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Along with my shipmates I was posted to the cruiser HMS Orion bound for the Mediterranean and the landings in the south of France. Our target was to destroy the forts at Marseilles which we did with the help of the monitor 16鈥� ship HMS Roberts in exactly 72 minutes of heavy shelling.

After this action we returned to Malta where, as a Gunnery Control Rating, I was surplus to requirements and with two other Albrighton crew I left the Orion and went into St. Angelo naval barracks. 15 days later I was drafted on to another destroyer, HMS Wilton. She was the same class as Albrighton, but had no torpedo tubes, an extra turret plus a twin Bofors gun.

Back to sea again, this time for the Anzio and Leghorn landings, then on patrol in the Greek islands where we captured a German land craft attempting to ferry men and supplies to Rhodes and Kos. They had 20 soldiers and two officers, one of them an SS lieutenant. We slipped alongside it at 03.20am completely surprising them, putting numbers 2 and 4 boarding parties on to overpower a small watch while the rest of the crew and passengers slept. As a member of no.4 boarding party, along with an officer and 2 other ratings, my job was to capture the bridge. The two crew on duty were taken completely by surprise, as was the engine room when our men dropped in through the deck hatches. Our gunnery officer defused the scuttling charges, and we woke up the rest of the complement to the cries of 鈥楶ants on Fritz and on deck scnell, scnell!!鈥�

We took our prisoners aboard, leaving a skeleton crew on the landing craft along with 2 engine room ratings, then changed course and headed for Benghazi in North Africa. We had no casualties, except for the officer of no.4 party who broke his finger grabbing the landing craft鈥檚 steering wheel.

We discharged the prisoners to the Army then left the German ship alongside the jetty. We were a very happy crew, having earned some 鈥榩rize money鈥� 鈥� just like pirates! Our skipper, Capt. Smithers, congratulated us on a very efficient and seaman-like operation and ordered double rum ration all round!! What do you do with a drunken crew? Answer: take them to Brindisi in Italy for a 2-day rest and run ashore.

While in Brindisi I met an old school pal, Gordon Aitchison, whose unit was in resting from the front line before the big push across the River Po and into Austria. He was in the R.E.C.E. Scout Car Reconnaissance Unit.

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