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The Navy's People

• Naval Lives

  • Edward Pitcairn Jones

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  • Wayland Austin

• In Focus: Women in the Navy

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Learning

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Wayland Austin

Article highlights

• The career of an Air Traffic Controller who served in the Gulf War

• Austin and the Navy

• HMS Gloucester and the Gulf War

• Operation Desert Shield

• At war - Silkworm attack

• End of the War

Austin and the Navy

Wayland Austin was born into a Naval environment travelling around the world with his family. His father was a senior member of the Navy but Wayland wasn't initially keen to follow in his father's footsteps.

Even with his background Wayland definitely didn't join the Navy to go to War.

'When I joined the Navy, I certainly, I, my last thought was I was ever going to go to war, it was the last thing I wanted to do, I never wanted to go... see the world and get paid for it, I mean it was the last thing I wanted to do.'

However, when the time came, Austin chose a career in the Royal Navy over a place at University, he explains why -

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Wayland Austin explains how he came to join the Navy. (RNM)

To read a transcript of this oral history follow the link