Description
Object description
British officer served with Merchant Navy with Harrison Line in North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arctic, 1941-1945; served with Royal Fleet Auxiliary aboard RFA Wave Baron during Korean War, 1/1952-4/1952
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Bridlington and Rhyl, GB, 1924-1939: family; education. Recollections of period as officer with Merchant Navy working for Harrison Line in North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arctic, 1941-1945: degree of government control of merchant seamen; character of Harrison Line; loss of pay for seamen on being torpedoed in early stages of war; categories of captains' reporting on seamen; status of Merchant Navy; role of merchant seamen as combatants; first North Atlantic convoy; first contact with United States Merchant Marine ships, autumn 1941.
REEL 2 Continues: problems of transporting evacuee children to Canada, 1942; North Atlantic convoys including German submarine tactics, weather conditions, navigation problems and exploitation of cadets; attitude towards Germans; German treatment of merchant seamen in sea; seamens' grievances about food; relations between Merchant Navy and Royal Navy; Merchant Navy casualties; service aboard SS Settler in Mediterranean including sight of Battle of El Alamein artillery barrage and Axis wounded arriving in Alexandria, Egypt, 10/1942.
REEL 3 Continues: contrast between Italian and German prisoners of war at Port Said, Egypt; relations with South African civilians; receptions attended in South Africa; story of picking up shot down American aircrew in Caribbean, 12/1942; suspicious Soviets in Murmansk, Soviet Union, 1945; blackmarket trading of cigarettes and soap in Soviet Union, 1945; conveying Scotsman who had been in Soviet prison back to GB, 1945; closed shop system of National Union of Seamen; industrial friction during war; dispute over War Bonus.
REEL 4 Continues: opinion of theft from ships by dockers; booing of neutral Irish ships; attitude towards remarks made by civilians about merchant seamens' leave; prisoner of war status of Merchant Navy captives of Germans; execution of merchant seaman for selling secrets to Germans. Recollections of period as officer with Royal Fleet Auxiliary aboard RFA Wave Baron during Korean War, 1/1952-4/1952: cargoes carried; lack of threat from Communist attack; updating of sea charts; United States Navy's preference for operating off west rather than east coast of Korea; story of ship being regularly damaged by clumsy captain.