near Christmas and there was a NAAFI down at Lyme and the chap who run the NAAFI, NAAFI Jack had charged a few extra coins on various things he sold and he said to the lads, ‘Now, I’ve got quite a bit of money. I’d like to think you’ll spend some with us.’ And he said, ‘It’s yours to spend.’ And of course, the first thing was well they wanted some crates of beer. So having got satisfied because the RAF supplied us with a conventional meal, a Christmas meal and one of the lads courting a girl up in Coram Towers where they had about thirty London bombing orphans. Children between the ages of five and about eight, boys and girls and he said, ‘They’re not getting any Christmas tree or anything up there.’ So a few of us voted that some of the surplus money that still left we’d spend and give them a good Christmas and that’s we did. One chap managed to get Father Christmas gear and we went up there and arranged that they had their Christmas dinner at twelve ‘til two and we had our dinner, we arranged with our cook we had our dinner at 2 o’clock. And so we had a wonderful time with those children up there pulling crackers, little toys we got them and it was a lovely time and we returned down to the barracks to have our Christmas dinner and a good time. So the [pause] so the Christmas over we came into the New Year and when we got that far there was a parade ordered which encompassed Brownies, Cubs, Scouts, Guides, a contingent of the Army, a contingent of the RAF. And I used to spend two evenings a week training the Army Cadets in PT, physical training, and aircraft recognition and cross country running. And the CO said, ‘The boys would like you to parade with them on this parade. So I’ll ask Sir Algernon Guinness, our CO if that was possible.’ He said very much so. Our lot has to be friendly with the local people so I said to the captain of the Cadets, ‘I’ll parade with you lot.’ After the parade I thought well it was about time I went on a coxswains course but I wasn’t even an LAC. That had not cropped up and so I went and saw Sir Algernon and he said, ‘Right. I’ll send you up to Corsewall.’ And actually I went up to Corsewall in February 1943 and I had anticipated going on to a coxswains course but they had other ideas. Because I wasn’t an LAC I was to go on an MBC course. I spoke to the corporal about being on a coxswains course. He said, ‘If you haven’t been on an MBC’s course then you’re not qualified so stay where you are. You’re on an MBC course.’ So that went on. We did classroom work and I studied considerably and the day came we didn’t get too much time at sea because Stranraer, Corsewall that was gale prone and there was one phase where they lost several Sunderlands as a result. But we when we couldn’t go to sea obviously we did classroom work and having done all this, having done the course we were set our examination and then we were taken to sea to do the practical side of the, of the work. Steering a pinnace on being given the course heading out towards the ocean and back again and as far as the boat work was concerned it was no problem as far as I was concerned. I was happy on boats and ok when we got back we sat the examinations and they were to be marked. Once the papers were marked and our practical work judged apparently I’d got a very very high mark indeed and it was a friend of mine Leslie Hill, he’d been selected for aircrew but his sight wasn’t good enough so he didn’t get off the ground and of course he remustered into Air Sea Rescue. He and I got very very high marks and the sergeant came over to us and said, ‘What have you two been up to?’ I looked at him. ‘What do you mean sergeant?’ he said, ‘Well, you two have got exceptionally high marks. Were you cheating in any way?’ I said, ‘Sergeant, Leslie Hill was on one side of the Nissen hut and I was the other and short of using Morse Code there was no way we could cheat.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Fine, because the CO wants to see you so, the pair of you.’ So we were told to report to his office and when we got there they called me in and I was facing four officers and an NCO and they asked me all sorts of questions including some about navigating which I knew anyway and he said, ‘Right. Go and send Hill in.’ So I went outside and sent Leslie Hill and he went through the same judgement and came out and then we were called back in and they said, ‘Well, we’re very satisfied with your results. Exceptional. We are going to give you a week’s leave. You come back on a coxswain’s course and if you get the sort of mark on that that you got on the MBC course we will recommend you for a commission.’ Oh boy. Just what I wanted. However, the results went up the following day for [unclear] and the fourteen on our course all got AC1s and I was AC1 on radio and I think Leslie Hill was an LAC. But we were also posted overseas so there was nobody to find. There was no sergeant. There was no officers. That was it. We were posted overseas. We got a week’s leave and then a ticket to return to Blackpool where we were fitted out with overseas gear, tropical gear and inoculated, vaccinated, was pushed and pulled about and got ready to transfer overseas. With that we were there over a week or so because we got all our tropical gear, everything ready, jabs all done and we then were posted up to the Clyde where there was a big American cruise liner out in the harbour and we were taken aboard that. And we had a marvellous time because it was American and we were the first to board and we sent down to have a meal and oh, we had beautiful steaks and had the times of our lives. We thought this is marvellous. Once the convoy had fully equipped with troops they up anchored and sailed out from the Clyde and the last thing I remember seeing was Ailsa Craig which is what we steered on when we were at Corsewall on our course and that was it. The sun went down and that was that. But where we were going to it was pitch black we didn’t know but amazingly in the morning after a while we sailed past Ailsa Craig again so what had gone on there I don’t know. But we then proceeded to head south and with that we went for quite a while and I would think it was around about the Bay of Biscay that a German submarine had a shot at us but the, oh it was a marvellous sight the Royal Navy on their destroyers like little hound dogs went around and we could hear the thuds of the mines dropping to explode mines and apparently, the American crew told us that our Royal Navy had sunk a German sub somewhere in the Bay of Biscay. And we went on to call in at Lagos and having called in at Lagos we saw fruit for the first time. Wonderful. We were not however allowed to buy any fruit as it was being shipped onboard and we thought oh well this is where we shall get it when we get our food. But in fact, it didn’t quite happen that way. But what did happen was they opened up the, the American crew opened up the holds until they got right down to the bottom where they had refrigeration. So all this stuff was going down three or four layers of the boat and we had a corporal, a RAF corporal who said, ‘Now look. As the pallets come down you keep them square to the gaps so that they go down without tipping the food off.’ But we’d done this for a bit and suddenly he shouts. Shouted, ‘Stop.’ So they stopped and he quietly said, ‘Dive in lads.’ So we dived in and took all sorts of food off the pallets and handed them back and he said, ‘Ok.’ And they lowered that one down. And he did that a couple of times but it did ensure that everybody on our mess deck anyway got some fruit. We then left Lagos and headed south and called in at [pause] Durban came second. It was Cape Town. Called in Cape Town and we were rather privileged. We saw the tablecloth on Table Mountain but they unloaded some troops there and we then up-anchored and went around to Durban and it was at Durban that everybody was shipped off their particular boat and sent to Clairwood which was a camp for the troops. We arrived at Durban, South Africa June 1943, disembarked and went to the Clairwood transit camp. All the people there, wonderful people were very kind and some of our lads met up with some who were very very friendly indeed. One was Joyce. She was a deputy headmistress. Mary, her sister was, she was a matron at a hospital and there was Joyce Prout who was secretary to a banker. They all befriended some of our friends and myself and it was via them because we were not allowed to write any correspondence at all but it was through Joyce Prout wrote to my parents and said that she’d met me. So my people knew where we were in spite of us not being able to write to them where we were. However, we stayed there from June until August ‘43 for the simple reason that the locals were going to vote on either Jan Smuts or, I can’t think of the Boer chap’s name but he was a Boer and he was pro-German and Churchill was frightened that if he got in there would be trouble. But in fact, it was Jannie Smuts that won the vote. So we were then embarked in the August to go to, in our case Egypt whereas the rest of the convoy went off heading east to the, or west yes headed off anyway to the Far East and we saw them go down in the sunset whereas as we trundled north in some old tub. The engines broke down a few times. The Army aboard wanted to mutiny but there was no, we told them we were only MBCs. We didn’t know how to navigate. We didn’t want to get involved particularly as the officer in charge of the boat was an RAF man and it transpired this ship was due to go back to Britain for fitting. But we’d lost so many boats in convoys that they were breaking up literally anything that kept afloat to move things around. So, however we finally arrived at Aden. I presume they refuelled there and we then set sail up the Red Sea to land in a transit camp at Kasfareet I forget where they put us ashore from the boat but Kasfareet was up the Canal and it was a transit camp and that’s where we were based until our postings came through. Kasfareet camp was designated in the Canal Zone and we waited there until ultimately in September 1943 we were posted to Alexandria. 208 Air Sea Rescue and Marine Craft Unit based Alexandria. Actually we were allowed to have a look around there. It was a fascinating place. There were something like five Sailing Club houses. The British one, the German one, the French one, the Italian one and I forget what. The sailors had the one on the end. That was theirs but the others were under the command of Air Sea Rescue one way or the other. Officers were English ones. I think the sergeants were in the French ones. The other, we were, the ordinary troops were in the big one which was the German one and so that’s, that’s we were Messed when we were ashore. However, the corporal said, ‘Always have a look at DROs first thing after breakfast.’ So we looked at DROs after breakfast and Tommy Ladd who was still with me and so was Freddy [Sorden] but Tommy and I had been posted. I was posted on to an American Miami HSL 2520 and Tommy was on 2517. Equally an American Miami and we were told to get our kit from the billet and stow in the bridges because this was supposed to be our home for the near future. So the following day we were told, that day rather we were told to make sure the water tanks were alright, our ammunition pans were all full and our guns in good order and the next day off we both went to Mersa Matruh. We were sent to Mersa Matruh to release two other launches that were to go back for repaint and adjustments and so forth and we were there for quite a while, very little air activity was going on but apparently a Walrus had left Alexandria to fly to a base in in Benghazi and engine failure had come down between Alex and Mersa Matruh. So that was a two launch call out. Well, we were faster than 2417 so we got there and we rescued the crew and left them the job of towing the Walrus back [laughs] Not very popular. But we got the crew were ok and what happened they got onto Alexandria and they sent up some fitters to get the engines sorted out on the Walrus and when it was ready I have a photograph of her circling in the harbour at Mersa Matruh ready to take off to go to Benghazi.
[recording paused]
This is to confirm that we left September ’43 Alexandria and we arrived at Mersa Matruh September ’43. But in October 1943 we were recalled to Alexandria and detached to Paphos. Whilst in Alexandria the CO held an LAC board which I applied and I came top of eight lads that had applied for it. The problem there was it cost me rounds of beer and I was teetotaller. But to join in the fun with the lads I think I added water to my beer. Anyway, that was that. We got her all topped up with drinking water and the necessary things. A few rations and we sailed off to Paphos in Cyprus. It was a lovely sight after the desert which is just sand and of course you see green and trees and life in general. Women of course of all things. We hadn’t been at Paphos long before the skipper was given sealed orders. So on October 1943 we sailed out from Paphos harbour and headed in a northerly direction and when he opened the sealed orders it was to sail for [unclear] which was an Italian island off Turkey. And so we headed there and came to anchor in a dear little harbour. We were there at the beginning of November and November too was my birthday and it’s one birthday in my life I didn’t even remember. I didn’t even think of it at the time. But we then got further orders to proceed to Bodrum in Turkey and that of course we did at night because now the Dodecanese islands were occupied by the Germans. Previously they had been occupied by us. Anyway, on November the 20th 21 and 22 on HSL 2520 we went to [Kos or Chios] Island evacuating Army and RAF and just a few sailors. Well, in all the hassle that was going on getting these lads aboard because the skipper had nosed the launch into a bay in Kos which was of course all prearranged and in fact we sent a D signal on the orders and we got a C reply and that signified that they were friends and they started coming up and getting on board our launch. Well, I was up forward watching what was going on at the nose because we were just touching the beach there and it was rather a steep beach so we were fairly safe and of course the engines were in neutral. Well eventually the launch was absolutely full. We had been told in our course work on coxswains that probably twenty eight was the maximum people should be aboard when enemy Army but we didn’t have time to camp. We didn’t bother to camp. We just stuck them there until there was no more room anywhere other than on the beach where of course the coxswain was steering the launch and the skipper was giving out his orders and he just said, ‘Right. That’s enough.’ Well, they arranged that we would go back at the set time the following evening. I think it was about 3 o’clock in the morning and we took this boat full into Bodrum and handed them over to the Navy and I take my hat off the Navy they looked after those lads very well because they hadn’t eaten for a long time. Well, out came some bread sandwiches and other things as well. But we stuck by there waiting for the next evening and we sailed out again and we did that on three occasions. I think we must have saved about between two hundred and three hundred lives getting them back to the Navy in Bodrum. After that we stayed alongside the destroyer that was in the harbour and we waited further orders. Our next trip the following night was to Leros where we picked up an Army captain who had an operation for peritonitis. He was attended by two medics and we took them again back to Bodrum and handed them over to the Navy. Waited alongside the destroyer for further orders because obviously a Naval officer was in command of all the operations that were going on. On November the 25th 1943 HSL took Lieutenant Colonel Jericho and his adjutant captain to a Turkish rendezvous way above Chios. The skipper asked for a volunteer to take them ashore so I volunteered and I rowed them ashore. It was a lovely sandy beach and there was, it must have been about 4 o’clock in the morning. It was quite dark but enough to see that there was some figures ashore who were friendly. Anyway, I waved to him and called out and wished him good luck. At that point in time I didn’t know who he was. Only later that the CO, the skipper revealed who he was. What he was about we do not know. I did write to him post-war but he said, ‘There’s enough bull written about the war that no I shan’t write about what happened up there.’ I think what happened there was no fighting that went on. Hitler was taking a bashing in Russia and he was withdrawing all those because they were crack troops. They were paratroop Germans and they he withdrew them to send them to the Russian front I think. However, we couldn’t return to Bodrum from there because we’d be passing down the islands in daylight. So we hid in a bay quite near the top of Chios but in in Turkey and of course we put up a net over the launch to disguise her and set up watches. Well, it so happened that my watch was the one where we went from darkness to daylight and as I was walking up the deck I looked into the bay. Lovely sort of a bay and it all moved. All the bushes moved and lo and behold it was the Turkish Army pointing guns at us. So good lord, I shot down below, woke the skipper, told him what was what and woke the coxswain on my way up and it was blatantly clear that the Turkish officer wouldn’t know what was going on. So the skipper said, ‘I want a volunteer to go ashore and pick him up.’ So I volunteered and I went in. I picked him up and two of his soldiers. While I was rowing to shore to get him and his soldiers the skipper had called the crew into the wheeldeck and said, ‘Right. This is the plan. Corporal fitter switch the ignition of one engine on and switch the ignition of the other engine off and do as I tell you. Nobody talks to them. Only me.’ So, the Turkish officer came out and our officer took him into the engine room and he pointed to the starboard engine and put his thumb down. So in most languages that is — no good. And he pointed to the port engine and put his thumb up. That one good. So ah right. And he then said to the corporal fitter, ‘Right. Start the starboard engine.’ Well, of course it wasn’t switched on and all we heard was a brr brr brr of the engines. It didn’t fire. So the skipper pointed to the engine thumb down. He then pointed to the starboard engine and told him to switch that on and of course he did and six hundred and fifty horses sounded like a battery of cannons going off. It frightened the life out of the Turkish officer. He flew out the engine room, into the wheeldeck and asked me to take him home. But the message was loud and clear. We were u/s on one engine. Well, of course we weren’t but that meant we would have at least twenty four hours to make a repair and then get out. Well, that suited us fine because the skipper could then choose to leave at sundown and we could head back to Bodrum in darkness. We waved goodbye to the Turkish soldiers who all waved back but they were in remarkable camouflage. They blended beautifully with the greenery in that bay. Anyway, off we went as the sun went down and we arrived back safely into Bodrum. But in passing down one of the islands, I didn’t know which one that was but we saw dark shadows in the bay. So the skipper said, ‘Man your gun but for goodness sake don’t open fire.’ So we manned our guns and we moved on. Well, the crux of the matter was those two boats were in fact our Royal Navy motor gun boats and they had done similar. They had their guns trained on us. Had we fired they’d have blown us out the water. But they thought we might be Germans. But of course, we didn’t fire, they didn’t fire. But we found that out when we got back to [unclear] because we met up with one of the Navy motor gunboats who told us the story. That was November 27 we finally got back to Bodrum and then on November 29, 2520 departed Bodrum and arrived at [unclear] . But before we did we had five German pilots, prisoners of war board. The skipper brought them aboard, took the, got his reel over and he got one of our lads standing by armed and he took the, I think it was four or five German pilots down to his loo and made them all go to the loo and then he brought them out to the wheeldeck and sat them across the back of a launch. And in clear voice so that we heard because we three deckhands had been mustered there he said that, ‘If any of those move at all shoot the lot.’ Now, it may sound coarse. It may sound warlike, it may sound very unfriendly but what happened was one of our bombers got shot down off Malta and an Italian float plane flew in and picked them up and it turned around and headed back for Italy. Well, they were being guarded by one of the crew with a pistol and somehow he lost it. They got the pistol and they got him, they tied him up and the first pilot and second pilot of our aircraft went forward, put the pistol to the head of the pilot, told him to get out of his seat and the skipper, our skipper handed over the revolver to his second pilot and then turned around on a reciprocal course and headed back for Malta. So with these sort of stories in your mind and one or two a little bit worse than that in fact they headed back to Malta and of course the Italians were taken prisoners of war.
[recording paused]
Right. As we passed Rhodes one of the Germans decided to speak and it was beautiful English. It was a remarkable English and the skipper said, ‘We mustn’t get chatting to them.’ So alright, I didn’t say anything but his words were, ‘We should not be fighting you. Hitler did not want that. He wanted Britain and Germany to conquer the world and perhaps the place would be peaceful.’ Now that man said that to me directly. No embellishments in that at all and I said to him I had to be, I said, ‘Your English is perfect.’ He said, ‘Yes, old chap. I was educated at Cambridge. I’ve got a Cambridge degree.’ He said, ‘I was educated in England at one of your Grammar Schools.’ And in fact when we got back to Paphos where we handed them over to the military police all those pilots spoke very good English so it seems strange. Friendly. But we said goodbye to them. Good luck. On December the 14th 1943 we departed from Paphos and headed for Alexandria where we were there for Christmas and it was a wonderful Christmas. All the conventional English Christmas turkey, Christmas pudding and I even think the lads had a beer. I know. But they were also served, we were always served by the CO and the other officers and senior NCOs until we’d finished our meal and then they went off for theirs in their separate places. It was Jan 1944. We got over Christmas. It was Jan 1944 and I was posted to HSL 2542, a later version of the Miami. The difference being that the old ones were driven by V drives and the new one were a direct drive because the V drives proved a bit of a nuisance overheating and so on. So I, that was 2542, January ’44. We were then on 2542 detached to Mersa Matruh There was nothing much going on there. We were then signalled and detached to go to Tobruk and we had a call out from Tobruk and that was in a gale and we had a pretty rough time. We got to Crete which was a very considerable distance away and fortunately there was a bomber down. It was one of the light bombers and it was a launch from Mersa Matruh. A Hants and Dorset who had a longer search time than we did and found them just about walking ashore. March 1944 HSL 2542 was recalled to Alexandria and prepared for special duties. We had triple VGOs fitted in our turrets and we were to back up two disguised HSLs operating as fishing boats in the islands. So there was a lot of work ashore in converting two of the older Miamis into fishing boats. They asked for volunteers and a friend of mine, Harry [unclear] Still about, Harry. Bless him. Was, he volunteered he was a coxswain, a second coxswain but he volunteered to go as a deck hand and so of course was selected to sail as one of the crew on [pause] On October the 2nd 1944 I was posted for a coxswain’s course at [Portishead]. It was a very intensive course. First class instructors. First class work. Brilliant. And I had a lot to thank him for. I learned a lot at that school. Again, I passed top of the course and the sergeant said, ‘Oh you’ll get your corporal stripes on the passing out parade for being top.’ So of course, we had the passing out parade but no stripes. So I sidled up to him some time after and said, ‘Serg, no, no stripes.’ He said, ‘No. There weren’t any in the stores.’ Well, this had a great bearing on the future of my life as you’re likely to see. December ’44 we returned to Alexandria ASR and MCU base. Enjoyed a delightful Christmas. The usual typical Christmas. Turkey and all the goodies that go with it and of course served by the officers and senior NCOs. January ’45 I was posted to Mombasa. Well, at least I was posted to Nairobi. Mombasa was where I ended up. We took off from the canal in a Sunderland and that flew to Lake Victoria. We were stopped on the way down to various places. Khartoum was one particular. Another one was just a little mud hut but had a lot of jolly good food. They fed us there very well and we took off and headed for Victoria, Lake Victoria and put down there and stayed there. Had an evening meal, slept overnight ready to wait for the morning. It was then that we entrained and we crossed Africa in a train and they were using wood as fuel not coal. And occasionally we stopped for them to get fresh piles of wood aboard and the natives would all come out on the scrounge wanting cigarettes or sweets or whatever we could give them while they were loading up with logs. It was then that we entrained and we crossed Africa in a train and they were using wood as fuel, not coal and we occasionally we stopped for them to get fresh piles of wood aboard and the natives would all come out on the scrounge wanting cigarettes or sweets. Whatever we could give them while they were loading up with logs. It was a very long journey by train but we eventually arrived at Nairobi. March 1945 Mombasa. Posted. I was posted as coxswain of HSL 2643 and we were in a part of the harbour at Mombasa called Kilindini. This launch was new out from the USA and I with some of my lads from Alexandria, all LACs were posted abroad and I sort of hovered about waiting to hear from the first coxswain but that didn’t happen. The CO of the squadron, the squadron leader said, ‘Get on, Meacock and get her ready for service.’ So of course, we painted the hull black and superstructure grey and the upper decks yellow. And we managed to [careen] her and paint the bottom with anti-fouling but I told, I’d read up and I’d enquired and locally they told me there was an abundance of teredo worm in that water around the harbour and of course, we had been told that the only answer to this was to have copper plating. So I informed the CO but he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Can’t do anything about that. Have to paint it with anti-fouling,’ which I’d advised him. But all of this heralds me an LAC, second coxswain giving all the orders and getting stuck in just as much as the lads to get her ready for sea. At this point in time no skipper had appeared and I went ashore and I said to him, ‘Well, sir I’ve got the launches all ready. We’re ready for trials.’ Well, I’d been down in the engine, degreasing the engines which of course had been greased up for the travel from America and I was quite pleased. She looked quite a nice love and an officer came out and he said, ‘Right. We’ll take her out on trials.’ So we went out on trials and she responded very well. I was very very pleased with her and the fitters were but they wanted to do a little bit of a touch up to the engines to approve them and wanted another spin. So that we did and we went out and had another ride around and they said, ‘Fine Charles.’ The wireless operator I had indented for his radio gear because American gear wasn’t the same as ours and we, I said to him, ‘Then sir, you can tell the CO we’re fully serviceable.’ So he went ashore and we went out.
[recording paused]
The next thing this skipper as such I began to wonder. He came out and he said, ‘I’m planning a trip to go down to Madagascar.’ And that was to be the area we covered as far as convoys were concerned. So, ‘Right you are, sir.’ And I got her all ready. He said, ‘Yes, get her all ready for the trip and I’ll let you know.’ Well, he went ashore and the next time he came back he said. ‘Finished. Finished. Launch and you are posted to Basra.’ Wow. Oh well. So we just sailed back and waited for the next bit of news.
[recording paused]
The next bit of news was that the crew were all split up. I was to take over the squadron crash boat and with me Les Beamish who was a great pal of mine, lived in [unclear] and knew a lot about the sea, Leslie. A great lad. And one other. And then I got a complete crew on the crash boat and I was told it was a twenty four hour on, twenty four hour off duty because there was a flare path and of course there were aircraft which were Catalinas were all flying day and night as convoys used to pass up from Madagascar up through those waters. Well, we carried on covering those duties twenty four hours night and day in our off time. There was one occasion we went into town and I think for ten shillings a head we got something like a seven course meal in a lovely hotel in town. Had a good look around and that was that. But things did happen there. Apparently, a lion or a creature of that sort had killed a child in one of the villages and they’d come in to the CO and asked for help. So they raised a group of lads and they all took rifles and they had a native to do the tracking and they finally found this lion and of course they filled him full of lead so he didn’t attack children any more. With the coxswain of the crash boat I was called into the office. It was SD 1601. I think she was a previous Alexandria launch. Anyway, I went into the office and he said, ‘Oh your posting has come through and the launch will be going up for eight.’ Oh right. So as far as I know we were going to Basra but however we would report the following day with our kits, myself and my crew. That was Leslie Beamish and a few of the other Alexandria lads that I knew and we got down to the airport which was not far away and there was a twin engine aircraft there waiting for us and we climbed aboard. And no sooner had that thing got up in the air than the clouds opened up and it bucketed down and when we looked down at the airport we had only left a little while ago it was like a lake. But anyway, the pilot turned the aircraft around and headed north and we were on our way in April ’45 to Mogadishu and we in fact put down in at the beginning of May in Mogadishu. Well, the aircraft which was a Sunderland had had a little bit of engine trouble so the pilot said to me they will be getting the fitters down to get the engine sorted out and we were given lovely digs in Mogadishu because it had been Italian and the Italians had built and they built beautiful. And we had an officer’s quarters as a place where we stopped and we were well looked after by the RAF at Mogadishu. I didn’t know at the time but the commanding officer of Mogadishu was a squadron leader [pause] was a Squadron Leader Barraclough. I was to meet that man much later in life when he was Air Chief Marshall Barraclough. A marvellous man. Marvelous man. Anyway, the aircraft was serviceable and we flew over to Aden. When we got to Aden we were all shunted in to a garrey lorry and sent around to the Marine Craft Unit. An Air Sea Rescue Unit around at Steamer Point. So again I was still an LAC and all the boys were LACs but obviously someone said this blokes in charge. He’s a coxswain. So I went and saw the CO. He said, ‘Oh you’re not going to Basra.’ He said, ‘I’ve got several lads with time expired and due to go home so you’ll do as their replacements and I’ll see about the Basra request later on.’ And in fact he detailed one of the other launches to go up there I found out later. So that was that. So he said, ‘Well, get accustomed to the place and then look to orders.’ So we did. We spent a day having a look around and when we looked at the orders I was made pier master, a pier master and the lads were split up on the Marine Craft Unit side. So they were learning to drive refuellers, bomb scales and the kind and that sort. So we settled down to that. Well, I think the only outstanding thing as being pier master was I was Jack of all trades. I probably shifted more Naval officers back to their destroyers and boats than I did RAF. But one of the perks of the Navy was late one evening there was a bang on my door and when I opened it there was a rather merry matlows, sailors obviously been on the town and perhaps had had one or two too many and they missed their last boat. So they said, ‘Can you take us out to our boat?’ So, yes. That was the done thing. So they got aboard. I had an ST. They got aboard the ST and we went out to their boat and I pulled alongside a ladder and they said, ‘You can’t go up there. We can’t go up there. That’s the captain’s.’ I said, ‘If you don’t go up there you don’t go anywhere.’ So of course, in their state they all went up the ladder and that was alright. Nothing happened and one of them said, ‘See you around the bow.’ So we went around to the bow and he then said, ‘Give me your mugs.’ So they passed him up about three or four mugs and they handed them back full of rum. Well, again I was teetotaller but there were bods aboard that ST that loved their rum and so that went into the kitty ashore. Following that we were due to launch at Aden and some bombing took place on a dummy bombing range and what happened there we were on standby. Well, when the bombing had finished the skipper said, ‘Right.’ He was an old hand down there. ‘Out we go.’ So out we went and of course when we got out there there was fish all over the place stunned. All sorts of shapes and sizes and I said to the lads, ‘Right. Get over. Put the crash nets down and bung them in the wheeldeck. And in fact, we took enough back to give our unit a decent fish meal and the rest went up to headquarters where the boss of the island, RAF had some and there was still some left for the Army to have. We brought in loads of fish from that. So then we had some men in plain clothes come aboard and I had orders set course for the Brother Islands and they were to carry out a survey of the Brother Islands with Squadron Leader Barraclough. I was to meet that man much later in life when he was Air Chief Marshall Barraclough. A marvellous man. A marvellous man. Anyway, we, the aircraft was serviceable and we flew over to Aden. When we got to Aden we were all shunted into a garrey lorry and sent around to the Marine Craft Unit, an Air Sea Rescue Unit around at Steamer Point. So again, I was still an LAC and all the boys were LACs but obviously someone said, ‘This bloke’s in charge. He’s a coxswain.’ And so I went in and saw the CO. He said, ‘Oh, you’re not going to Basra.’ He said, ‘I’ve got several lads with time expired and due to go home so you’ll do as their replacements and I’ll see about the Basra request later on.’ And in fact, he detailed one of the other launches to go up there I found out later. And so that was that. So he said, ‘Well, get accustomed to the place and then look to orders.’ So we did. We spent a day having a look around and when we looked at the orders I was made pier master, a pier master and the lads were split up on the Marine Craft Unit side. So they were learning to drive refuellers, bomb scales and the kind. That sort. So, we settled down to that. Well, I think the only outstanding thing as being pier master was I was Jack of all trades. I probably shifted more Naval officers back to their destroyers and boats than I did RAF but one of the perks of the Navy was late one evening there was a bang on my door. When I opened it there was a rather merry matlows, sailors, obviously been on the town and had perhaps one or two too many and they missed their last boat. So they said, ‘Can you take us out to our boat?’ So, yes. That was the done thing. So they got aboard. I had an ST. They got aboard the ST and we went out to their boat and I pulled alongside a ladder and they said, ‘You can’t go up there. We can’t go up there. That’s the captain’s.’ I said, ‘If we don’t go up there you don’t go anywhere.’ So of course, in their state they all went up the ladder and that was all right. Nothing happened. And one of them said, ‘See you around the bow.’ So we went around to the bow and he then said, ‘Give me your mugs.’ So they passed them up about three or four mugs and they handed them back full of rum. Well, again I was a teetotaller but there were bods aboard that ST that loved their rum and so that went into the kitty ashore. Following that we were due to launch to Aden and some bombing took place on a dummy bombing range and what happened there we were on standby. Well, when the bombing had finished the skipper said, ‘Right.’ He was an old hand down there. ‘Out we go.’ So out we went and of course when we got out there there was fish all over the place stunned. All sorts of shapes and sizes. And I said to the lads, ‘Right. Get over. Put the crash nets down and bung them in the wheeldeck. And in fact, we took enough back to give our unit a decent fish meal and the rest went up to headquarters where the boss of the island RAF had some and there was still some left for the Army to have. We brought in loads of fish from that. So then we had some men in plain clothes come aboard and I had orders set course for the Brother Islands and they were to carry out a survey of the Brother Islands. Once they’d done their survey of the brother islands we took them back. I believe they were actually Navy but they were in civvy clothes and we took them back and called in to the office and told that we were posted to Masirah. Now, Masirah is an island in the Gulf of Oman and something of a thousand miles away. So that’s quite an epic trip on in the near future.
[recording paused]
The first calling point after leaving Aden was a place called [Mekulah?] It was a Sultany. There was a Sultan there and it was a comparatively small coastal property and we were not allowed to go ashore because that day they’d got the thieves up in the market square having their hands cut off. So that was that. But the following day the skipper was able to go ashore because the thing was this was where we were going to refuel so that of course we did. Fuel was brought out to us and we refuelled the launch to tanks full. At the same time we got an invitation from the sheik’s agent to come ashore to a concert at his palace. So that we did. That afternoon, early afternoon we went to the palace which was highly fortified and went into the grounds and we had a place assigned to us where we sat down and a door opened in the far corner and a lot of little children came in dressed in black. Girls. And then a lot came in dressed in white. Boys. And these were orphans from inland where families virtually had starved through lack of food and these youngsters had been rescued by the British Army sergeant with about three or four big lorries at his command driven by native [unclear] and they went in rescuing these children. They couldn’t rescue the adults. They were ordered to rescue the children and of course they had been there quite a long while and they had a band and that was conducted by an Indian chap. Well, you’ve heard these tin can bands. Well, that’s the sort of thing it was. It was in tune here and there but the children sang and the children danced and then some dancers came in and danced before the Sultan and of course he sat up on a dais with umbrellas over him to guard him from the sun and with that everything was finished. We thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment. The Sultan disappeared and we wandered off into the town and I think the lads went and bought a few things amongst themselves and we returned to the launch. From [Mekulah?] we went on to Salalah which was another coastal Sultanate and the Sultan there had been educated in an English university and an American university but we were not allowed to go ashore. He’d sent an armed guard to make sure that we didn’t go ashore. If you’d have seen the rifles they looked like bits of copper pipe nailed on to bits of wood. Anyway, we respected the fact that we were not welcome ashore until officially invited and that did occur. The skipper went ashore and he came back and he said, ‘Right. We can go ashore but we are here to refuel.’ Well, it so happened I worked out the amount of fuel that we wanted with the difficulty here in refuelling so what we did we took six drums of petrol aboard and went ashore and the airstrip was put down by Americans. At night the whole place lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. The Americans had installed electric light in the generating plant as part of the bargaining of having the airstrip. Anyway, the American soldier was a dock sergeant so he was a pretty high up boy and he and I got on very very well. But of course, again here am I an LAC but that didn’t matter. I was the coxswain and that was it and he provided us all with a marvellous meal and of course he had a bevvy of beautiful girls serving up to him and he got his own beautiful ladies himself. Anyway, we had a lovely time with him and we thanked him and went back aboard ready to sail off the next morning. So we bedded down that night and having had a very, it was a fact that the Sultan of Salalah we did meet up with him. Quite a pleasant chap but he had a harem and he was certainly making sure we didn’t glimpse his harem. We left Salalah and headed for the Khuriya Muriya Islands. Now the alternative to that was to go the inshore route and you don’t take less fuel. You take less fuel to do that but my skipper wanted to play safe because a previous launch had gone ashore taking the inshore route and the only reason we could think that this had happened was he called in at Salalah to refuel and had laid off his course, inland course or off shore course to go to Masirah and he got called back. What for we don’t know but he got called back and he was several hours ashore before he came back and when he got aboard he said to the coxswain, ‘Ok, coxswain off we go.’ And light was beginning to fade and he was using the course that he’d laid off earlier on. Well, that area was tidal and these skippers most of them came from the Middle East that wasn’t tidal and so they were not accounting for rise and fall of tide whereas of course down in these waters you had to. There was something like a sixteen or more foot drop. So anyway, what happened he ended up going on the rocks. Taking the bottom out of my boat and there was quite a lot of fun then. Once they were ashore on the rocks it wasn’t long before they were being attacked by Arabs on horseback and they’d got no guns aboard. We had no guns aboard my launch. We, he attacked. The Arabs attacked his launch and the only thing he had to defend himself was his verey guns and cartridges and as these Arabs came rushing at him he fired the verey guns straight into their mix them and of course you could imagine what happened. All the stuff, all the sparklers came out. Frightened the life out of the Arabs and they turned around and went away. Well, fortunately the radio operator had got an SOS message off and a launch down at [Mekulah] left immediately armed with rifles and machine guns and headed for Salalah. But it was of course further up the coast from Salalah that they’d gone ashore. Anyway, they managed to hold the Arabs off with this verey gun and of course the other launch, the Miamis arrived with the lads with their guns and so forth and of course they opened fire on the Arabs and they didn’t play ball with these lads. So they pushed off. What after that, happened after that well apparently the Navy sent a tug up to tow the launch back and somewhere in the tow back she sank. We proceeded and headed for the Khuriya Muriya Islands which was quite a distance and once we got there we got in to the bay and I decided that this was the place we would refuel. So we dropped the mud hook and we swang to the anchor for a bit and it was a bit loppy in that bay and it was a case of unloading the six drums of fuel into our petrol tank. Well, we had no pump, rotary pump or a pump of any sort. But the only way to get that petrol out as we were was to get a piece of piping, put it in the petrol drum, give it a jolly good suck, get a siphon going and that would empty the drums. Well, my deckhands didn’t want to do that so it was left to yours truly Charles to do the job. So did it quite successfully for five of the drums, emptied it all in and the last drum the launch by then had swung around and we were rocking gently in the swell and I took a suck and she swung around and suddenly I took a jolly good mouthful and of course I spat it out and the boys took over and they refuelled but how I didn’t kill myself I don’t know. I don’t advise a hundred octane petrol as a beverage at any time. So that was it. Anyway, we started to head from the Khuriya Muriya Islands to Masirah Island and there was something like two hundred and fifty miles to go and from where we actually were and as we started to go suddenly my steering went on the helm. So I wasn’t on at the time but one of the lads, one of the deck hands was on the helm at the time and said, ‘Charles, I’m getting no response to the helm.’ So of course I took over and that was true and we found the steerage had gone so we had to heave to and I made [unclear] steering from gear we had on board which I took after. Went down into the bilges linked on to the rudders and I was able to steer the launch from the wheeldeck at the back with the skipper at the front yelling out about the course. So we plodded along at that and then suddenly an engine went so another fitter came out. He was a flight sergeant fitter I had. He said, ‘Sorry Charles, but the engine’s gone on us. I can’t find the cause.’ So that was that and we plodded our way to Masirah and if you see, ever see a chart of the waters off Masirah my God you see one of the dodgiest plots on God’s earth to have to navigate through. Anyway, with the skipper yelling out and me on the, on the [unclear] rudder we managed to get to the camp and moor up and were greeted aboard by the lads with a cheer. There happened to be a grade up for the Miamis up there at Masirah and of course it was tidal so I managed to get the launch on to the cradle and out with the tide and in went the lads. So the base fitters and the chap in charge of the fitters, Nobby Clark was a great friend of mine. He and his team came aboard and began to sort out what had gone wrong and we found that some rubber insulation to do with the water tank system had managed to get in the piping and blocked it. So hence that’s why I couldn’t steer. And of course once they cleared the pipes ok the steering was fine and quite what was wrong with the engine we never found out. They gave a change of plugs and filters and so forth and ultimately the engine roared into life and we were declared serviceable. Now, that was December 1945 at Masirah. Christmas came along and we were sent to Ras Al Hadd which was the final station north for aircraft crossing across to India. And we were sent there where I spent my Christmas aboard with my friend Leslie beamish, a great chap, a very good cook and he cooked us up a nice meal. The other lads were ashore. The skipper I never saw. Once he went ashore into the Officer’s Mess that was it. He left me to look after the launch. [unclear] Then we get around to February HSL 2649 was detached to Ras Al Hadd at that period which I’ve just spoken about and by March 1946 2649 was recalled to Masirah. Reported the closure of Air Sea Rescue. March 1946 posted coxswain of HSL 2538. Now she was what we called a buoy swinger and we have one in the Middle East because no spares were available for these Miamis so what they did one stood down from duty and anything you wanted you went to that craft and took and of course there was a buoy swinger in Masirah. That was 2538, a beautiful launch greatly cared by a previous crew who had done their six months on Masirah Island and had been flown back to Aden. Incidental to the flying back business earlier on a crew that had done their time at Masirah were being flown back in a Hudson and it went into a hillside. Killed the lot. Well, they were all buried. Quite the procedure. Quite who found them I think it must have been the RAF. They buried them where they found them and I’ve got a photograph of a Memorial that somebody cut in wood. A whacking great cross and cut their names in to it and left it there but later on an official party was sent up there to recover the bodies and they were taken down to Aden and buried in the cemetery at Aden. Ok. Having got 2538 I’d been coxswain of 2649 for a year but a day and when the skipper called me in, Flying Officer Butler, we were great friends, you know. A totally different attitude to all the officialdom. We were all great pals and we called each other by nicknames but when it came to all the official stuff we knew what to do. Anyway, Flying Officer Butler was NCO of the base and he was an ex-merchant Navy man. Young. But he called me in and he said, ‘Charles, you’re taking over 2538 and I thought oh God why take me off? There was a flight sergeant and a sergeant coxswain there and they must have been through the course to get that qualification. I couldn’t go on a course. They closed the school down. So I was qualified second class coxswain but up in the Middle East Flying Officer Snelling who I served under on a Miamis in Cyprus taught me how to use the sextant. We went for a trip out to Crete on one occasion and he said to me, I was on the helm at the time the first coxswain had bedded down and he said, ‘Charles, I’m not going anywhere near the island. We’ll heave to here and we’ll ride to the sea anchor.’ So we rode overnight to a sea anchor and ok I was up on deck in daylight the next day but we’d run, a mist had come down and it wasn’t long before we heard engines. So of course we took covers of the guns. Stood by and lo and behold the bow of a destroyer came out of the mist and I got hold of the aldis lamp and I said to the skipper, ‘What’s the code of the day?’ And he told me what it was. I forget what it was now. But a single, a single letter. Let’s say it was D. So as this thing emerged out of the mist I flashed D to this destroyer and ok they flashed back the right code for friendly. So the wireless operator had come up by then and of course, his speed on the lamp was far quicker than mine and they had a flash backwards and forwards. He told them we were looking for pilots and crews and they said, ‘Well, sorry we haven’t seen anything but we wish you good luck,’ and they disappeared on. Going on into the mist. Well, the mist rose eventually and we then headed off for Crete but we did a lot of square search but had no luck in finding anybody so we headed back to Tobruk on that occasion and it was as I already reported a launch from Mersa Matruh, a Hants and Dorset. Found the crew walking ashore on Crete so at least they were safe. Right. Now, going back to Masirah the closure of ASR I was given this 2538 by Flying Officer Butler and of course it was in his office so I’m not a bloke to swear and I didn’t swear but I had a jolly good go at him. I said, ‘Look, I’ve been on 2619 all but a year. They’re all my mates.’ He said, ‘I can’t help that.’ He said, ‘You’re going to be coxswain of 2538.’ I said, 'Well, what’s wrong with the flight sergeant or the sergeant taking it over?’ So he said, ‘That’s my business. You get on and do as your told. You take over 2538 and get her ready to go back to Aden.’ Well, a little earlier an air vice marshal had passed through and he wanted to know why 2538 was there and unserviceable and the CO, Mr Butler said, ‘Sorry sir. We can’t get the spares.’ Well, it was amazing but somehow or other some spares came through. So here was I coxswain of this launch and the crew were all fresh from Blighty so they didn’t know what Miamis were and the skipper was quite a young chap I suppose. I was twenty five at the time or thereabout and I would suggest he was a little bit younger than me but he came aboard and he’d got no idea what these launches were about. So he, we became very friendly and he was a nice chap. Anyway, had to repaint 2538 and get her all ready but I had the good fortune of getting a fitter, Tommy Overton. He was an LAC and he was one of the sad cases. He deserved to be an NCO, Tom. He was a first class fitter and it was him and I that got the spares and got these two engines going on the Miami. So we went for a run and that was fine. Everything was great and it gave me the opportunity to train the crew because I mean over there on my launch, on 2649 the wireless operator could take the helm, the deck hands put earphones on and hear the dots and the dashes. The crew was interchangeable. We all had a break. The fitters could come out, get a bit of fresh air. I could go in and wash the dials. I knew where they had to be. Anything out of order and obviously we’d get the right man to come in and have a look at it. See what was going on. But that was 2538. So I managed to train the crew. We got the launch looking lovely. I’ve got a photograph of her and she, we then had the duty to go up to Ras Al Hadd and that was the end of March or it was around about March the 1946 and we went to, we were attached to Ras Al Hadd and we had a task there of taking cases of bullets out from the airstrip up there and dumping them in deep water. So we did that. The skipper came up as well with us in 2649 and he took control of what was going on there and having done all that there was like a firework display going on on the airstrip where they were burning off ammunition I suppose. Plenty of bangs and crackles and sparks flying everywhere but I suppose they were all right. Anyway, Flying Officer Butler came back on to 2649 and he shouted over. ‘We’re going back to Masirah.’ So I didn’t bother to check the chart. I said, ‘I’ll follow you, sir.’ He said, 'That’s right. You follow me.’ And I’d done that before, you know. I’ve skippered that launch. You’re following one that’s being skippered by a commissioned officer. That was the way things were shared out there. No questions asked and nothing bothered me. The only thing that I look at in hindsight was that the things I did I desired to be a flight sergeant but here I was an LAC and it was on one of the journeys up to Masirah, the Christmas period that my skipper did come back from the Officer’s Mess to say, ‘Charles, here’s a Christmas present for you. It’s your corporal’s tapes.’ So that was Christmas 1945 and so I sewed them on and that was that. Anyway, we returned to Masirah and that was the closure of the ASR base and we prepared the three launches to go back to Aden. I was on a 2538 and my 2469. The skipper was Butler and I forget the skipper, I’ve got a photograph of him but I can’t think of his name. The skipper of [pause] oh dear I’ve forgotten the launch’s number but it had up to thirteen because a pal of mine was aboard it and he protested left, right and centre because its name, it’s number added up to unlucky thirteen as he said. Two six something and I’ll leave you to put that together and before we left Masirah, Mr Butler called me in and said, ‘Charles I want you to help me to sort through all these documents. Some have got to go back to Aden. Others have got to be destroyed.’ And I thought here again there was a flight sergeant on the base and a sergeant on the base and he’s calling on me. So anyway, I went in. By then I cooled down and got on with the business of living and he told me what was to be saved and what wasn’t to be saved. Right in front of me now I’ve got one letter that recommends the CO on the island of Masirah to get my promotion to corporal as I had been doing a first class sergeant’s job for a very long time. So back, that’s where my tapes came from. But six months later from that the skipper recommended me for my sergeant’s stripes but the CO on the island said, ‘Corporal Meacock wants much more experienced on Air Sea Rescue before I am recommending him for sergeant’s stripes.’ Well, joke. You know. Air Sea Rescues from 1941 onwards and I needed more experience. So there it was. We returned to, we were returning to Aden and having got down to Salalah we refuelled at Salalah but our own lads cooked aboard. We had our own meals aboard. When we got to [Mekalah?] we got amongst the dhow and I noticed a lot of bargaining going on from the other two launches. I don’t know what was on but we refuelled and we were ready to go back to Aden. I asked the radio operator because I was time expired if there was any information about that back at base at Aden and he radio’d through and they said, ‘No. There’s nothing here at the moment.’ So I was fed up to the teeth having been shifted on to 2538 and losing all my mates and then not hearing about going home. I was down in the dumps and I wasn’t, I never drank but somehow or other I got a half a bottle of gin and I drank that and I sat on the coxswains bunk and drank it and then laid down. But I don’t know some reason I was seasick and all the gin went out through the porthole which was just as well because I recovered in time to get up and get on and do my duty. Anyway, having returned to Aden I reported to the officer and he said. ‘Oh, by the way Charles your ticket is here to go home. Pack you kit bag and get down to Khormaksar.' By a certain date a couple of days ahead. And I went down there and there was again a twin engine aircraft, a Hudson that took a number of us and took off from Khormaksar and it flew over Mecca. We saw all the crowds down at Mecca and we landed at Luxor and of course flying around there we saw the temples and all the images there of the Pharaohs. But by the time the aircraft got down on the deck a sandstorm came so we missed that one and there had to be big repair work done to the Hudson again which was done and we just spent our time in the NAAFI. And we all climbed aboard and we then left for where we are we? We were at Luxor. We went up to Cairo. We landed at Cairo but of course during my journey I bought some bales of silk and various presents to take to my parents and friends and my sister in law and when I got out at the airport in Cairo I had to face the Arab officers and he started pulling stuff out of my kit bag. ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Hey, leave that alone. They’re presents for my family.’ He said, ‘These are silk.’ So, I said, ‘Yes. So they are.’ So he said, ‘That’s impound. We impound that.’ I said, I snatched it back, stuffed it in my bag and he said, ‘I’m going off. I’m going off to get an officer.’ He went off to get an officer. I went off. Rushed across the airport and I happened to be lucky there was an ambulance leaving and I said, ‘Could you give me a lift?’ And they did. So I got out of the aerodrome undetected and I reported back to Alexandria. After a short while there where are we? That was in May. I was posted to UK transit [ Kasfareet], Canal Zone, Egypt. Yes. That was in May 1946 I was there. So we went to the transit camp and there was a whole crowd of us waiting to come home and there was a delay and we’re talking about June 1946. Roughly early June 1946. Late May. And they cancelled us going on one ship and I met one of the lads from Lyme Regis and I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’m going home.’ So I said, ‘Well, how long have you been here?’ He said, ‘Oh not long,’ he said. But something to do with Churchill wanted us out of the way now it’s alright for us to go back. Well, that was the story we heard. I heard. And ultimately, they provided a troop ship for us that left Port Said and headed for Toulon in France. Well, there was wrecks all over that harbour but we went ashore at Toulon. Hyeres was the place in particular. H Y E R E S. And that was again June 1946 and we got on a boat which brought us across the Channel and as we approached Dover Harbour a voice came over tannoy, ‘If you’ve got any arms or armaments on you surrender them or you will be in trouble.’ Ah well, you’ve never seen anything like it because there were revolvers and all sorts of things all pitched over. I think if they dredged Dover Harbour they’d find enough to fit out an Army. But ok they entrained and off we went. It was daylight then. Off we went heading towards London and lads who we knew lived in London because there were one or two Londoners there I only ever saw one of the my fourteen mates and that was Dougie Cook who lived in Scotland and Dougie Cook was a deckhand. I was a coxswain. That has a reference later on. Anyway, the train went up to West Kirby. We got off the train and they then there was a procedure of surrendering our hot climate gear, our trousers and shorts and so forth. Khaki drill. That’s the word I’m looking for and when we surrendered those and we were given out fresh uniforms and a fresh battledress and a week’s leave and also a ticket to where we were posted. So when I looked at mine you know having been up in Scotland to start with before on a course before I was posted overseas. Then I was posted overseas so in fact I hadn’t been at home for the best part of three years. Three and a half years. But so they posted me up to Scotland. Someone with a send of humour. And Dougie Cook was behind me. Dougie, his father was mayor. Whatever the Scottish name is for that. He was mayor of Glasgow and Dougie was posted to Ireland, so I said to the sergeant, I’m flashing my corporal’s tapes. I said, ‘Can’t Dougie go to Helensburgh?’ I said, ‘It’s near his home.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter to me if I go to Helensburgh or Ireland so I could go to Ireland.’ The sergeant said, ‘No. They want a deckhand over in Ireland and they want a coxswain in Helensburgh. So I got a pinnace there. We’re now talking about June of ’46 and I got a lovely old pinnace and a crew and as crews brought in HSLs decommissioned from service finished with I used to take them out and moor them on buoys where there whole trots of buoys up the bays in those Scottish areas of Helensburgh where of course was where the submarines were. And after a while the skipper called me in. He said, ‘Meacock, your time’s up. Your ticket’s up. You’re demobilised.’ And on August 1946 I was demobilised. I went down again I think that was down West Kirby somewhere and got a civilian suit and that was supposed to have been made by one of the best tailors in the country and some other clothes, some civilian clothes, some tickets, ration coupons and I headed for home. So there you are. That’s briefly a story of my life. There’s certainly much more to it but it just escapes me at the moment. This has been a challenge for me to go through all this lot. I feel I’ve got to finish there.
[recording pause]
This is by way of an addendum. These are launches that I have served on. HSL 130, a whaleback at Gorleston, Great Yarmouth. I was an MBC. Member of the crew. STs 1506 and 1515 at Lyme Regis, Dorset. A leading deckhand. Various craft at the school at Corsewall on an MBC course. Overseas Alexandria was base to all craft serving in the Eastern Mediterranean as far as Benghazi on the desert side and the Dodecanese on the other side of the Mediterranean. Quite a large command. Launches I served on and in what capacity —HSL 2542 at Alexandria, deckhand and ultimately second coxswain. 2643 Mombasa, coxswain. 2649 Aden, coxswain. 2538 Masirah, coxswain. Scotland at the end of the war, pinnace 43, coxswain. Places where I was stationed or based for a while. In the case of HSL 2649 I was her coxswain for a year. The others I served lengthy periods aboard.
[recording paused]
Places where I was stationed or was based for a while in the case of HSL 2649 I was her coxswain for a year. The others I served lengthy periods abroad. Great Britain, places that I passed like a shadow in the night sometimes, sometimes I stuck. Cardington, Penarth, Weston Super Mare, Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, Lyme Regis, Corsewall, Stranraer, Blackpool, the Clyde, Lagos, Cape Town, Durban, Alexandria, Mersa Matruh, Tobruk, Paphos, Cyprus, [unclear], Bodrum in Turkey, Kos, Leros, Port Said, Alexandria. Flew from the Nile in a Sunderland. Landed at Khartoum for refuelling and sustenance. Took off for Kisumu on Lake Victoria. Overland from there to Nairobi. Train to Mombasa. Plane to Mogadishu. Aden, Brother Islands near the Red Sea. [Mekulah?] Salalah, Khuriya Muriya Islands, Masirah Island, Ras Al Hadd, Port Said, Toulon, Hyeres, Calais, Dover, West Kirby, Helensburgh, West Kirby demobilised. When I met, men I met and offer thanks to Flying Officer Snelling, Flying Officer Butler who both taught me the use of the sextant and further aspects of navigation. I was leading deckhand on Flying Officer Snelling’s launch and coxswain on Mr Butler’s launch. Flight sergeant Leslie Flower who spent a long time dealing with the charts and navigation. He was my inspiration to want to be a coxswain and wished me well. I never met him after Gorleston and the crew of HSL 130 all wished me well in my future career. I did visit Leslie when we were returned to Civvy Street. I was with him the week before he died. We used his local pub for a pint and a meal and from the grounds could see Calshot. The original home of Air Sea Rescue. He was a marvellous man. People that have, I have to thank as a result of being in Durban, South Africa for a number of months Joyce Proust who was a bank manager’s secretary. Marg, a hospital matron and her sister Sandy a deputy headmistress. All who looked after a group of us when we stayed in Clairwood transit camp, Durban. They gave us a wonderful time. All three came as guests to my home during Elizabeth’s Coronation and we corresponded until all three died. My one regret was that I never was a senior NCO. I, the only coxswain on three HSLs with all its responsibility of having a skilled crew and fully serviceable launch and should be, have been a senior NCO but I was happy doing the job. All the lads knew what I wanted of a crew and responded accordingly. Any man could go into the engine road and read the dials. Any doubts the fitters were probably in the wheeldeck. I would do my stint either on headphones or on the engines as the distances we travelled were considerable and so many members of my crews I had respect and efficient crews. I needed to give few orders and felt privileged to be their coxswain. My crews were my mates. The following are two interesting cases of ingenuity called for on occasions and not written in any book. At Paphos in Cyprus there was a day when we were hit by a gale and the launches moored stern on to it. The mooring line parted on both and wrapped themselves around the props and the shafts. We were both u/s and would have to report to base at Alexandria. However, when the gale died down we, the deckhands on HSL 2542 took it in turns with a sharp knife in our teeth to dive under the launch and slash at the ropes around our props and shafts. Ultimately, we got them clear and we were now serviceable. HSL 2517 moored alongside hadn’t the divers, swimmers so I suggested they made up some diving gear of a gas mask, tubing and the pump that supplied oil for topping up with oil for the steering on Miamis. It was a cylinder with an on and off tap at the bottom to which we fitted the piping after having cleaned it out with all boiling water. The corporal fitter tried it on. We filled the pump full of air and turned the pump on and whilst in the well deck he checked it out as being ok. We could breathe quite well so he went down the ladder at the stern of the launch and ducked underwater and we made sure that there was air in the cylinder and he came up satisfied that he could breathe ok. So we made certain that at all times there was air in the cylinder. We gave him a line to pull on if he wanted attention. So down he went with a carving knife and in no time at all HSL 2517 was serviceable. Obviously, having been up the desert no one wanted to give up a posting to Paphos. However, I used the same technique at Masirah. Those waters were treacherous and launched on the sandbank and bent her prop. Only this time I took photographs as I made up two masts. One for the sergeant fitter Nobby Clark, [IC] based fitters and a friend and Les Beamish my leading deckhand. He was more like a second coxswain. A very knowledgeable chap. After all the safety checks they went below with a whacking great spanner and removed the bent prop. There was a spare one on the unit. This they put on and well within one tide she was serviceable again. At Ras Al Hadd the crew ate ashore in the airmen’s mess at the airstrip and my skipper I never saw once. He had established himself in the Officer’s Mess so it was Les who kept me company and he was an excellent cook. We lived like lords. He got what he wanted from the Airman’s Mess cook and then bargained for fish, eggs and chickens and all from the local fisherman. Les just had to cater for us two. The Christmas meal back at Masirah was turkey and Christmas pudding and beer all around. To fill in some time I wrote poetry of a sort and I thought I’d read you maybe a couple.
A Launch Crew —
The crew of a launch are all qualified men,
There are technical courses and were crammed full of gen.
A skipper would navigate, the lords of the sea,
The register of the duties were for you and for me.
Coxswains ran launches in port and at sea.
Their knowledge was boundless,
It had to be.
Fitters, the lads who kept the gears turning,
Which rotated the props and kept them a churning.
The w/ops would tap out their dot and their dash.
Lives would depend on them not making a hash.
Each launch had its deckhands,
A grand bunch of chaps,
Who kept the launch ship shape and filled in the gaps.
Some craft had a doc to deal with the sick.
He would work with the crew and take on a trip.
So if you should meet such a grand bunch of chaps,
Please raise your glass and just doff your caps,
For they are few of a kind who all put to sea,
To save human beings like you and like me.
[recording paused]
I’m about to read a poem written by Leslie Flower, Group Captain Leslie Flower and a personal friend. This is titled “Brothers.” And he wrote it as a result of me writing a poem about him that I sent to him for his approval before it was published in our journal many many years ago.
“I know that I’m slow the old fellow replied,
And I’m often a crushing old bore.
But I once helped to salvage our nation’s pride,
Brought low on an enemy shore.
Of course, there were thousands of others who had rallied to rescue their kin.
For in those days it seemed we were brothers, and as brothers it seemed we would win.
And later I sailed with a mighty host.
With the greatest armada of all.
And I shared in the fear as the moment drew near,
To assault that impregnable wall.
But of course, there were thousands of others,
Who’d return to regain what we’d lost.
So we shared in our triumphs like brothers,
And like brothers we shared in the cost.
And now that the fighting has ended,
And the things that we fought for are won,
We are surely entitled to let our hair down and abandon our good selves to fun.
But of course, there were thousands of others whose lives are forever impaired.
Let’s spare them a thought. They’re our brothers,
Let’s remind them at least that we care.”
And that was written by group captain, Group Captain Leslie Flower, MBE MM and a friend and it wasn’t long after Leslie wrote that and sent it to me that he, in fact died.
[recording paused]
This is a short poem on Brush Quay Memorial [unclear] Gorleston, Great Yarmouth.
Beneath those waves their bodies lie.
Each one of them too young to die.
With guns a blazing the aircraft sped
In a very short time each one was dead.
With the launch as their tomb,
On the bottom they lie,
Above their grave was
A bright blue sky.
The memorial names them.
They rest in peace.
And God watch over them.
Never cease.
Following the incident HSL 2706 —
It was bullets and shells set your launch all ablaze,
And hid you from view with smoke and with haze.
It was similar bullets and shells by the score,
That wrote off your lives,
And made you no more.
Your duty was done when those shells found their mark.
Extinguished your lives to the very last spark.
Burnt down to her water line a fiery hell,
Which went to the bottom and took you as well.
Now in the arms of the great North Sea deep,
You are cradled forever in slumber and sleep.
This was 2706 that went to the rescue of American aircraft coming back from a bombing raid and they were actually shot up by an American fighter pilot who was rapidly flown back to America before anything could be done much about it.
[recording paused]
This is a poem on Mersa Matruh and Tobruk as I first saw them when I went up from Alexandria. The war at this stage our boys were pushing the Jerry into the drink from about the Benghazi area towards Sicily and Italy. The title is, “Mersa Matruh and Tobruk.”
There are tanks to the left of me,
And tanks to the right.
Remnants of such an almighty fight.
With much twisted armour and chunks on the ground,
All is now peaceful and never a sound.
For the battle is finished, the soldiers have gone.
The fighting and killing, the carnage moved on.
But what of the men who died in that fray?
Their bodies are here but their souls far away.
We honour their regs laid here to sleep,
In the sands of the deserts the good lord to keep.
As we bury their remains and count up the losses,
Each grave is marked with their names and with crosses.
With dignity we salute you. You that are dead.
Who turned the battle and the desert sands red.


24045

This one I’ve titled “Mersa Matruh.” I was there when this occurred and you may all have seen it on television or I think they made a film of it.
“Mersa Matruh"
A quiet night at Mersa Matruh.
On standby duty with nothing to do.
When the lads on the base,
Began to stir.
For out on the horizon,
What is that blur?
Until it got nearer we could not tell.
Once in our sights it was an ML,
A motor launch.
We moored her alongside,
The crew disembarked.
They all looked like monks out there in the dark.
The truth of it was they had come here from Crete,
With a German Colonel General who was enroute to eat,
Well, they made him a prisoner in his own staff car.
They passed through his camp and out through the bar.
In all haste to the coast where they were to be shipped,
By our Royal Navy lads back to Egypt.
I took the heaving lines from that ML. They moored alongside and we met up with those lads. They were the long-range desert group lads who’d been over and captured this colonel general.