Oral History Gallery

Conditions 1 - It took me 6 months to get used to her 1940s

Name: Harry Marrington

Service: 1942 - 1946

Rate: Seaman Gunner

Branch: Royal Naval Patrol Service

Harry Marrington joined the Navy in 1942, when he was 17. After training he joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service, a fleet of armed deep-sea fishing trawlers taken over by the Navy. These small vessels acted as escorts to other ships and for minesweeping and anti-submarine work.

Harry was a gunner and a member of the 4-inch gun crew. He also operated the smaller anti-aircraft guns.

Here Harry describes what it was like sailing on the armed fishing trawlers in rough seas.

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Extract Text (Duration01.10)

It was nothing to be in the wheelhouse and the windows come crashing in and that's the way it was. I mean I'd never been to sea in my life before and it took me six months to get used to her and I was sick, I died, I died. And when you was in the wheelhouse, the big wheel it was behind you and it was steam driven. Have you ever been into a pumping station where it's been steam and oil mixed together? Oh it's a terrible smell, and the more you turn the wheel 'cha, cha, cha, cha' and the steam and the oil used to mix. And they had a big steel shelter in front so that when they used to come and machine gun you in the channel you had to get in there, 'cause you had no protection at all. And the compass was up in the wheelhouse, up in the deck head, in the ceiling as you might say, the deck head's the ceiling, and you'd be like this…. and sometimes it used to be hot and warm in there and ohhhh, I used to feel terrible.