Frank Bewley, born in London in 1931, joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer in 1948 and was initially posted to RNAS Culdrose, where he recalls early trials of jets landing without undercarriage. He volunteered for Korea and joined 821 Squadron, which trained at RAF Makrihanish before heading to Korea in 1952. He served on HMS Glory, which flew old World War II Firefly 5s for ground support. He was responsible for maintaining his assigned aircraft and had a close relationship with his pilot, Lieutenant Barrett. Initially unfamiliar with Korea, he learned about its history through old World War II books. He found HMS Glory more friendly than other ships, but prone to rolling. He describes the challenges of working on the flight deck, where a lot of maintenance and arming work was completed, in inclement weather and the camaraderie among the crew. They still operated on messdecks containing up to 14 men, sleeping in hammocks and collecting food form the galley, rather than having a central canteen.

At 18, Ron volunteered for the navy and joined the 16^th destroyer flotilla on HMS Southdown, a hunt class destroyer L25. Ron began as an ordinary seaman on general duties such as swabbing down the deck, maintaining the weapons, splicing ropes. He recounts a terrifying torpedo attack in the middle of the night which actually turned out to be friendly fire when a British patrol mistook Ron’s ship for a German R-boat laying mines. The Southdown was repaired in time for D-Day where it was their responsibility to lay down a smokescreen. Ron recalls night watches and having to be ready for action in case German aircraft were spotted dropping floating mines. Ron was then involved in blockades at Calais and Ostend preventing German supplies from getting through. Ron reflects that he had a lucky war, he enjoyed the camaraderie with the men and was never really in the thick of serious action.