trip, sailing on a vessel that worked the Scottish coastal waters. Yet, just months after he joined the ship, war was declared and the schoolboy found himself heading off around the world at the mercy of enemy submarines and surface raiders. In the years ahead he sailed the Atlantic, the North Sea, Arctic and Mediterranean.
At first it seemed war did little to alter the ship’s routine and it still travelled along the east coast of Scotland. Then one morning a German reconnaissance plane appeared overhead. The next day it returned, until it became such a regular occurrence that the sailors began to wave at it. One day the reconnaissance plane did not appear and in its place came a bomber that unloaded its deadly cargo towards the ship, with one bomb striking the funnel. For John Chinnery one thing was certain: his war had started.
More typical of the youngsters at sea was Ron Bosworth. Born in Bristol in May 1923, he had first gone to sea in 1938, making two tripsto Jamaica on a ‘banana boat’. For fourteen-year-old Ron, the sea was a natural choice. His father and grandfather were both sailors and his mother was used to life as a seaman’s wife: now she needed to get used to life as the mother of a deck boy. Like many youngsters, he had attempted to get an apprenticeship with a shipping company only to discover his family couldn’t afford it. So, instead of going to sea to train to become an officer, he took the first job he could find. He later recalled joining his first ship, the SS Carare :
First you signs on in the saloon room. Then you goes down to your cabin and are given your sleeping gear, a straw palliasse and two hairy blankets. You don’t sleep in hammocks, it was cots. They were full of bugs. Every so often they used to take the bunks off and put them in boiling water to kill the bugs.
Heading off on his first voyage to the West Indies, he had watched as his mother cried on the quayside. Yet he had no fears as his mind was full of stories of adventure on the high seas: ‘I was going to where all the pirates came from.’
Through 1938 and 1939, Ron was untroubled by the political crises engulfing Europe. As a teenager with money in his pocket, travelling back and forwards to the West Indies on a monthly basis, bringing home presents for family and Jamaican rum for his father, he was enjoying life. The storm clouds of war were of far less importance than the real storm clouds he encountered in the Atlantic. Just one day after the declaration of war he embarked on his fourteenth trip to the West Indies, returning a month later. On that first trip under wartime conditions there was little to report; they did their job as normal, sailed for the West Indies and returned laden with bananas. Next month he made a final visit to the West Indies before joining a new ship. It would be some years before the merchant fleet again found room for a luxury product such as bananas.
On 9 December 1939, aged sixteen, Ron joined the MV (Merchant Vessel) Eildon at his home port of Avonmouth. Leaving port, the Eildon had only reached Ilfracombe on the North Devon Coast when she ran into trouble:
I was on the wheel when she struck a mine. I ain’t never panicked in my life. We launched the lifeboats but the ship broke her back. One of the bunker chambers was empty, but it was filled with coal dust. They reckon when it hit the mine the explosion ignited the dust. That broke her in two. I can remember one chap on the starboard of the lifeboat. It up-ended and he was the only one we lost.
Rowing away from the sinking ship, they were soon picked up by an RAF launch and returned to shore. It was a journey that belied the existence of a ‘Phoney War’. Like John Chinnery, Ron Bosworth’s war had started early and it was the first of a number of sinkings before he reached his eighteenth birthday.
The boys of the merchant fleet were not the only ones coming to terms with being at war. The ‘Phoney War’ was also
At first it seemed war did little to alter the ship’s routine and it still travelled along the east coast of Scotland. Then one morning a German reconnaissance plane appeared overhead. The next day it returned, until it became such a regular occurrence that the sailors began to wave at it. One day the reconnaissance plane did not appear and in its place came a bomber that unloaded its deadly cargo towards the ship, with one bomb striking the funnel. For John Chinnery one thing was certain: his war had started.
More typical of the youngsters at sea was Ron Bosworth. Born in Bristol in May 1923, he had first gone to sea in 1938, making two tripsto Jamaica on a ‘banana boat’. For fourteen-year-old Ron, the sea was a natural choice. His father and grandfather were both sailors and his mother was used to life as a seaman’s wife: now she needed to get used to life as the mother of a deck boy. Like many youngsters, he had attempted to get an apprenticeship with a shipping company only to discover his family couldn’t afford it. So, instead of going to sea to train to become an officer, he took the first job he could find. He later recalled joining his first ship, the SS Carare :
First you signs on in the saloon room. Then you goes down to your cabin and are given your sleeping gear, a straw palliasse and two hairy blankets. You don’t sleep in hammocks, it was cots. They were full of bugs. Every so often they used to take the bunks off and put them in boiling water to kill the bugs.
Heading off on his first voyage to the West Indies, he had watched as his mother cried on the quayside. Yet he had no fears as his mind was full of stories of adventure on the high seas: ‘I was going to where all the pirates came from.’
Through 1938 and 1939, Ron was untroubled by the political crises engulfing Europe. As a teenager with money in his pocket, travelling back and forwards to the West Indies on a monthly basis, bringing home presents for family and Jamaican rum for his father, he was enjoying life. The storm clouds of war were of far less importance than the real storm clouds he encountered in the Atlantic. Just one day after the declaration of war he embarked on his fourteenth trip to the West Indies, returning a month later. On that first trip under wartime conditions there was little to report; they did their job as normal, sailed for the West Indies and returned laden with bananas. Next month he made a final visit to the West Indies before joining a new ship. It would be some years before the merchant fleet again found room for a luxury product such as bananas.
On 9 December 1939, aged sixteen, Ron joined the MV (Merchant Vessel) Eildon at his home port of Avonmouth. Leaving port, the Eildon had only reached Ilfracombe on the North Devon Coast when she ran into trouble:
I was on the wheel when she struck a mine. I ain’t never panicked in my life. We launched the lifeboats but the ship broke her back. One of the bunker chambers was empty, but it was filled with coal dust. They reckon when it hit the mine the explosion ignited the dust. That broke her in two. I can remember one chap on the starboard of the lifeboat. It up-ended and he was the only one we lost.
Rowing away from the sinking ship, they were soon picked up by an RAF launch and returned to shore. It was a journey that belied the existence of a ‘Phoney War’. Like John Chinnery, Ron Bosworth’s war had started early and it was the first of a number of sinkings before he reached his eighteenth birthday.
The boys of the merchant fleet were not the only ones coming to terms with being at war. The ‘Phoney War’ was also
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