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Description: | Excellent memoir (331 pp ts) entitled `A Naval Rag Bag’, recording in eloquent detail the origins of his enthusiasm for the sea and sailing as a young boy living on Dublin Bay in Ireland around the First World War, failure to be selected for a naval cadetship in 1921, the family’s move to Devon for his schooling and the continued lure of the sea in the Plymouth area, securing a naval cadetship at the second attempt in 1925 and joining HMS THUNDERER as an engineer cadet, the routine and training regime aboard the decommissioned battleship (scrapped shortly after he left it), specialist training at the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham (Plymouth) during 1926 – 1930, posting as Acting then full Lieutenant (E) to the newly-built cruiser HMS DORSETSHIRE in 1930 – 1932 during her commissioning and Atlantic Fleet service, including cruises in the West Indies and the Baltic (visiting Kiel as one of the first RN ships to do so since 1918), and her involvement in the 1931 `Invergordon Mutiny’, further training at the RN Submarine School in Gosport (HMS DOLPHIN) and service in HMS CYCLOPS, 1st Submarine Flotilla depot ship at Malta, during 1932 – 1935, then in the destroyer HMS CRESCENT (2nd Destroyer Flotilla, Home Fleet) during 1936 based at Chatham but for most of this period deployed in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in response to the international crisis regarding Abyssinia, before joining the newly-built destroyer HMS ILEX launched at the beginning of 1937, cruising the Mediterranean and participating in the 1938 Atlantic combined fleet exercises, appointment to the battleship HMS RAMILLIES as Senior Engineer Officer in July 1938 ahead of her major refit at Devonport, proceeding to the Mediterranean for a short tour of duty before being recalled to the UK shortly before the outbreak of war in September 1939, early wartime deployment on convoy escort/trade defence duties in various waters incl Indian Ocean and eastern Mediterranean, leaving the ship in late 1940 to join HMS HORNET, the main Coastal Forces base at Gosport, with consequent adjustment to a land-based job and different types of marine engine, transfer in 1943 to the Admiralty Engineer-in-Chief’s Department at Bath, working on coastal boat engine design until the end of the war in 1945 when he was posted to the cruiser HMS DIADEM, proceeding to Copenhagen as guardship at the re-occupation of Denmark, his duty cut short by a lengthy illness and return to the UK, the memoir concluding with his posting to West Drayton as Deputy Superintendent of the Admiralty Engineering Laboratory, 1945 – 1948.
Cataloguer SWW | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | battleship (1911) HMS CYCLOPS HMS RAMILLIES HMS DOLPHIN HMS DORSETSHIRE HMS HORNET destroyer (1931) HMS ILEX HMS CRESCENT battleship (1916) shore establishment (Gosport) HMS DIADEM Royal Navy HMS THUNDERER shore establishment | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Middleton, John Henry Dudley | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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