Description
Object description
British seaman served aboard HMS Renown in Far East and Pacific, 1944-1945; served aboard HMS Amethyst in Far East, 1947-1949
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Westbury area, GB, 1926-1943: family; education; eighteen month period in Australia; employment in GB, 1939; family living conditions; brother's service in RAF Regt; membership of Air Training Corps; presence of Italian POWs in area; visiting wreck of German aircraft. Aspects of enlistment and training with Royal Navy in GB, 1943-1944: reasons for volunteering for Royal Navy; selection procedure, 1943; attitude to enlistment; call up to Plymouth, 8/1943; adjusting to service life; treatment by instructors and discipline; rations; attitude of civilians to naval personnel; seven days leave at end of training; drafting to HMS Drake, 11/1943.
REEL 2 Continues: drafting to survivors' camp near Plymouth, 12/1943; pay. Aspects of period as seaman aboard HMS Renown in GB coastal waters and Mediterranean, 1943-1944: drafting to ship in Rosyth, 12/1943; duties as seaman; reception on arrival on board ship; move to Scapa Flow, 1/1944; sense of common wartime purpose; memories of Captain Brooks; joining H Force; allocation to gun crew; effects of guns firing; training with practise shells; cramped conditions on board and lack of privacy; conditions for officers; watch system; passage to Gibraltar; rum ration; importance of personal hygiene and washing clothes; use of NAFFI shop.
REEL 3 Continues: provisions for smoking; role of Master of Arms and regulating staff; role of gun crew; passage through Suez Canal; conversations amongst seamen and mail supply; use of spare time; relations with petty officers; messing arrangements and food. Recollections of operations as seaman aboard HMS Renown in Far East and Pacific, 1944-1945: entering Indian Ocean; arrival in Ceylon; bombardment of Japanese occupied islands; conditions in closed down turrets; bombardment routine; air raid warnings; destroyer escort; checking for threat of frogmen; captain's addresses; cinema and entertainments; Sunday divisions.
REEL 4 Continues: reasons why ship was a happy ship; relations with officers; shore leave in South Africa during ship refit in Durban, 1945; rapid return to GB, 5/1945; VE Day celebrations, 5/1945; pay in 1945; mothballing of ship after end of war and reduction of ship's compliment. Aspects of period as civilian in GB, 1945-1947: return to civilian life to work in building trade; demobilisation; attitude to building work in London; reasons for re-enlistment in Royal Navy, 1947. Recollections of period as seaman aboard HMS Amethyst in Far East, 1947-1949: drafting to ship in Hong Kong via Singapore, 1947.
REEL 5 Continues: further move to Japan; train journey from Kure to Yokohama; joining ship in Yokohama; messing arrangements on board; rum rations; impressions of Hong Kong; searching junks for arms off Malaya; duties as gun trainer; participation in boarding parties; presence of Japanese POWs in Singapore; ashore in Singapore; segregation of VD cases on board; reasons why ship was a happy ship; contrast in being ashore in Hong Kong and Singapore; reasons for placing seamen on shore in HMS Tamar, Hong Kong at time of Yangtse Incident, 1949.
REEL 6 Continues: reunion with shipmates after incident; return to GB, 1949; duties at HMS Tamar; duties on return to GB and leaving Royal Navy; attitude to service with Royal Navy.