the Daisy picked him up and took him to HMS Pegasus . Safely onboard, he began the long and hard task of scrubbing the thick, sticky oil from his body. It was a thankless task, but was better than the alternatives: of the 165 boys serving on HMS Royal Oak, 125 had been lost when she sank.
The next day the survivors were sent to the mainland and two days later they were taken by train to Portsmouth. As Ken Toop remembered, as he travelled, his hair was still thick with oil: ‘It was awful. We looked like the seabirds you see after oil spills.’ It was weeks before he was finally clean. Arriving in Portsmouth, he was given ten-days’ survivor’s leave, then the fifteen year old was told to report to the dockyard where he joined HMS Manchester and headed off to war as a member of the crew of a six-inch gun turret. One year later he was torpedoed for a second time. As he later recalled of life at sea in wartime: ‘It was awful – bloody awful. You spent long hours closed up below the waterlines, at action stations. I look back on it and it was indescribable. I just hoped I was going to get through it.’
As the survivors arrived in Portsmouth, it became clear to many that the so-called ‘Phoney War’ was a myth. In the Royal Marines barracks, there had begun a procession of boys arriving back from sunken ships. For Len Chester, seeing these first survivors was a pivotal moment in his understanding of the true cost of war:
The thought of war suddenly became apparent. We were getting the first survivors coming back. Two survivors from HMS Glorious came back to the barracks. We talked to these boys and they told us about life at sea. So war became real to us. Then, two of my mates – Aubrey Priestley and Harry Mountford – were lost on the Royal Oak . Suddenly you realize there’s a war going on.
And so it continued. As the weeks passed, more and more boys became casualties. By the end of 1939 almost 140 boy sailors had been killed in action. When the nation rejoiced at the scuttling of the German battleship the Graf Spee , they were unaware that the Battle of the River Plate had cost the lives of two boys, Ronald Hill and Ernest Squire. By May 1940, when the Germans invaded Western Europe, theRoyal Navy had lost another fourteen boys. In the days following the sinking of the Royal Oak a diarist noted: ‘The Royal Oak has been sunk. Last month it was the Courageous . I have heard there are thirty such ships. How many of them can we afford to lose and yet win?’ 4 These haunting words, sensing the perils presented to the Royal Navy in face of the might of the resurgent German Navy, acted as a reflection to the country’s situation: how many youngsters could the country lose to war before the whole strength of the nation sapped away?
As 1939 drew to a close and the first full year of war commenced, a sense of restlessness engulfed the nation. Following the first flush of excitement – the evacuations, the air raid alerts, the mobilization of thousands of men for war service – everything had seemingly gone quiet. Defying so many expectations, London hadn’t been flattened by high explosive or chemical weapons dropped to poison the population. Instead, short of the sinking of a few ships, the world had kept turning. Yes, there were shortages in the shops and, yes, large parts of the population had been moved around the country, but daily life continued. It seemed that something had to change: either war would erupt or Britain would gradually drift back to its old familiar routines. At first it seemed the latter option was in the ascendance.
Once winter was over, there was a genuine change in the villages and country towns of Great Britain. After the harsh winter many of the evacuees were frustrated in the countryside. There was nothing to do, there had been no bombing of their old homes and conditions in their new homes were often cramped. Schools were overcrowded and teaching was anything but efficient. The
The next day the survivors were sent to the mainland and two days later they were taken by train to Portsmouth. As Ken Toop remembered, as he travelled, his hair was still thick with oil: ‘It was awful. We looked like the seabirds you see after oil spills.’ It was weeks before he was finally clean. Arriving in Portsmouth, he was given ten-days’ survivor’s leave, then the fifteen year old was told to report to the dockyard where he joined HMS Manchester and headed off to war as a member of the crew of a six-inch gun turret. One year later he was torpedoed for a second time. As he later recalled of life at sea in wartime: ‘It was awful – bloody awful. You spent long hours closed up below the waterlines, at action stations. I look back on it and it was indescribable. I just hoped I was going to get through it.’
As the survivors arrived in Portsmouth, it became clear to many that the so-called ‘Phoney War’ was a myth. In the Royal Marines barracks, there had begun a procession of boys arriving back from sunken ships. For Len Chester, seeing these first survivors was a pivotal moment in his understanding of the true cost of war:
The thought of war suddenly became apparent. We were getting the first survivors coming back. Two survivors from HMS Glorious came back to the barracks. We talked to these boys and they told us about life at sea. So war became real to us. Then, two of my mates – Aubrey Priestley and Harry Mountford – were lost on the Royal Oak . Suddenly you realize there’s a war going on.
And so it continued. As the weeks passed, more and more boys became casualties. By the end of 1939 almost 140 boy sailors had been killed in action. When the nation rejoiced at the scuttling of the German battleship the Graf Spee , they were unaware that the Battle of the River Plate had cost the lives of two boys, Ronald Hill and Ernest Squire. By May 1940, when the Germans invaded Western Europe, theRoyal Navy had lost another fourteen boys. In the days following the sinking of the Royal Oak a diarist noted: ‘The Royal Oak has been sunk. Last month it was the Courageous . I have heard there are thirty such ships. How many of them can we afford to lose and yet win?’ 4 These haunting words, sensing the perils presented to the Royal Navy in face of the might of the resurgent German Navy, acted as a reflection to the country’s situation: how many youngsters could the country lose to war before the whole strength of the nation sapped away?
As 1939 drew to a close and the first full year of war commenced, a sense of restlessness engulfed the nation. Following the first flush of excitement – the evacuations, the air raid alerts, the mobilization of thousands of men for war service – everything had seemingly gone quiet. Defying so many expectations, London hadn’t been flattened by high explosive or chemical weapons dropped to poison the population. Instead, short of the sinking of a few ships, the world had kept turning. Yes, there were shortages in the shops and, yes, large parts of the population had been moved around the country, but daily life continued. It seemed that something had to change: either war would erupt or Britain would gradually drift back to its old familiar routines. At first it seemed the latter option was in the ascendance.
Once winter was over, there was a genuine change in the villages and country towns of Great Britain. After the harsh winter many of the evacuees were frustrated in the countryside. There was nothing to do, there had been no bombing of their old homes and conditions in their new homes were often cramped. Schools were overcrowded and teaching was anything but efficient. The
Similar Books
