Description
Object description
South African seaman served aboard HMS Gloucester in Mediterranean, 1940-1941 including sinking 5/1941; POW in Greece and Austria, 1941-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in South Africa, GB, prior to 1939: family; life in South Africa. Aspects of enlistment and training with Royal Navy in South Africa, 1940: background to joining Royal Navy, 3/1940; lack of initial training; joining HMS Gloucester and accommodation on board; volunteer status; anti-war sentiment in South Africa; attitude towards Britain; awareness of situation in Europe; reasons for volunteering; parent's reaction to his enlistment. Recollections of operations as seaman aboard HMS Gloucester in Mediterranean, 1940-1941 including sinking, 5/1941: early operations; relations with Royal Navy personnel; watch system worked; effects of equipping ship with radar; in action at Battle of Cape Matapan; attitude towards Italians; transporting troops to Greece; German Air Force attack on ship off coast of Crete, 5/1941.
REEL 2 Continues: abandoning ship and period in sea; sight of ship sinking and machine- gunning of survivors by German aircraft; reaction to sinking of ship; sleeping arrangements on board; opinion of quality of food; off duty activities; attitude to service on board; rugby match against New Zealanders in Alexandria; ashore in Alexandria; lack of contact with officers; death of captain during German Air Force bombing; role of Royal Marines on board; atmosphere on board; dealing with drunken shipmates on Malta; discipline on board.
REEL 3 Continues: contact with family; description of ship; intensity of ship's activities in Mediterranean; survival attitude in water and death of survivors; question of number of crew members aboard at time of sinking; German Air Force bombing of ship. Aspects of period as POW in Greece, 1941: attitude of German paratroopers towards survivors on Kythira; help from Greek civilians; post-war memorial service on Kythira; transfer to Greek mainland; clothing worn; treatment of woman wanting to give POWs cigarettes; conditions in camp in Salonika. Recollections of period as POW in Austria, 1941-1945: initial transfer to camp in Yugoslavia; farm work in Austria; effects of arrival Red Cross parcels and uniforms; contact with home; conditions in main POW camps; POW skills.
REEL 4 Continues: discipline in camps and in his small working party; morale and post-war contact with his small group of POWs; language skills; life on farm; post-war visit to village; relations with Austrian girlfriend; relations with guards; contrast in conditions in main camp at Klagenfurt and on working parties; question of escape; removal by train from area; awareness of progress of war. Aspects of liberation and return to South Africa, 1945: disappearance of guards and arrival of Americans; move to Munich; American attitude towards Germans; contents of Canadian Red Cross parcels.
REEL 5 Continues: in camp at Brussels; move to GB; three month period in GB; lack of problems adjusting to freedom; demobilisation in South Africa, 12/1945; arrival in South Africa; receiving pension for ulcers. Attitude towards Germans and Austrians. Attitude towards Second World War.