Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms The 11th Hour of the 11th Day

As we have been sharing Train Sets and War Plane photos, I thought that today at 11am when we remember the dead of conflicts past and present, I thought I would post two photos.

1.One of my fathers 2nd world war service Submarines - HMS Sleuth mooring at Gosport (HMS Dolphin)during the war. He was fortunate enough to survive the conflict having been sunk twice.(He can just be seen far right standing in his 'Chain Locker' position for docking)

The Subs he served on were located in the Atlantic, The Mediterranean and The Pacific conflicts, mostly unseen. Early on, Submariners were called Pirates by an Admiral who did not agree with Subs and their generally dirty crews.

So the Captains were proud to fly the Skull & Crossbones from their mast when they docked to which they added their strike successes. You can just make this out in the Pic.



2. HMS HOOD, the famous Battleship, under attack - In a later battle, she perished as did most of her crew. All but three, I think sadly did not survive. All brave, loyal People & True.



We owe them all a debt far greater than the current National Debt. Our Future!

Frank, This seems to be an opportune moment to relate something which happened to me today. On Wednesdays, I have a two hour supervision/ tutorial with about half a dozen of my postgraduate law students. All in all they are a fairly decent bunch but they suprised me today.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that our next meeting would fall on the 11th Nov and that I would be observing two minute silence at 11am.
I also made clear that there was no compulsion on them to follow suit and that we could start at 11.05 if they felt more comfortable with that. I thought no more of it.

This morning, at 10.55 they were all waiting outside my semninar room wearing poppies and asked if we could start then because they all wanted to observe the two minutes as a group.
Made my day!

G

My Dad served in the Royal Air Force and always wore his service medals with pride. He served on Sunderland flying boat bombers in Sierra Leone attacking Subs which harassed the convoys crossing the Atlantic. After VE he flew the troops to and from Burma. He rarely spoke of the war except to recall locating and saving a crew of another Sunderland which had ditched some 200 miles out into the Atlantic. The crew had been in a liferaft for about a week. He often said it was the finest thing he had done in his life! He passed away in 2004, but as his birthday was the 4th Nov, Remembrance time is a time I feel him very close.

He is a hard act to follow!

The Sunderland was an impressive piece of kit, and when I made my Airfix Sunderland, it was the biggest and most expensive in the range. 12'6d if memory serves.
I've already told of my Great Uncle arming Lancasters at Hemswell, but my Uncle on my mothers side was conscripted at 18 in 1943/4 and was sent almost immediately on the D Day landings. I wouldn't have fancied that at 18......
He made it through the war but was injured in the legs by shrapnel from a land mine, and had his wallet stolen by a French Canadian who thought he was a goner.......
He never had a good word after that for the French Canadians, and never spoke about what he saw in the war. I wish I'd asked him before he died.

Francis, one of my relatives [WWII] and Vincent one of my wife's [WWI]

a debt we still owe to this day
http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2369422

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=296012

Robbie

You may well be aware of the Sunderland Flying Boat base at Castle Archdale in Fermanagh. Closed after the war but the old base still intact, albeit a visitors centre for campers. There is some memorabilia still in place. Their focus of operations the Atlantic. I believe the Flying Boats were made at Shorts Aviation in Belfast.

If you are interested in Sunderlands, I can recommend this book
'Kid Glove pilot' by Alan Deller.
This is personal account of flying Sunderlands in WW2

The first Sunderland prototype flew from the Short Brothers site at Rochester on the river Medway (just a stones-throw from where I live) in October 1937.

Regards
Alan

I put the family name in here & found 1001 Hayes' most under 25 years old. Very sad.

Frank, thank you for starting this thread and sharing the story and photos.



I can understand why it made your day; it is nice to witness the best side of people.

I came into my office on Sunday and on the drive in I passed a tiny war memorial - it had poppy wreaths lain in front of it. Standing in front of it was a small boy, his bike was rested against the fence, his head was bowed and all I can assume was that he was reading the names or observing his own moment of silence. It was a really nice scene and would have made for one of those really poignant moments had someone captured it with a camera.

The debt we owe the men and women of the forces is one that we can never truly repay.