Eric Conway joined the Royal Navy at the young age of 16, starting his service on the very day World War II broke out. He served as a Leading Telegraphist, specialising in communications and coding. Eric's submarine experience was primarily on U-class submarines, known for their small size and challenging conditions. He was involved in several significant events during the war, including the tragic PQ17 convoy, where his submarine was part of a screen protecting merchant ships from German U-boats. Eric witnessed the devastating aftermath of the convoy's scattering, resulting in the loss of numerous ships. He also had close encounters with German U-boats, including one instance where his submarine fired a torpedo and engaged in a gun battle with a U-boat. Eric's wartime experiences took a toll on his mental health, leading to a period of hospitalisation and a change in his service category. Despite the hardships he faced, he completed his service and carried the memories and impact of the war with him throughout his 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.

When Joe Pitcher was called up into the Royal Navy in 1941, his military career began at HMS Glendower, a training facility preparing sailors for service on defensively equipped merchant ships (DEMS). Throughout his ensuing service, Joe sailed on the coastal, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific convoys. He shares his memories of how it felt each time he changed ship and had to get used to working with a completely new crew, and adapting to the ship’s life and rules. He also remembers with wry humour a number of near misses along the way, including a scramble to find an ammunition locker stopcock, dodging a bullet from a round accidentally fired off by a young sailor in the mess, and surviving two separate torpedo hits on the same ship. Joe’s service ended in Singapore where the true horrors of war were brought into sharp focus when the hospital ship he was on took aboard countless near-to-death POWs. With great modesty, Joe says he was glad to have been able to do his bit, and shares with deep emotion his gratitude for surviving the war when so many others weren’t so lucky.