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.  

Having joined the Navy first as an engineer, then as a Seaman Officer, Malcolm had reached the position of Lieutenant Commander Staff Officer and was incredibly busy on the HMS Antrim taking part in Exercise Spring Train by Gibraltar when they starting to hear rumblings about what was happening in the South Atlantic. It then came as no surprise when they were mobilised to head south. Malcolm recalls that there was initially a degree of making things up as they went along as they didn’t know what to expect and nobody, except one Royal Marines Officer, had ever been to the Falklands. One of Malcolm’s jobs was to work on deception tactics such as laying chaff around this ships to appear a larger flotilla and charting a course which looked like they might actually be heading for Argentina. At Ascension, Malcolm transfers to HMS Hermes where he recalls a frenzied race for better sleeping conditions when the Admiral said the officers could share his cabin which included the luxury of a double bed and shower. During this time, Malcolm had two main responsibilities. When on watch he was the Anti-Submarine Warfare Screen Coordinator and when not on watch he managed communications, including highly classified messages. He vividly recalls hearing the tragedy of the Sheffield directly through his headphones but that they only had a brief time to reflect before pushing on with their jobs. Malcolm describes some of their biggest challenges being rudimentary communication, lack of advance warning about airborne attacks and confusion which could arise from the three services not really having collaborated since WWII. He also remembers the tragedies of helicopter crashes and a Harrier exploding, he thinks it was often luck that meant things weren’t worse. Malcolm says it was difficult readjusting to life at home and is grateful to the public who offered members of the task group free holidays. It was a week in Wales with his family, away from home and work, that finally helped him decompress. He reflects that the Falklands will probably have been the last time the Royal Navy will fight a fleet action in that way.

Jim Reynolds, a conscripted driver/mechanic in the Armoured Corps, shares his experiences in World War II. Growing up in Cirencester, he was called up at 18 and trained as a driver/mechanic. Initially equipped with a rifle in a Bren gun carrier, his regiment eventually received Sherman tanks. Landing in Normandy shortly after D-Day, Jim and his crew faced the realities of war. He recounts his time under Sergeant Frost, a commander who instilled confidence. Jim vividly describes an encounter where they lost their Sergeant and he sustained a minor shrapnel injury. Despite the loss and close calls, Jim continued his service, participating in various operations, including a night march and navigating treacherous terrain. He recalls a harrowing incident where his tank was destroyed, and he was shot twice while trying to escape. After a long recovery, Jim was eventually discharged.