← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.
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Hello and welcome to our series of Family Stories, the podcast written by you, the listeners. This episode's family story features a naval theme, Work at Sea LCT Work on D Day U Boat hunting and golfing with Admiral Tovey. This week we're starting with a story
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from Michael and Michael begins this family story concerns my uncle Jack Plunkett, who was born in Grinnock in Scotland in 1921. When war broke out in 1939, Jack was 18 years old and in his third year apprenticeship at the electrical field. The company he worked for, the Scottish Western Electrical Contractors, was commandeered by the Royal Navy. Their warships were brought into the Greenock area in large numbers to protect Britain's merchant ships. Come high winds or rough seas, Jack was responsible for servicing any issues that arose in these ships. He soon mastered the art of climbing a rope ladder up the side of a massive vessel, heavy tools slung around his neck. His work on ships often entailed start to finish projects, which meant working all day or night until the job was done. On top of that, Jack put in many extra hours on land, working with his friend Jimmy to put out fires caused by incendiary bombs with buckets of sand. On one particular raid, the town distillery was hit and whiskey set aflame ran down the steep streets, illuminating the town as it destroyed it. The morning after the raid, Jack walked with Jimmy to a town about a mile away where Jimmy's young family lived. In the daylight. The damage caused by the raid was stark. On that long and difficult walk, Jack stepped on the softness of a child's leg, still in its pajama bottoms. He was sick to his stomach, but didn't tell his friend why. When they arrived in town, they were thankful that Jimmy's wife and children, though badly shaken, had survived. The next day, when Jack bathed himself, his mother noticed an injury on his back that he didn't remember getting a year later, in 1942, Jack was working on a ship in the middle of the night. Suddenly, the officers were given orders to sail to Murmansk, Russia via the Norwegian Sea. And there was no launch to take Jack ashore. The blackout conditions meant they were sailing in utter darkness. Jack wondered where exactly he was, knowing they must be fast approaching the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, a launch came and took him to Rothsay on the Isle of Boot. He had to climb down the rope ladder while the ship was still in motion. In complete darkness, with his trusty tools strung around his neck, Jack tried to inquire how that vessel he had almost been stranded on had fared in the icy northern waters known to be crawling with German U boats. But he never found out. While Jack's early war years were spent making on board repairs to Britain's fleet, his latter ones were spent in a lab building weapons to destroy the enemy one. He was hired by the Royal Navy torpedo factory and he and his team pioneered the invention of a seawater powered 21 inch torpedo which was used for the remainder of the war. These anecdotes come from a brief memoir that Jack wrote in 2006. He was a generous, kind and gentle man and I feel very fortunate to have his wartime experiences immortalised in his own words. That story was from Michael.
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This story is from Andy. As a longtime listener to we of ways, I thought I'd share the story of my late father in law, Stan Webb and his experiences on D Day. Stan was born in Bermondsey and grew up in a far from affluent family. In his early childhood he shared a double bed with his three brothers in one room of the family flat while his mum and dad lived in the other. The family managed to move out of Senegal Road and further away from central London in the late 30s, which was fortunate as the area suffered badly during the Blitz. Where the road had once been is now part of Millwall's football ground. Stan was a bright lad and began working for a camera repairer. He remembered cycling through rubble strewn London streets on his rounds to collect and deliver cameras and then started an electrical apprenticeship. It was with this background that he was conscripted into the Navy where he served as the sparky on an lst. On D Day itself, the LCT Stan was serving on landed Canadian armour opposite Beni Assiomer in the Juno sector. As he knew his son in law was interested in history, he often told the story of what happened that morning. As their ramp came down, it triggered a beach mine. The force of the explosion distorting the metal strips welded on to give the tanks grip to the extent that they couldn't get off at all. Stan was sent forwards with a sledgehammer to try and get them flatter, but kept hearing a ping sound beside his head while working away. He thought nothing of it until the CO shouted webb, get yourself in cover. When Stan asked why, the CO said because some bastard is trying to shoot you. Somehow they got the tanks off. We think these were Shermans of the Fort Garry horse. And then found that the blast had severely damaged the underside of the lct. In his retelling, Stan generally suggested that they spent the rest of the day running minor supplies from ship to shore, but only once did he say that actually much of that time was spent recover recovering bodies from the water. The LCT was sent back to Dartmouth for repairs, somehow surviving the rough crossing back where the crew then spent a not unpleasant few months laid up in one of the estuaries, swapping their rations with the locals for freshly caught fish scheduled to be sent to the Far East. The war ended before such an event could take place. It turned out that Margaret, his wife and the love of his life, who he eventually met in the early 60s, lived nearby then, although they never met at the time on D Mob, Stan took advantage of the government's further Education and training scheme to study to become a teacher, later retraining as a psychiatric social worker, rising eventually to the role of head of department in a large residential psychiatric hospital before his retirement. Not bad for a Cockney lad from Bermondsey. Stan lived until well into his 90s. He said, as so many of his generation did, that he had an easy time of it. I think otherwise. And that story was from Andy. Thank you, Andy.
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And this next one is from Meredith and Meredith says thank you for the research you put into this series on the Atlantic. This is a story about Royal Navy sailors rescuing Germans that they probably wish to send to hell, as well as about a sailor's response to the deaths in World War II. My dad, as a member of the New Zealand Volunteer Naval Reserve, was seconded to the Royal Navy, where he became a second lieutenant, mainly serving on the destroyer HMS Cambrian in Russian convoys and later the Far East. Before he enjoyed the Cambrian, however, he was on HMS Garlies, a frigate that was part of the first escort group, North Atlantic. I didn't know that until decades after his death, but I did know that he'd been deeply affected by being on the longest uninterrupted U boat hunt in World War II. Over 50 years later, I recall his sighing and saying, those poor devils. And I knew he was thinking about the submariners struggling with running out of air. I discovered the story by chance earlier this year while transcribing one of his letters written during World War II. Because of censorship, David wasn't allowed to write about what ship he was on, where he was at the time of writing, or what naval or other exercises he'd been on or was engaged in other than small matters of daily life. Briefly, Bletchley park enabled the escort group north of the azores to locate U358 on 29 February 1944. During the 38 hour hunt, 400 depth charges and many hedgehogs were fired. After around 30 hours, HMS Gore and Gali steamed off to Gibraltar to refuel, etc. Late on 1 March, U358 surfaced, but just before it did, it located HMS Gold and sank her with the loss of 131 souls. The captain of U358 emerged holding a white cloth. But before HMS Affleck, the only remaining ship could see this. They raked the conning tower and the captain was felled. It was a dark and cold night and HMS Affleck was able to rescue only 14 survivors from Gold. 50 men from U358 died of cold in the water and in the event only one German survivor was rescued. He later told his story to interrogators. HMS Affleck already had 16 survivor POWs on board from destroying U91 about four days earlier, a ship carrying huge grief and loss. My dad had at the time been deeply distressed by the thought of all those men drowning in the water. Young men just like himself who were doing their patriotic duty. Far from being sanguine about this in later years, the thought of their suffering and death sometimes brought him to tears. In his second letter after the 1944 hunt for U395, he'd added a note. I have a quoting from or based on a psalm written in the depths of despair by a heart long troubled with sorrow and with woe Selah. My dad went on to have a stellar career in special education. Towards the end of his life, his thoughts increasingly turned to his time in services. We were proud to have a representative from the New Zealand Return Services association at his funeral in 1999, where we sang for those in peril on the sea. And that story was from Meredith.
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Thank you, Meredith. We're going to take a quick break, but come back to join us for a story from Miles about His great grandfather at Dunkirk. This story is from Miles. This is the story of my great grandfather's role at Dunkirk. My great grandfather Samuel William George Baldry, was a seaman on board the Admiralty, Drifter, Yorkshire lass, one of the many converted fishing trawlers used for patrol and minesweeping duties. Samuel was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and mentioned in dispatches for his actions at Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo. Although I have yet to find the official records of the event, the information my mother has given me is that he was wounded after jumping into the water to help soldiers in the water after the French destroyed Burasque. The soldiers woron took evasive action from heavy German artillery fire and subsequently hit a French laid mine and sank. Having done a bit of research, it seems that as the ship sank, the depth charges it was carrying detonated, killing and wounding hundreds of men of the 800 packed on deck. Although I can't confirm this, it seems likely that whilst attempting to rescue men in the water, Samuel was wounded by the explosion caused by the death charges. Samuel was badly wounded and required surgery and metal plates in both legs. As far as my mother is aware, he went back to sea with the Royal Navy until the end of the war and as a fisherman out of Lowestoft long after the war. I feel immensely proud that my great grandfather played a role in one of the most pivotal events in British history and that he acted in such a manner. Any further information you have on the event, or if you could point me in the right direction of where to find it, would be greatly appreciated. And that story was from Miles and
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actually we do have plenty of information on that, don't we? I've got all sorts of books on Operation Dynamo, so I will look that up.
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Brilliant.
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I will look it up. Anyway, our next story is from Mike. And this is the story of his parents. Alan Vincent, born 1916. His unusual hobby saved his life. My father, Geoffrey Allen Vincent, enrolled in the Navy at the start of the war, even though he was exempt because he worked in a bank and that was deemed essential work. I never knew at that time experienced British armed forces were stationed all over the world and the new recruits were sent to take their place while the trained soldiers and sailors were needed on the front lines. One time my father's unit went to South America. I'm not sure why. And as my father was a keen and competent amateur conjurer, he was encouraged to put on a show for the troops there. Apparently he was so entertaining that the officers there insisted he stayed after the rest of the unit left to put on a magic show for the ambassador and other important people. The boat that all his comrades took back home was torpedoed, all lives lost. So his unusual hobby literally saved his life. I still have my father's battered suitcase full of magic tricks. My mother, born Margaret Vivian stone, was just 18 when the war started, and her mother ran a land army. Although my mother was helping grow food for the nation, she rolled as soon as she could in the WRNs, the Wrens, the Women's Royal Naval Service, and she was assigned to installing and testing the radio equipment in fighter planes. One member of the maintenance team had to fly the plane to test it, and as the youngest, they usually picked on my mother, who would often throw up as the pilots would deliberately do acrobatic loops to tease her. My mother also installed highly secret new inventions, including new forms of radar and the first test use of FM radio in warplanes. But more often they used Morse code and had a special meaningless phrase everyone knew was only a test signal. And she could still remember that with a smile when she was 80 years old. I wish I could remember the meaningless Morse code they used in the war. I think it was eight letters ending with oblique stroke B or oblique stroke G. It was a funky little percussion routine and brought back such memories from my mother, who passed away some years back after the war. The generation that had missed out on university because of active service were all given an opportunity to study, and my mother went to Southampton University, where she met my father, who also had missed university when he signed up for the Navy. My mother had a younger brother, John, who had survived D Day 1, and then after the war, he died in a motorbike accident. My mother was deeply upset, and it was my father that comforted her in her grief, and they felt such a bond that they married soon after while still students at Southampton University. And that story was from Mike.
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Thanks, Mike. Right, well, our next story is from Clive. Clive writes, I was lucky enough to have parents who both served and experienced World War II. Mum was in the Civil Nursing Reserve in London and told me one of her highlights was meeting Alexander Fleming, the inventor of penicillin, who was visiting her hospital. My dad, John, was a Scouser and joined the Navy, training as an engine mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm. He was lucky enough to get to the States on the Queen Mary to train on Pratt and Whitney engines. He later served in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, as part of the British Pacific Fleet. I still have a collection of his old postcards he collected as he crossed America to San Diego. Dad was from a seafaring family in Liverpool. I did get snippets about it from him and one that always stayed with me was from his mother's side of the family, the Galvins, particularly his uncle, Leo Galvin. I sensed Leo was a favourite of my father, John and his brothers. Leo was a merchant seaman and a ship's carpenter. Dad told me he was killed in the war. I remember two things John said about him. One was he looked like Bing Crosby. And the other was when he met him in a Liverpool pub and told Leo he joined the Royal Navy. Leo laughed and said, john, you do know they still flog people in the navy, son. When I pressed my dad on how Leo died, he told me his ship was torpedoed. There was nothing much else to say. Only later, after my dad's passing, did I find out more about Leo, his death and an incredible find in a bookshop. I started looking into Leo's story in 2021. With help, I obtained some of his merchant papers. I know that Leo was killed in 1944. I found out he had been in the Bay of Bengal and the ship called the Asphalion was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only then did I learn the ship was damaged but didn't actually sink. I found out he died aged 38, son of John and Anastasia Galvin, husband of Edna Galvin of Bootle, Lancashire. Leo's ship, Asphalion was owned by the Alfred Holt Company from Liverpool. They were more commonly known as the Blue Funnel Line, as their funnels were famously painted a buff blue colour. While working In London in 2022, I went to the Tower Hill Memorial. It's close to the Tower of London and is a lasting memorial to the tens of thousands of men of the merchant and fishing fleets who gave their lives in the first and second World Wars. It didn't take me long to track Leo and his ship down. I gave Leo's plaque a polish and took pictures to share with my family and friends. Now we get to the interesting part. I did not have much else. How had he really died if the ship didn't sink? Was he buried at sea? To be honest, I thought I'd got as far as I could get. Then in September 2023, I was visiting Hexham in Northumberland with my wife Olwen. I love books and whilst in the Oxfam bookshop browsing, I saw one book on ships and semi interested, I checked it out. The book was an autobiography called A Love Of Ships by Scotsman George King. It charted his career starting during wartime and his rise to becoming MD of the BP tanker fleet from 1975 to 1981. After flicking through, I stumbled on a sketch made by George marked Asphalion under Escort. I knew immediately it was Leo's ship. Blue Funnel Line actually had two ships called Asphalion over the years. The older one Leo was killed on was scrapped in the early 1950s and a new one commissioned. However, the tall funnel in Georgie's sketch was unmistakably the correct one. She was a coal powered ship. This view showed the taller funnel which helped to release the coal smoke. So I started to read the book. The author had joined the Blue Funnel line as a 16 year old. This was his first ever voyage, so he described it in detail. It Left Liverpool in 1941, sailed in convoy across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal onto Australia, trips around Australia and then back the same route to Liverpool. He was away for about eight months and the ship, its crew and the voyage made a lasting impact on George. King George loved to draw and the book had several of his sketches. So at this point I'm thinking, well, Leo was on the ship in 1944, but this story is 1941. Then the astonishing part. I started to see mention of a Leo Galvin in the book. He is described as the carpenter, a lean, leather skinned Liverpudlian with brilliant blue eyes. The most amazing but sad part is at the end of the chapter when the author talks about the Asphalion after he'd left her and the eventual fate of Leo Galvin. In February 1944 the Asphalion was torpedoed in the Bay of Bengal and abandoned. When she failed to sink, the crew returned to Salva. Two torpedoes had struck her in line with the boiler room, superheated steam engulfing the engine room and the spaces above, one of which was Leo Galvin's cabin. Dreadfully scalded, he died in agony in the lifeboat. A sunburned, blue eyed, humorous, kindly and courageous Liverpudlian. With him and his kind under a gentleman captain and professional officers, I had grown up. As I said, this just knocked me out. I was honestly in tears as I presented the book to the guy on the counter. Of course I have the book now and it's a priceless and precious memento of Leo. And that story was from Miles. Thanks for that Miles.
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Well, that is a bit gut wrenching. Our next story is from Charlotte and she writes she was especially keen to listen to the series on the Bismarck and had to chuckle when you spoke of Admiral Tovey being a keen golfer. Well, my father, Norman Power, she writes, known as Freddie for some unfathomable reason, was an rnvr, a sub lieutenant in the King George V when the Home Fleet was stationed in Scapa Flow. I think he was supposed to have something to do with signals, but I'm not sure, as he was completely hopeless at helping me with semaphore when I was in the Brownies, so possibly not. He was, however, a very good pianist and mixed a damn fine pink gin. So I like to imagine him entertaining his fellow officers in the wardroom rather than waving flags around on the bridge. Dad always said that he joined the Navy because he didn't like marching. The army didn't hold any appeal and that he was scared of flying. So the RAF was not for him either. In some of his aforementioned letters, there is some correspondence between his extremely rich uncle and some highfalutin Whitehall chaps, which may have helped to pull a few strings. I don't have any of the letters to hand, so I can't name names. He trained at King Alfred's Baths in Brighton, which always calls for a chuckle. But back to my subject. I do remember his reminiscence of playing golf with the Admiral. There was a golf course in the mainland of Orkney, not, I think, on the site of the present one, and also an enormous cinema for the entertainment of the many thousands of service personnel who were post. So perhaps he did play a round or two with Tovey, or perhaps it was just a story. He never, as far as I was aware, played a peacetime hole again. His many letters home to his family in Coventry, written during the entire war, are now in the tender care of the Imperial War Museum, but I have made copies. The letters from Scapa were digitized and are now of the marvellous Scapa Museum in Lyness, Orkney. Well worth a visit. And I'll be going there soon, I can assure you. By way of an addendum, he did get rather bored in Scapa, so put in for a transfer to something a bit more exciting. This turned out to be HMS Exeter after her post Battle of the River Plate repairs. Of course, he did see some action in the Battle of the Java Sea, where the Exeter and he met their fates. His war ended after three and a half years as a POW in mainland Japan, so be careful what you wish for. Among his losses from the sinking were his ice skates and his golf clubs. And that story was from Charlotte. Absolutely brilliant.
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Right, our next story is from David. Hi. I just wanted to say I had to put the beer down and rewind this episode Arctic Patrol Stringbags Part 4 HMS Black Prince was my uncle's ship where he served with her as a radar operator. He was 18 going on 19 when he joined the crew. He saw action in the Mediterranean and during D Day where she fired over 1300 shells over 10 days. The ships went to support the invasion of southern France and had stays in Gibraltar and Malta to name a few. They sailed through Suez and through to the far Eastern Pacific with stays at Ceylon, Sri Lanka and Australia before taking part in the attack on the oil fields in northern Sumatra. Finally supported the US forces in Okinawa where her five and a quarter inch guns came to the fore again and he saw the war out, taking the Japanese surrender at Hong Kong. She was a lucky ship in many ways, only losing two crewmen during her service, both due to accidents. The second was when a new shell type exploded early and killed the gun layer and a dummy gun was installed to disguise the damage. I've been able to buy the ship's plans from the Royal Museum at Greenwich, along with searching for pictures and information about her time with the Royal Navy. I just wish I knew which radar station my uncle's at. It's probably lost in time now. Thanks for the excellent podcast. It's nice to know the sacrifice and hardship taken by people like my uncle isn't forgotten. That story was from David and thank you David, and thanks to everyone who's contributed to today's family stories. That's all for this episode. If you've got a family story you'd like to be considered for the show, please email it to us at wehavewaysgoalhanger.com we havewaysolehanger.com if you have any photos or images alongside these stories we can have your permission to use too. Please include them with your submission. And don't forget to label the email Family Stories so we don't miss it. Thanks again for listening and cheerio.
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Cheerio.