Cassidy, Geoffrey (Oral history)

British seaman served aboard HMS Curzon in GB coastal waters and Arctic, 1942-1944; served aboard HMS Riou in GB coastal waters and North Sea, 1944-1945

REEL 1 Background in Goole and Northampton, 1925- 1942: family; education; employment. Enlistment and training with Royal Navy in GB, 1942: call up, 7/1942; training at HMS Collingwood. Recollections of operations as seaman aboard HMS Curzon in GB coastal waters, 1942-1944: joining ship, 11/1942; duties as ship's butcher; ship's patrol duties; sinking of E-boat; his action station; attitude of German POWs on board ship; issue of survivors stores to German POWs; sinking of U 212; ship's armament; drafting to torpedo and landing craft courses, 4/1944; his duties guarding corpses of US personnel at Weymouth killed by German E-boats at Slapton Sands during Exercise Tiger, 4/1944. REEL 2 Continues: question of number of bodies brought in after Slapton Sands incident; return to ship for D-Day landings, 6/6/1944; drafting to HMS Riou after 6/1944; reaction of crew to issue of Russian bread at Archangel, late 1943. Aspects of operations as seaman aboard HMS Riou, 1944-1945: securing of Kaiser Wilhelm Canal at Kiel, 5/1945; escorting German merchant ships to GB after VE Day. Re-capitulation of Slapton Sands incident at Weymouth, 4/1944.