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.

On the same day a 16-year-old Harry Card was turned away from the Army for being underage, he was signed up to the Navy by a passing chief petty officer, and so began his death-defying military career. Harry joined HMS Swift, an S-class destroyer, in late 1943 and set sail on the Arctic convoys. He describes the Arctic’s mountainous seas in terrifying detail, and recalls various hair-raising moments of his service including submarine attacks, clearing ice from the ship’s masts, and Operation Tungsten: the Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz. Later on in the war, HMS Swift was on the front line of the D-Day landings. Harry vividly recalls the opening bombardment as they sat poised off Sword Beach in Normandy, before describing the exact moment the ship was struck by an oyster mine and split clean in half. Despite the sinking of the Swift, Harry survived and was given six weeks to recover, after which he set sail once more.  This time he was on HMS Odzani, heading for the Far East where he embarked on further convoy duties and assisted in the liberation of Hong Kong and Singapore.

Franck was called up to the Royal Navy in 1943 and assigned to serve on a Arromanches Merchant Navy ship. This was an Estonian cargo ship in Hull, armed with two 20mm anti-aircraft guns and an old 12 pounder. They sailed in a 6-knot convoy to Canada which took eleven days. On arrival in Canada they experienced great hospitality before sailing back to Belfast. He was then transferred to an ex-Danish vessel based in Cardiff that was being modified to carry troops and ammunition for the Normandy invasion. It was partly crewed by Puerto Rico stevedores serving in the US armed forces. The US infantry on board impressed Franck with their fatalistic defiance, their attitude being that they were not coming back and they just had to seize their objectives on the beach whatever the cost. On arrival at Omaha beach they began to ferry troops and ammunition ashore, using DUKW amphibians. Only one of these vehicles returned to the ship. From his vantage point on board Franck could see the course of the assault and observed how the US troops persisted in the attack, despite taking heavy casualties as they disembarked. In Mumbai on his next posting they got news of the dropping of the Atom bomb to end the war and celebrated with free beer. At the time, as a young man, the whole thing seemed like a big adventure. Looking back on these events he recalls the waste of life and the single-mindedness of the American troops.