After joining the Navy in 1943 and completing his training at stone frigates HMS Royal Arthur, HMS Scotia and HMS Ganges, able seaman Vic Ould was sent to Chatham Barracks to wait for his first draft. This came in the form of HMS Carron, a brand-new ship in Greenock, Scotland, who first set sail in the dead of night to evade any U-boats lurking nearby hoping for an easy catch. Vic shares details of the many escort missions the Carron undertook in the Arctic and Atlantic Convoys, and talks about the job of a destroyer and how its crew enables it to operate effectively. He also recalls details about his role as a radar operator, and reflects on the end of his military service in Indonesia. Vic – who became a prolific writer who penned several fascinating ‘first-person accounts’ from sailors aboard other destroyers – shares his story with humour, humility and an eye for detail that brings his memories vividly to life.

Having never left Yorkshire before joining the Royal Marines at 17, Geoff was initially stationed at the Yangtze River, where he saw Royal Navy ships fired upon during the Amethyst incident. After the Korean War began, Geoff was sent to shell North Korean supply wagons and then to Camp McGill in Japan to join US raiders. His unit made a decoy landing at Inchon, which he survived uncaught against all odds. Without backup, he fought his way to assist in the capture of Kimpo airfield. Geoff recalls seeing his friend killed in an explosion, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, and sustaining a bayonet injury at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, after which he was airlifted to hospital. He describes the vast Chinese troops, the terrible condition of the bodies returned for burial and how the dead were piled up in makeshift defensive barriers. Many decades later, South Koreans welcomed Geoff warmly when he visited the now-flourishing country, yet he feels that people at home know little about the sacrifices British troops made in Korea. Geoff’s animated and reflective account vividly conveys the chaos of Korea’s battlefields and the challenges marines faced upon returning to civilian life.

Colette Cook tells of her work at Bletchley Park operating the Bombe machines whose function was to find the daily key settings of the Enigma machines used by the Germans during WWII to transmit encrypted messages. Colette joined the WRNS (Wrens) as soon as she was able, and following a period of basic training, applied for a mysterious posting ‘P5’. It transpired that this was shorthand for HMS Pembroke V, a cover term for WRNS being posted to Eastcote (an outstation of Bletchley) to train as Bombe operators. In this engaging interview, Colette explains how, after signing the Official Secrets Act, she learned to load the bombe with the coloured wheels and then set about the difficult job of plugging up the back as directed by a ‘menu’. She describes the work as monotonous, physically demanding, and very noisy, but her and her colleagues ‘just grinded away’. She tells of a sense of urgency, but stresses it was not panic, and a realisation that what they were doing was important. Reflecting on her time at Bletchley, Colette says that whilst ‘it all seems like a dream now’, she has an overarching feeling of pride in the part she played to crack the German cypher.