Guide
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Comprehensive records and recollections of ship's worldwide battles, landings, liberations and post-war service including Barracks, Dockyards and Singapore Naval Base.
(Drop-down menu at the top of all pages)
Comprehensive records and recollections of ship's worldwide battles, landings, liberations and post-war service including Barracks, Dockyards and Singapore Naval Base.
HMS GANGES Shotley, Suffolk. Everyone - Boys and Staff - still hotly debate the 'Shotley' regime but almost unanimously agree that this training establishment shaped their lives. Look again at Shotley - gateway to the Royal Navy - then and now. Closed in 1971 it briefly became a Police Training site in the 1980's and has withered since but now, in 2016, the long anticipated site redevelopment is about to begin!
HMS PEMBROKE the home of the Chatham Port Division and HM DOCKYARD, CHATHAM always seemed so welcoming and secure and I cannot remember anyone ever 'dripping' about the place but I could just be a little forgetful! HM DOCKYARD SHEERNESS AND WILDFIRE were no less welcoming but there was, and still is, an explosive possibility there. Recount your memories and their history here. SS RICHARD MONTGOMERY (Wreck) and the loss of HMSub. TRUCULENT are included.
HMS OBDURATE A major player in the Battle of the Barents Sea she became my (and many others) GANGES 'Sea-day' and subsequently my first seagoing draft. First-hand accounts of the life of this mine-laying destroyer are a click away.
HMS BERMUDA Day-by-day accounts of this cruiser include an engineer officer's illustrated story and that of a seaman during the war years and continues through to my years in her (1957-1959), her later life and demise at a ship-breakers yard.
HMS JAGUAR This new frigate came out of Denny's Shipyard at Dumbarton in 1959 as their long and distinguished shipbuilding history was coming to an end and continued in service, from 1979, with the Bangladesh Navy until 2013.
2018 - New additions - 1968 & 1969
2018 - New additions - 1968 & 1969
HMS ECHO Visited by tragedy in the Thames Estuary at the start of our 1964 surveying season this inshore survey vessel's RN life, Marine Society training role and private move to Egypt, is recorded here together with that of her sister ships ENTERPRISE AND EGERIA.
1/4/2018 New page added 'ORGILL / O'ROURKE 1961-2 HMSCOOK'.
1/4/2018 New page added 'ORGILL / O'ROURKE 1961-2 HMSCOOK'.
- MY OTHER SHIPS. HMS SKIPJACK, GAVINTON, VERNON and EXCELLENT took me in at one time or another and must not go unmentioned. Of these EXCELLENT alone survives but must now (2006) be sinking under the weight of the many Navy Departments housed on Portsmouth's Whale Island.
SINGAPORE / HMS TERROR, NAVAL BASE and DOCKYARD. Malaysia/Singapore became home to my family (1964-1966) and to many other RN, RAN, RNZN personnel and Dockyard staff but did you know the history? The answers, the ships and the way of life is remembered and revisited in this section with 21st century comparisons.
RN PATROL SERVICE - REG BREAREY. The memories of Reg's wartime 'Hostilities Only' life in RNPS trawlers and minesweepers during WW2 and its aftermath, including his 'Mentioned in Despatches', are conveyed here via his son in Canada where Reg settled post war.
DUNKIRK REMEMBERED. Some of the 1940 evacuation 'Little Ships' at Ramsgate on the 60th Anniversary in May 2000.
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