Dad In The Navy - The Memoirs Of John Francis Connor

The next place I remember on this wonderful trip was a place in Wyoming called Cheyenne, this was a real western town as seen on films and even had the tomb of Buffalo Bill in the town, we stayed there for about an hour or so and were able to stretch our legs and see a little of the town.  After leaving Cheyenne we went through Utah and across the Great Salt Lakes, these were a wilderness but I remember groups of hill-billies standing hear the track and waving, on of the American travellers told us it was the custom to throw newspapers out to them - which we did, when I thought about it, it made sense to give them newspapers as they were miles from anywhere and if they had no wireless they wouldn't know what was going on in the world. We stayed a while in Salt Lake City which looked a beautiful place, it was founded by Mormons and I think I was a little surprised at seeing such a modern city after the desert-like lakes and mountains.  From Salt Lake City we headed for Ca

The next morning, the five of us "Lothians" were called to the draft office and were told we were to board a train in Jersey City for San Francisco where, we were told we would pick up H.M.S Lothian. The train left about tea-time so we had plenty of time. I visited the dentist (first time ever) to pass the time away and he cleaned and polished my teeth then had my dinner and began to pack my kit-bag. We arrived at the station about 3pm and were each given a long book of tickets and when the train came in we were shown our sleeping berths, there were now ten of us naval ratings, five had joined out party to catch a ship called the "Glenearn", so we had plenty of company, the train was well equipped and comfortable and I settled down to enjoy the journey. Before the train pulled out, a group of W.V.S women came into our coach and gave us sweets, popcorn and magazines and wished us well, one of the boys for the "Glenearn" mentioned that it was his 21st b

Under the guidance of our new found friend (I forget his name now), we set off to see New York, he turned out to be a genuine and helpful fellow who seemed to be able to open any door. We went up to the top of the Empire State Building and visited the Rockefeller Centre where we saw for the first time in my life, a television programme, we showed great interest in the television and our friend took my mate Ken Wallace away and next thing I know we were watching him on the screen being interviewed on a news programme. Going up on a lift, we were introduced to film star Patsy Kelly who welcomed us to New York, everyone seemed to go out of their way to welcome us. We called into the Jewish Centre in New York where we had a good meal and a lady asked us for our home addresses and said that she would let our parents know that we were OK (which I learned years later she did and that it was the only clue my parents had that I was alright). The next stop was the Free French club, again

It was a short uneventful passage from Halifax to New York we were met halfway by an American coastguard bleep, this was a powered balloon which they used for submarine spotting. The first sight of America must have been one of the most awe-inspiring sights I had ever seen, first of all the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the Hudson river on Governors Island, the size of it inspired me. I was told by some of the Americans that you could walk around the torch at the top. The American soldiers pointed out many famous buildings like the American state building and the Rockefeller Centre towering above the other skyscrapers on Manhattan island. We docked at a pier on Manhattan Island and the troops began to go ashore-again there was a terrific welcome for the Yankee heroes. We were among the last to go ashore and we hadn't very far to go, I think it was pier 90 where our barracks were, or at least it was an American naval barracks but they made us very welcome, there were a

We left the Clyde at dusk, it was obvious to everyone on board by now that we were heading to America, we were escorted out by a destroyer, but the Queen Mary's main defence was her speed, after the first day the destroyer fell back and we proceeded alone. We could see by the wake of the ship that we were following a zig-zag course, this was, along with our speed- our only protection now against U-boats which were still active in the Atlantic. It was now early August and the weather was warm, the sea blue and calm, I was enjoying the best food I'd had for years, there was a great feeling of comradeship on the Queen Mary and what a mixed lot we were. The main passengers were American soldiers but there were also Canadian, Free French, Poles and British, also a number of German prisoners- these surprised me by their youth, although I was only eighteen myself some of these looked barely sixteen. I had a laugh when some American soldiers were talking to us and asked us wha

We boarded the Queen Mary that July evening in great awe, I had never seen anything so magnificent in all my life, even in wartime the opulence of the pre-war era shone through, our accommodation was actually in the projection room of the cinema and there were twenty of us ratings sleeping in there. I was told by one of the crew that there were 19,000 on the ship and most of these were walking wounded American and Canadian troops from the invasion forces going home. I was assigned to be a K.P which meant Kitchen Party. It was a simple job that entailed giving out the food to about six tables in the main dining hall and cleaning away afterwards. The main dining hall was a lavish affair- you would scarcely believe you were on a ship, and the food itself, well after nearly five years of war, I thought it was heaven. Things like bananas and oranges and peaches which were impossible to get at home were served regularly. We had been aboard a couple of days and we were still anchored on

After my embarkation leave I had to report to Portsmouth for drafting to a ship - the master-at-arms office which is in charge of drafting told me that I was awaiting transport, but naturally never told me what ship I was going to or any details whatsoever. I spent a week in Pompey Barracks (H.M.S Victory) and had a good look around. The old "Victory", Nelsons flagship was in the dock as it had been for over a hundred years, also the "Foudrayant", which was the last wooden ship-of-the-time to serve in the Royal Navy, these were of great interest to me as I had always been fascinated by that period of our history. Whilst in Pompey, I saw a few doodle-bugs or flying bombs going over on their way to London and beach clearing parties were still being sent over to France but I was never "piped" for over the tannoy system to report to the M.A.A's office. I was beginning to think the war was passing me by as the invasion of Europe was now well underw

The first week of June 1944 was a pretty hectic week at Portsmouth naval base (H.M.S  Victory), the place was packed, if you didn't sling your hammock before you went ashore at night you finished up sleeping on the table or floor. I decided the best place to sleep was in the air raid shelter as the air was better there, the air can be pretty foul in a barracks where thousands of men are sleeping and you cant even draw the curtains back because of the blackout. After reporting to the master-at-arms office we were given watches and duties and then we had to wait to see which ship we were sent to. I began to notice after a couple of days that naval ratings were appearing in khaki uniforms with navy caps and huge numbers of ratings were disappearing from the barracks, they were being for beach clearing exercises which puzzled us, then on the evening of the fifth of June wave after wave of planes flew over Portsmouth, all with distinctive stripes painted under their wings. It was n

We spent four weeks at Skegness doing basic training and doing various tests to see which branch of the navy we were best suited, we then went to Wales, H.M.S Glendower in Pwllelwi where we did a further two weeks assault course and toughing up training, during this time we lived in tents and in March it was cold. However I was certainly a lot fitter at the end of this course. I was under nine stone when I joined up and with good food and fresh air and exercise I must have gained half a stone in six weeks. I left Glendower in April for my specialist training, I was to be trained as a radar operator, which was still a pretty new thing in 1944, I was quite pleased at getting chosen for this branch.  We set out for the Isle of Man where the radar operators were trained. H.M.S Douglas was a number of hotels on the sea front and a radar station on Onchan Head. I trained for about 8 weeks and enjoyed being on the Isle Of Man. it was different from the mainland in wartime, the food s