Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This is Derbyshire --
CHARLIE Wood should count himself a very lucky man. Throughout his service with the Royal Navy during the entire Second World War, he narrowly missed being blown up, shot, sunk and even witnessed a volcano erupting – on each occasion living to fight another day.
With the exception of severely impaired hearing, brought about by his job as a gunner, Charlie, 92, who lives in Derby, was one of the lucky ones – always in or close to the thick of the action but never suffering any serious injury.
Born in Chesterfield in May 1921, Charlie decided to enlist in the Royal Navy in August 1937 at the age of just 16, after short spells working on a farm in Langley Mill and then in a shoe shop in Burton.
He did his training for nine months at Shotley near Ipswich and in 1938 he went to Portsmouth to join the battleship HMS Iron Duke as a boy seaman.
Training at sea followed before he moved to HMS Aurora, a light cruiser, and was deployed to the Mediterranean for mock battles.
The ship was then sent out to look after British shipping at the time of the Spanish Civil War. This almost resulted in Charlie experiencing his first enemy action.
He said: "Two Spanish ships – the Canarias and Baleares, which were also cruisers – trained their 8in guns on to us and we only had 6in guns."
The Aurora would not back down and turned its own guns on to one of the Spanish vessels. Thankfully, it resulted in both Spanish vessels turning tail or, as Charlie quipped: "They legged it!"
In July 1939, Charlie was sent to join the newly commissioned light cruiser HMS Belfast. He joined 400 other sailors, known as the commissioning crew and steam party, on the journey from Pompey Barracks at Portsmouth to Northern Ireland.
They all caught an overnight ferry and then paraded through Belfast to the Harland and Wolff dockyard where they took control of the ship.
The ship was sailed out into the Irish Sea for trials and testing of its guns. Next stop was Portsmouth, where civilians who were on board were dropped off. The Belfast was ready for full commission.
Charlie was one of the seamen who operated the ship's right gun in A turret, something which resulted in profound deafness in later years.
Plans for a three-year deployment to the West Indies were scuppered by the worsening situation in Europe and the Belfast was instead sent north to Scapa Flow, where it joined the Home Fleet 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
Once in the Orkneys, the ship joined up with HMSs Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton on Northern Patrol.
The Belfast was sent the furthest north, patrolling between Iceland and Norway. It was during this time that it made the biggest capture of the war, taking the German blockade runner the Cap Norte on October 9.
The German merchant ship was carrying a cargo of wheat and other supplies from South America to Germany. It was escorted into Kirkwall in Orkney by HMS Belfast where it was subsequently renamed Empire Trooper and served Britain as a supply ship throughout the rest of the war. Charlie was part of the crew who boarded the vessel to cut radio wires.
The Belfast returned to Scapa Flow where the crew were allowed ashore "for a few beers". Near-disaster followed as Charlie explains: "For some reason, the pinnace (landing craft) taking some of the crew to shore decided to play chicken with a destroyer also travelling in the bay.
"The destroyer hit the pinnace, eventually sinking it. Luckily, a passing pinnace had spotted what was happening and pulled alongside to help. This allowed the crew of 20 on board to escape without injury."
From Scapa Flow, the Belfast went to Rosyth along with the Sheffield to carry out full-calibre shooting trials with full guns. This was to be Charlie's first close shave with death.
At about 11am on November 21, the Belfast hit a 60lb German magnetic mine. The force of the blast lifted the cruiser out of the water and Charlie, who was on deck at the time was almost thrown over the side. Miraculously only one crewman was killed although quite a few were injured.
The crew initially thought the Sheffield had opened fire on them by mistake.
The Belfast started to go down at the bows, the engines would not work and they had to wait for a tug to help.
Captain Scott, who Charlie described as a "true gentleman" ordered everyone on board to have a tot of rum to keep up crew morale.
The ship limped back to shore where the sailors, including Charlie, had to unload all of the shells and ammunition before she could be moved into dry dock, where she stayed for 18 months. With their ship out of commission, the crew returned to Portsmouth where most were sent to join the ill-fated battlecruiser HMS Hood.
This was Charlie's second lucky escape. Rather than joining the majority of his shipmates on the Hood, he was sent instead to Devonport, Plymouth, to join HMS Vivacious. It was deployment that probably saved his life because, in May 1941, the Hood became one of the Royal Navy's biggest ever losses.
The ship, along with the battleship Prince of Wales, was ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen which was en route to the Atlantic where she was to attack convoys.
On May 24, early in the Battle of Denmark Strait, the Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded and sank. Charlie said: "I lost a lot of friends when the Hood went down. It was awful."
With his move to the Vivacious, Charlie helped in the evacuation at Dunkirk at the end of May and beginning of June 1940. The ship went over to northern France six times to rescue stranded members of the British Expeditionary Force.
On one occasion, Charlie found himself in the water having to swim for it as German planes and artillery launched wave after wave of attacks on the fleeing troops and their rescue ships.
He said: "It was so bad. The soldiers were jumping into our whaler. So many tried to get in that it sank the boat. I saw a dog in the water and snatched it up. I had one soldier under each arm and the dog around my neck.
"We were being fired on and I lost my tin hat. Luckily, another launch had seen what had happened and came to pick us up out of the water and took us back to the ship.
"I got back on board to be told I had another job to do. One of the craft, called the Mosquito, which was a sloop, had become stranded near the beach and three of us were chosen to take a tow rope to her to pull her free."
It was then that Charlie had his third near miss. In the chaos near the shoreline the three of them could not find the Mosquito at first but when they eventually saw her, they ditched the small craft they were in and went on board with the tow rope.
Charlie said: "I was talking to the chap next to me and he got hit by shrapnel. I looked after him and sat with him until we got back to our ship."
After the excitement of Dunkirk, Charlie found himself at Portsmouth Barracks where he was put on draft for Whale Island Gunnery School. After three months he was again drafted, this time to Mona's Isle, an Isle of Man ferry which had been turned into an ack-ack ship.
Charlie said: "We used to escort convoys going north up the East Coast and provide protection from German planes. On one patrol, I shot down a German Heinkel He111 bomber."
They year 1941 saw Charlie joining the crew of the destroyer HMS Antelope and heading north again to Scapa Flow and then to Reykjavik, in Iceland.
Charlie said: "We carried out sweeps ahead of the Arctic convoys and then called in at ports to pick mail up before returning to Reykjavik."
A trip back to Scotland saw the Antelope pick up an important trade delegation destined for Murmansk and Archangel, in Russia but not far out to sea the ship broke down and had to be rescued by an Australian destroyer.
Repairs followed before the ship was sent to Hull for fitting out for the Mediterranean where, as Charlie puts it: "This is where the action was. There was certainly plenty of action from German U-boats. We escorted aircraft carriers on the Malta convoys."
He recounted how his ship helped tow HMS Liverpool back to Gibraltar after it had been "mauled" by the Italian fleet.
It was this theatre of war which also resulted in the deaths of two of Charlie's friends from Derby.
Charlie recalled: "Arthur and Ron Smith were Derby lads who lived in Chester Green. We all joined up at about the same time in 1937 – me and Arthur to the Navy and Ron to the Royal Marines. Ron was in the Mediterranean on HMS Eagle when she was torpedoed. He died at the age of just 19. Arthur had been serving on the Penelope when he died at Anzio, Italy."
Charlie spent about two and a half years in the Mediterranean. His moved troops and equipment along the coast of North Africa during the invasion by British and American forces and then switched to moving forces to Italy, including the hotspots of Anzio, Monte Casino and Salerno.
In 1943, he changed ships again to the destroyer HMS Calpe. Charlie described it as a "horrible" time, dodging U-boats and attacks from the air.
It was not just the dangers posed by the Axis forces that Charlie had to contend with. He explained: "I was in Naples harbour when Vesuvius went up in 1944!"
This was the volcano's last major eruption and occurred between March 18-23 just after the Allies had arrived in Naples on their push into Italy.
A spell at the eastern end of the Mediterranean around Cyprus followed before the Allies finally prevailed and successfully neutralised the area.
Charlie returned to Britain in August 1944. After a brief spell helping to creosote pylons near Winchester, he was sent to Campbeltown in Scotland on guard duty while he waited for his next draft. The war ended while he was in Campbeltown.
There followed a move to Mountclare, a submarine depot land base and then a brief draft to HMS Zephyr at Portland. Charlie said: "I had just settled in on board when I was told to pack my bags. They told me I was going to Korea! They sent me to Portsmouth to a ship called the Adamant."
The move heralded the end of Charlie's naval service in 1951. A bout of pleurisy, coupled with the deafness he had developed during his time as a gunner, brought about his discharge on the grounds of ill health. He returned to Chester Green and his wife, Peggy, whom he had married in 1944.
It was not the end of his association with the Navy, however, and in particular with HMS Belfast. As a member of the first crew to join the ship when it was commissioned, he has made regular returns to the vessel, which is now a Royal Navy museum on the Thames in London.
In March, a special celebration was held on the ship to mark the 75th anniversary of its commissioning. Only a handful of those first crew members are now still alive and Charlie was proud to be one of them at the ceremony.
Read Neville Dean's account of his Second World War service on Pages 6&7. Reported by This is 3 minutes ago.
Clik here to view.
This is Derbyshire --CHARLIE Wood should count himself a very lucky man. Throughout his service with the Royal Navy during the entire Second World War, he narrowly missed being blown up, shot, sunk and even witnessed a volcano erupting – on each occasion living to fight another day.
With the exception of severely impaired hearing, brought about by his job as a gunner, Charlie, 92, who lives in Derby, was one of the lucky ones – always in or close to the thick of the action but never suffering any serious injury.
Born in Chesterfield in May 1921, Charlie decided to enlist in the Royal Navy in August 1937 at the age of just 16, after short spells working on a farm in Langley Mill and then in a shoe shop in Burton.
He did his training for nine months at Shotley near Ipswich and in 1938 he went to Portsmouth to join the battleship HMS Iron Duke as a boy seaman.
Training at sea followed before he moved to HMS Aurora, a light cruiser, and was deployed to the Mediterranean for mock battles.
The ship was then sent out to look after British shipping at the time of the Spanish Civil War. This almost resulted in Charlie experiencing his first enemy action.
He said: "Two Spanish ships – the Canarias and Baleares, which were also cruisers – trained their 8in guns on to us and we only had 6in guns."
The Aurora would not back down and turned its own guns on to one of the Spanish vessels. Thankfully, it resulted in both Spanish vessels turning tail or, as Charlie quipped: "They legged it!"
In July 1939, Charlie was sent to join the newly commissioned light cruiser HMS Belfast. He joined 400 other sailors, known as the commissioning crew and steam party, on the journey from Pompey Barracks at Portsmouth to Northern Ireland.
They all caught an overnight ferry and then paraded through Belfast to the Harland and Wolff dockyard where they took control of the ship.
The ship was sailed out into the Irish Sea for trials and testing of its guns. Next stop was Portsmouth, where civilians who were on board were dropped off. The Belfast was ready for full commission.
Charlie was one of the seamen who operated the ship's right gun in A turret, something which resulted in profound deafness in later years.
Plans for a three-year deployment to the West Indies were scuppered by the worsening situation in Europe and the Belfast was instead sent north to Scapa Flow, where it joined the Home Fleet 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
Once in the Orkneys, the ship joined up with HMSs Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton on Northern Patrol.
The Belfast was sent the furthest north, patrolling between Iceland and Norway. It was during this time that it made the biggest capture of the war, taking the German blockade runner the Cap Norte on October 9.
The German merchant ship was carrying a cargo of wheat and other supplies from South America to Germany. It was escorted into Kirkwall in Orkney by HMS Belfast where it was subsequently renamed Empire Trooper and served Britain as a supply ship throughout the rest of the war. Charlie was part of the crew who boarded the vessel to cut radio wires.
The Belfast returned to Scapa Flow where the crew were allowed ashore "for a few beers". Near-disaster followed as Charlie explains: "For some reason, the pinnace (landing craft) taking some of the crew to shore decided to play chicken with a destroyer also travelling in the bay.
"The destroyer hit the pinnace, eventually sinking it. Luckily, a passing pinnace had spotted what was happening and pulled alongside to help. This allowed the crew of 20 on board to escape without injury."
From Scapa Flow, the Belfast went to Rosyth along with the Sheffield to carry out full-calibre shooting trials with full guns. This was to be Charlie's first close shave with death.
At about 11am on November 21, the Belfast hit a 60lb German magnetic mine. The force of the blast lifted the cruiser out of the water and Charlie, who was on deck at the time was almost thrown over the side. Miraculously only one crewman was killed although quite a few were injured.
The crew initially thought the Sheffield had opened fire on them by mistake.
The Belfast started to go down at the bows, the engines would not work and they had to wait for a tug to help.
Captain Scott, who Charlie described as a "true gentleman" ordered everyone on board to have a tot of rum to keep up crew morale.
The ship limped back to shore where the sailors, including Charlie, had to unload all of the shells and ammunition before she could be moved into dry dock, where she stayed for 18 months. With their ship out of commission, the crew returned to Portsmouth where most were sent to join the ill-fated battlecruiser HMS Hood.
This was Charlie's second lucky escape. Rather than joining the majority of his shipmates on the Hood, he was sent instead to Devonport, Plymouth, to join HMS Vivacious. It was deployment that probably saved his life because, in May 1941, the Hood became one of the Royal Navy's biggest ever losses.
The ship, along with the battleship Prince of Wales, was ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen which was en route to the Atlantic where she was to attack convoys.
On May 24, early in the Battle of Denmark Strait, the Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded and sank. Charlie said: "I lost a lot of friends when the Hood went down. It was awful."
With his move to the Vivacious, Charlie helped in the evacuation at Dunkirk at the end of May and beginning of June 1940. The ship went over to northern France six times to rescue stranded members of the British Expeditionary Force.
On one occasion, Charlie found himself in the water having to swim for it as German planes and artillery launched wave after wave of attacks on the fleeing troops and their rescue ships.
He said: "It was so bad. The soldiers were jumping into our whaler. So many tried to get in that it sank the boat. I saw a dog in the water and snatched it up. I had one soldier under each arm and the dog around my neck.
"We were being fired on and I lost my tin hat. Luckily, another launch had seen what had happened and came to pick us up out of the water and took us back to the ship.
"I got back on board to be told I had another job to do. One of the craft, called the Mosquito, which was a sloop, had become stranded near the beach and three of us were chosen to take a tow rope to her to pull her free."
It was then that Charlie had his third near miss. In the chaos near the shoreline the three of them could not find the Mosquito at first but when they eventually saw her, they ditched the small craft they were in and went on board with the tow rope.
Charlie said: "I was talking to the chap next to me and he got hit by shrapnel. I looked after him and sat with him until we got back to our ship."
After the excitement of Dunkirk, Charlie found himself at Portsmouth Barracks where he was put on draft for Whale Island Gunnery School. After three months he was again drafted, this time to Mona's Isle, an Isle of Man ferry which had been turned into an ack-ack ship.
Charlie said: "We used to escort convoys going north up the East Coast and provide protection from German planes. On one patrol, I shot down a German Heinkel He111 bomber."
They year 1941 saw Charlie joining the crew of the destroyer HMS Antelope and heading north again to Scapa Flow and then to Reykjavik, in Iceland.
Charlie said: "We carried out sweeps ahead of the Arctic convoys and then called in at ports to pick mail up before returning to Reykjavik."
A trip back to Scotland saw the Antelope pick up an important trade delegation destined for Murmansk and Archangel, in Russia but not far out to sea the ship broke down and had to be rescued by an Australian destroyer.
Repairs followed before the ship was sent to Hull for fitting out for the Mediterranean where, as Charlie puts it: "This is where the action was. There was certainly plenty of action from German U-boats. We escorted aircraft carriers on the Malta convoys."
He recounted how his ship helped tow HMS Liverpool back to Gibraltar after it had been "mauled" by the Italian fleet.
It was this theatre of war which also resulted in the deaths of two of Charlie's friends from Derby.
Charlie recalled: "Arthur and Ron Smith were Derby lads who lived in Chester Green. We all joined up at about the same time in 1937 – me and Arthur to the Navy and Ron to the Royal Marines. Ron was in the Mediterranean on HMS Eagle when she was torpedoed. He died at the age of just 19. Arthur had been serving on the Penelope when he died at Anzio, Italy."
Charlie spent about two and a half years in the Mediterranean. His moved troops and equipment along the coast of North Africa during the invasion by British and American forces and then switched to moving forces to Italy, including the hotspots of Anzio, Monte Casino and Salerno.
In 1943, he changed ships again to the destroyer HMS Calpe. Charlie described it as a "horrible" time, dodging U-boats and attacks from the air.
It was not just the dangers posed by the Axis forces that Charlie had to contend with. He explained: "I was in Naples harbour when Vesuvius went up in 1944!"
This was the volcano's last major eruption and occurred between March 18-23 just after the Allies had arrived in Naples on their push into Italy.
A spell at the eastern end of the Mediterranean around Cyprus followed before the Allies finally prevailed and successfully neutralised the area.
Charlie returned to Britain in August 1944. After a brief spell helping to creosote pylons near Winchester, he was sent to Campbeltown in Scotland on guard duty while he waited for his next draft. The war ended while he was in Campbeltown.
There followed a move to Mountclare, a submarine depot land base and then a brief draft to HMS Zephyr at Portland. Charlie said: "I had just settled in on board when I was told to pack my bags. They told me I was going to Korea! They sent me to Portsmouth to a ship called the Adamant."
The move heralded the end of Charlie's naval service in 1951. A bout of pleurisy, coupled with the deafness he had developed during his time as a gunner, brought about his discharge on the grounds of ill health. He returned to Chester Green and his wife, Peggy, whom he had married in 1944.
It was not the end of his association with the Navy, however, and in particular with HMS Belfast. As a member of the first crew to join the ship when it was commissioned, he has made regular returns to the vessel, which is now a Royal Navy museum on the Thames in London.
In March, a special celebration was held on the ship to mark the 75th anniversary of its commissioning. Only a handful of those first crew members are now still alive and Charlie was proud to be one of them at the ceremony.
Read Neville Dean's account of his Second World War service on Pages 6&7. Reported by This is 3 minutes ago.