Excerpts from Veterans' Interviews

Leonard Dibb-Western and Ray Pearce - old shipmates
Bristol Merchant Navy Memorial, July 2003

I first went to sea at the age of 15, and sailed right from the centre of Bristol on a Norwegian ship. From Bristol we were going to sail at 11 o'clock in the morning; meet first at dockside. Mother was going to come down with my brothers to see me off. Only we went at 10 o'clock, so I missed them. I was very sea sick, from here to Barry. It was on a Sunday evening. I sat under a lifeboat, a hole in my sock and I was so homesick I broke my heart.
Leonard Dibb-Western

I was 10 ½ when I went to the Hibernian Marine School for four years and it was good grounding for the sea. You had a general education but mostly it tended to be on seamanship. We studied navigation, signalling. I used to be very good at signalling with the flags and Morse code. I haven't forgotten Morse even now. I remember winning a medal for being the best signaller and I was only about 13 at the time. It came into good use later on in the war. Discipline was very hard and the food was poor.
Hugh Parry

We went to a place down the coast of India. We never got ashore, we had to anchor in this bay, and they came out in boats and loaded us - and you know what we brought back? Peanuts. They was used for margarine in the war. So we had iron ore from Calcutta, and the rest was full up with peanuts. We spent Christmas day there.
Sam Baker

I gave my engines the attention and love which I expected to get back from people. You've got to love engines if you're an engineer because you never knew when you was going to need them in an emergency. I could listen to them all day.
Eddie Martin

A friend came home from sea and he had this beautiful plastic belt all coloured and I wanted one of them. Now we'd never heard of plastic here, get me? I was going to sea. That's what started it. I was expecting to go across to The States and get my belt! Instead, we went to Murmansk. We did eventually go to The States but never did get that belt.
Ray Pearce

But we went down - they reckon it was about fifty seconds, and the ship was gone, just dived, took you down with it as well. We were carrying blocks of steel. Five survived out of a crew of more than seventy.
Jack Duffy

After my first trip to sea I went home. Mother had got me then hadn't she, 'where do you think you've been' 'oh' I said 'I had to go to sea' she said 'you've not been called up yet you'll have to start work' I said 'I can't I'm in the Merchant Navy now, I'm stopping in it as well' bit cheeky then, a right face with being away to sea (laughing) And she was better off. She hardly got 3 pound for man never mind a boy.
Bob Lang

We were sent up to Grangemouth to load for the Azores. We loaded 10 ton concrete blocks in the lower holds followed by anti-submarine wire, depth charges in between decks, aviation spirit in the shelter decks and detonators in magazines. If we'd been hit, well you can imagine!
Stanley Frith

The port I really liked was Buenos Aires. It was neutral and alive with life. We got 17 pesos to a pound. You could get a cheap meal with a huge steak with two eggs on. Jamon y huevos (ham and eggs) was good. Dos huevos (two eggs), bottle of wine, all for one peso. And that represented one and thruppence. So we were living like kings.
Jack Brotheridge

We came to grief on July the 5th 1941 at half past five in the morning when we were torpedoed. The ship went down in 20 minutes. We lost 295 men. Unfortunately the torpedo hit portside number 3 hatch which was one of the troop decks. It exploded in a troop deck which housed a complete RAF regiment and they were tragically all lost. We had 16 lifeboats. I got my two lifeboats away.
Stanley Frith

The bread was made by the cook and the flour was stored in a warm place so eventually the flour would just be absolutely covered with weevils, cause there's weevil eggs in the flour and if you've got warm temperatures they hatch out. But they never sifted a thing out, they just made the bread with the weevils in it. They used to say 'that's your fresh meat.'
Hugh Parry

When a tanker is hit, it doesn't sink straight away because a tanker is all separate compartments. They hit a compartment and that compartment exploded, and the flames were up in the sky and all the sea was alight for miles around. And the tankers were still sailing in the convoy, and each tank would explode in turn, until the whole ship exploded and just blew apart. There were no survivors from either of those ships. They had no chance, and we knew that if we caught it, we had no chance either. Anyhow, we knew that we had to get in, because were the only tanker left in the convoy, and it was Battle of Britain time as I believe. They surrounded us with cargo ships, and the submarines were trying to get us. And they sank the cargo ships on either side of us, and they replaced them with other ships. And we did eventually get back into Avonmouth and discharged our cargo. But it's a terrible sight seeing a tanker going up in flames. There were 80-odd men lost their lives in ten minutes there.
Oston Bulman

I had a piano accordion. I had a lot of love of them, when I was a young lad. If I ever went by any pubs and there'd be a fella playing the accordion I'd stand there and listen. I took it away with me. Of course one lifeboat we couldn't use it on, the Beatus. They said, 'There's no room for that in here'. I had to leave it there, so I got the mouth organ out and started playing 'Give me Land, Lots of Land with the starry skies above' you know, 'set me free'.
Frank Holding

The Merchant Navy don't get the recognition that they deserved, because people don't realise that everybody in this country depended on them, and the armed forces depended on them. Where did they get all their food from during the war? Where did they get their ammunition and their planes and the tanks? Who brought them? People tend to forget, in the first place Merchant Seamen were volunteers.

Doug Cross/ Bill Wold

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All images (unless otherwise stated) courtesy of the Veterans' themselves
or © The Imperial War Museum, London