John Ramage was born in Bromley, South East London, and spent his childhood in Gravesend, North Kent. He attended King's School Rochester and was encouraged by his parents to pursue a career in medicine, despite having no doctors in the family. He attended medical school at Westminster Hospital in King's College, qualifying in 1978. He joined the Navy, initially serving with the Marines from 1979 to 1982. As the only doctor in a Commando unit (and later on a fighting ship), John faced significant responsibilities, making critical decisions without external support. His deployment to Northern Ireland was particularly challenging, involving high-risk situations such as responding to bombings and shootings. John joined HMS Antelope in 1982, a relatively new ship with a well-stocked sickbay. Despite having no prior experience with warships, his previous combat and trauma experience proved invaluable. Antelope’s deployment to the Falklands was initially thought to be brief. However, the sinking of sister ships and the reality of combat made it clear they were in an increasingly dangerous situation. During the conflict, HMS Antelope was hit by several bombs, leading to severe injuries and fatalities among the crew and to her eventual dramatic sinking.  John and his team provided critical medical care under extremely challenging conditions whilst the ship was heavily on fire. They were amongst the last to leave Antelope before she exploded. After leaving the service, John reflects on his training and the challenges faced during the Falklands conflict, acknowledging the inadequacies in preparation for such intense situations. During his further career, he specialised in gastrointestinal and liver diseases, continuing in various hospitals and furthering his abilities and medical knowledge. Rising to become a Professor and senior medical expert.

A few months after World War II began, Frank Wilson enlisted in the Royal Navy. He completed 10 weeks of training at HMS Collingwood and continued at HMS Wellesley in Liverpool, where he trained as an anti-aircraft gunner. Frank was then stationed on HMS Activity, a 14,000-ton ship, posted to the forward starboard side operating the anti-aircraft guns. He fondly recalls Captain Willoughby as an absolute gentleman. While training, Frank remembers being held in the harbour at Greenock when HMS Dasher exploded and sank in the Clyde in March 1943, with 379 out of 528 crewmen lost. He saw the smoke and heard about the sea being afire with aviation fuel. Frank’s first Russian Convoy was extremely cold, with temperatures below 50 degrees. He was part of the team escorting battleships Royal Sovereign and Missouri. On another trip, he witnessed HMS Bluebell get hit by a torpedo from the German submarine U-711 in the Barents Sea, where only one person survived. In Russia, Frank saw the hunger and gave food to the locals whenever he could. The Activity had to keep moving in dangerous waters to avoid being an easy target for the Germans. Frank was part of 20 different convoys, traveling in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Mediterranean. After serving on The Activity, he was transferred to HMS Berwick and sent to the Far East. In Singapore, he visited HMS Activity again to celebrate the end of the war with his old friends.  

After serving in the Home Guard and experiencing bombing in the blitz in London, Cornelius Snelling was conscripted into the Royal Navy in 1942 and carried out his basic training on HMS Ganges at Shotley. From his port division, Chatham, he was assigned his first posting, as a Bosun’s mate, to a newly commissioned ship docked at Glasgow, HMS Wild Goose, a Black Swan-class sloop. HMS Wild Goose specialised in anti-submarine patrols in the North Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay and Snelling took part in some of the ship's most notable actions, including the renowned "six in one trip" in 1943, which saw HMS Wild Goose, alongside other Bird-class sloops, sink six German U-boats in a single patrol. Snelling’s final journey aboard HMS Wild Goose was participating in an Arctic convoy to Murmansk and he describes the extreme conditions. In 1944, Snelling transferred to HMS Tyler, an American-built frigate on loan to the Royal Navy. HMS Tyler conducted patrol and escort missions in the North Atlantic and the English Channel, where it also escorted landing craft and supply ships during the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches. Snelling's service concluded in October 1945 when he steamed with HMS Tyler back to the United States, where the ship was returned to the US Navy.