Hi,
My father, was a Halton Apprentice, Aircraft Mechanics and fibbed about his age and joined up when he was 11 or 12, as he looked older than his age.
He had an aptitude for Mechanical Engineering, Aircraft and one of his jobs was in charge of a group of men who went out and about, looking for crashed English fighters, which they could salvage parts from, to keep the remaining RAF aircraft in the air and fighting the German bombers and fighters which flew over England, on bombing raids.
One day, he was called back to the airfield and told to form a line with other LAC's and a Naval Officer told them he was looking for volunteers to be posted to aircraft carriers, because there was a shortage of aircraft engineers in the Navy and on the aircraft carriers because of losses due to German Submarines and aircraft.
The Naval Officer walked down the line and pointed at random men and told them to "step forward", my father was one of those he pointed at - at the end of the line, he turned around and told my father and the others he had selected, to get their gear and board the bus, which he had arrived on.
"Congratulations - you are now all in the Navy".
My father was posted to HMS Tracker, a Hunter/Killer Aircraft Carrier on the Convoys to Russia - he sailed two voyages to and from Russia, before the Aircraft Carrier was returned to America, under the Lend Lease program, at the end of the War.
He spoke of life on board to friends who visited and I happened to be around and listened to the stories he told, however, as a child, I was trained to be a child who could be seen but not heard and I repeat some of the stories which I remember him telling.
He said the aircrews were loaded on board at the beginning of each voyage and at the destination port, they had all been killed or lost in action - and then a new set of fighters and crew were loaded on board for the return voyage with the same result.
One day a fighter was coming in to land on the flight deck, when the pilot misjudged the approach and crashed into the end of the runway, splitting his aircraft in two. The front part, with the engine, remained on the landing deck, but the tail and burning fuel poured into the hangar, below decks, in which my father was working and in amongst the flames was the pilot, well and truly alight screaming "help me - help me".
An NCO ran down the staircase and shot the pilot dead as there was nothing anyone could do.
The fire almost caused the loss of the ship, but my father and crew were able to put the fire out and save the ship and themselves, although at one stage, they were ordered to don lifejackets, as the next order would have been "Abandon Ship" and if they had, their life time in the freezing cold water was 2 minutes, so Abandon Ship would have been a death sentence for all of them, because the other ships in the convoy were under orders not to stop, in case they could be torpedoed by German Submarines.
My father was on the walkway around the flight deck one day. The walkway was a few feet lower than the flightdeck and anyone on it had to be alert for aircraft landing into the wind, because the aircraft wing, could easily hit someone and knock them into the sea - as above.
A crewman was on the walkway and did not see a plane landing and got knocked off into the sea - my father threw him a lifebelt and shouted to the Captain "Man Overboard Sir", but the Captain said, "another deserter" and that was that - life was cheap then.
My father preferred to be on the flight deck as much as possible and tried to stay out, not wishing to go to the lower decks. HMS Tracker used to roll like a sick pig and below decks, the roll was so bad, that men used to throw up and roll around in their sick and my father wished to avoid that.
One day he was on the flight deck, when he saw men pointing into the water, on the other side of the ship, he wandered over to see what they were looking at and was horrified to see two torpedoes heading towards the side of HMS Tracker, which by then, was leaning over to one side, to try and avoid the torpedoes.
My father ran his hands through his hair which fell out of his head, in sheer fright - he always had a bald head after that and he used to call it his flies skating rink.
The submarine which fired the torpedoes must have been doing a long range shot, because the torpedoes ran out of forward movement and sank before they reached HMS Tracker.
My father said, that on each arrival in Russia, he and the crew were treated as heroes and in recognition of his HMS Tracker service, he was given a gold medal by the Russian Government in the early 1990's
At the end of the War, the pilots flew from their aircraft carriers and parked their aircraft where they stopped on the airfield where my father was, in Aussie, jumped out of their planes and went over to the de-mob building, to get rides back to the UK or wherever and begin Civvy Street again.
My father and the other mechanics taxied the aircraft over to the hangars, where each plane was stripped down and repaired to as new condition and then ferry pilots flew the aircraft back to the aircraft carriers which were moored some miles out to sea and there, the aircraft were pushed or bulldozed over the side, as this was the agreement of the Lend Lease arrangement the American's had with the UK.
Occasionally I read of an occasional aircraft wing or parts being dragged up in fishing nets and at one stage, some years ago, there was talk of a group who wwere going to recover some of the aircraft from the bottom and restore them - I don't know what, if anything happened.
My father completed the War and was posted back to England, where he remained in the RAF until he got a Golden Handshake when he was in his 50's and he retired as a Squadron Leader, having worked his way up through the ranks - his last years were working on Bloodhounds.
My father died of Cancer about 15 years ago. He thought he got the Cancer spores from the asbestos which used to line the insides of HMS Tracker as a fire retardent. He found out he had cancer when he went to the doctor about a mole on his shoulder. He was dead 12 weeks later.
So HMS Tracker pix for you to enjoy.
I am sorry, but for some reason, photobucket turned some of these pix upside down or sideways and I have been unable to turn them the right way up - I am sure some of you will know how to.
Richard
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