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We had just started our basic training and I had to go into the infirmary. I’d got tonsillitis. I was in for about a week. When they released me, I had to go onto the parade ground and catch up with my squad, 165 squad. And the sergeant said: “Oh, yes, you’re coming back to us. Now then, so and so, just show him how he should walk across the square.”

I enjoyed the training; I was pretty fit in those days. We had marching, rifle drill, things like that. They were very keen on Corps history. You were examined on it. They gave you a note book to write it all in and they checked to see what you’d written. I can still remember lots.

Marine Corps history as recalled by Bill:

Per Mare, Per Terram

Before 1664 ordinary soldiers would be taken on ships if troops were needed. In 1664 it was decided that a permanent regiment would be raised and paid for by the Admiralty. The Duke of Albany’s yellow regiment was formed, the first official marines. The were embarked on ships for special and specific operations, boarding and cutting out parties. Their primary task on board was maintaining discipline and in battle they acted as sharpshooters.

After that, the detachment of marines was part of the ship’s company. In continuous service since then, the marines have gained many battle honours, but carry only one on our standard: Gibraltar, which was stormed and captured in 1704. Wearing redcoats they were dubbed ‘lobsters’ by the seamen. The other nickname, which has survived is ‘bootneck, originating from the stiff yellow collars they wore. The coming of steam changed the role with Royal Marines (artillery) manning a quarter of the guns on ships.

On board ship we came under the Naval Discipline Act and Admiralty Instructions. On shore it was King’s Rules and Regulations. If you came back two hours adrift from night leave in barracks you’d get two days ‘CB’ (confined to barracks). In the Navy you’d be stopped one day’s pay and one day’s leave.

During training we had a Sergeant: Sergeant Livesey and Lance Corporal Jones was the rear rank instructor. I think we did about five months basic. Out of a squad of about forty, two or three found PT pretty difficult, but managed to get to the end of the training. Field training was mostly arms: rifle, Bren and PIAT. About ten people were put on the Vickers. We did route marches, night patrols, that sort of thing. Food was good but we were always a bit peckish, especially at night. We were in a hutted camp: Blarrick, over the river from Plymouth. Pay was sixteen shillings a week, of which I allotted eight to my mum. It didn’t leave much for cigarettes and the NAAFI, although you could get tea for a penny and a bun for a tuppence. There were films twice a week and sometimes ENSA shows, which were quite good. I remember seeing Joe Davis, a champion billiard and snooker player, he came and gave a demonstration in the NAAFI one night.

I wrote home once or twice a month, to mum or nanny or, odd times, I used to write to my dad. I don’t remember being homesick. You were all in the same boat and it was new and exciting. The NCOs although strict, we thought were pretty fair and we had a good relationship with them, not lots of shouting and bawling. Some were recalled ‘barrack stanchions’ but our squad instructor: Sergeant Leversley was younger than that and our Corporal, Jones, the rear-rank instructor, hadn’t been in for more than a year.

The training was very thorough. They even told you how to wash! We went to the washhouse and there was an old soldier there who showed us how to wash our flannel, soap it, and rinse it and dry it in a hand cranked spin dryer. We were shown where to stamp our names in our kit and how to fold everything: how to lay it out for inspection. It’s all bull, I suppose, but it’s all to do with discipline. We had a chap: Small he was called — he was six foot two. He’d been ‘back squadded’. I remember when he was firing the Bren he was all over the place. In the end the Lance Corporal sat on him to keep him still while he was firing.

We had our first leave after about three months. We were in khaki but before you went on your first leave you got your ‘blues’. Everybody went on leave in khaki but as soon as they got on to the train they changed into their ‘blues’. There was still a faint possibility of invasion so we had to take our equipment home with us, including our rifles. After the leave we were told by the Sergeant that one of our squad had committed suicide, shot himself. He was a nice lad. We had no inkling there was anything wrong.

When we came back off leave we went on to gunnery training at a place called Eastern Kings. Six-inch guns we trained on. Old, 1914 breech loading things. We used wooden shells and leather things for the cartridge cases. There were six or seven in a crew. You’d keep pushing these wooden shells in until they dropped out the other end. I was amazed because you had a rammer which I thought was really old fashioned. The number one had a belt with cartridges and he’d put one in the breech and as soon as the interceptors went up, that completed the circuit and they were fired. On a ship the guns were controlled from the TS (transmitting station) and the gunnery officer and the director above could fire all the guns at the same time. If you did anything wrong they gave you a shell and you had to run around the battery with it. It was heavy a six-inch shell, around a hundred weight. We were taught about mines and things like that. Then we did four-inch guns that had fixed ammunition, like a big bullet really that included the charge as well as the shell. They were twin four-inch guns. We had to push the shells in and wait for them to drop out again. All the time we trained, we never fired anything.

Then we had two weeks seamanship training: learning about the Navy. Things like the keyboard sentry. On board ship the keys were kept under the control of a marine and everyone had to sign for the keys when they took them. We learned how to sling a hammock, about the routine and the watch bill. We did swimming but no boat work. After that we passed out with a big parade, which was in the autumn of 1942. After leave we were sent out to our different companies and we were trained soldiers. Each morning we had to parade in our fatigues and we were detailed off for different duties. I was often in a coaling party. We had a four-wheeled wagon that was hand pulled; carrying metal skips filled with coal. We had to go round each department and restock the supplies for the stoves. Sometimes we had cookhouse fatigues. Then you were free except, every third night you were on PAD (passive air defence) when you had to parade after tea. Funnily enough, my job on PAD was a fire escape on wheels. We used to charge around with that and I knew all about it because I’d done it with the fire service.

I got a draft chit for the HMS Newfoundland, a cruiser. I went for my medical and, you wouldn’t believe it, I failed it. I had mumps. So there was a right panic because it’s very infectious. I was immediately taken to the naval hospital and they fumigated all my gear and packed it away and I missed the draft. I was in hospital for quite a few weeks. There was a ‘matelot’ in the bed next to me and we spent the time playing ‘battleships’ for hours on end. Strangely enough, one day, much later, when I was in ‘Alex’ on the duty signal boat, a frigate came in and the quartermaster shouted out: “Hello Sandy!” and it was the him, the same bloke.

By the time I was better, my squad had gone. Earlier George went out to South Africa with the MNBDO (mobile naval base defence organisation). I’d put in a chit to go with him but they’d taken no notice of that. So there was none of my squad left. I was in barracks until next March and then I got a draft for HMS Carlisle, an ack-ack (anti aircraft) cruiser with four twin four-inch guns. The night before I went, I was on fire picket with this other chap, Don Sly. They’d obviously thought, these two chaps are going on draft tomorrow, put them on fire picket, save someone else doing it. The next day we had to parade with all this gear, great big kitbag and stuff, and be inspected. You had a lot of gear: all the stuff for on a ship and all your military equipment (rifle, bayonet, big pack, small pack). They put us on a truck down to the docks. We jumped off and I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t see the ship. I’d expected to have to go up a gangplank to get on to the ship but it was low tide and the ship was below us.

We reported on board and they took us down to the mess deck. I couldn’t believe how my head was touching the deck head. There were only a couple of blokes on board, the rest had shore leave. We were shown into a room about twelve-foot square with two tables hung up on chains with benches either side. There were two small portholes. They told us it was our mess. One of the blokes issued me with a hammock and explained that, as there wasn’t enough room I would have to sling my hammock somewhere else. He took me and we ended up right aft in the wardroom flat, outside the wardroom near the officers’ bathroom, miles away from the mess deck. I knew I wasn’t going to like it because it was really claustrophobic. You had very little room at all. My locker was above the engine room and it smelt of oil. It was about eighteen inches square by a couple of foot deep and had to take all my gear. Each door between the compartments had a rim above knee height that you had to step over. At teatime I was told that it was ‘canteen messing’ here. That meant that each mess had a certain amount of money and could choose what food to buy from the canteen. Certain things: bread, tea, milk, flour etc were issued and you supplemented that with stuff from the canteen. We were told to help ourselves to bread, butter, cheese and jam from the locker above the mess table. The bread was white. I hadn’t seen any white bread for ages. You couldn’t get white bread then on shore there was only the greyish brown stuff. But, in the Navy on a ship, it was white bread, baked on board in big, high two pound loaves, lovely stuff.

The next day they rest of the crew came back and we started. I was told that I’d be a fuse setter on number three gun. We were taken up to the guns and shown what to do. They were twin open mounted four inch guns. One pair was mounted on the quarterdeck, one on the next deck above the captain’s quarters, one amidships and one forrard. The ‘midships and the forrard guns were manned by seamen and we had the other two. There were twin Oerlikon pom poms either side of us and similarly at the front.

Then we provisioned ship. It was wet and miserable and we were detailed to help bring some stores in. Then we went out in the sound to ‘swing the compass’. That night, I was in my hammock when I heard this rattle. A bloke further down told me it was ‘action stations’. I shoved my gear on and ran up on to the gun deck to discover there was an air raid. As I said, I was the fuse setter. I had two handles to move: one to set the fuse and one to move the shell out on to a tray. We were going round and round in the turret and I heard “Gun won’t bear!” then “Commence, commence, commence!” and the bells ring and there was such a bang and a flash and my hat blew off, I couldn’t see. I wondered what had happened. One of the chaps told me to put some cotton waste in my ears to deaden the sound. It was the first time I’d heard a gun fired and I wasn’t prepared for it. The raid went on for about half an hour. Afterwards I got ‘in the rattle’ because I’d left my hammock up in the passage.

First we steamed up to Scapa and I was seasick in the Irish sea. We went on shore somewhere and I got ‘kaylied’. After Scapa we went down to the Med, not in convoy, on our own. Don and I were replacements for two marines. One had been stabbed whilst in Plymouth and the other had witnessed it. There were about thirty men altogether in the detachment: two sergeants, four corporals and the rest marines. In the first few weeks I was shown my duties. We had different stages of readiness: cruising stations, defence stations and action stations. During defence stations we had one just gun crew on, either three gun or four gun. Then you’d work four hours on and four hours off. If we were on cruising stations I had to go up on the bridge as a lookout and half the gun’s crews were on duty. For action stations everyone was closed up at their guns. We all had a place to go to if we had to abandon ship. Mine was by a particular Carley float.

We didn’t see much of our Captain of Marines (Captain Jaquet) on board ship. As a messenger, I saw him more than most. Sometimes I delivered Admiralty Fleet Orders (AFOs) to him and I would have to write out amendments for him. If orders that had changed had to be destroyed I would take them down to the engine room and push the papers into a hole at the side of one of the boilers to be burnt.

Most of the time we were on defence stations and we got very tired. You never really got a night’s sleep. You’d change your watch each day. If you’d been on the morning watch, (four am until eight am) you’d come off watch and have your breakfast, then you’d turn to at nine o’clock and work ‘til eleven thirty. You’d then have your dinner and go back on watch at noon. I don’t remember much about the food, except that we had a lot of ‘herrings in’ — herrings in tomato sauce — for example, fried bread with ‘herrings in’ on top. We had the office flat, the wardroom flat and the officers’ bathroom to look after. A couple of chaps were flunkeys: officers’ servants.

We went to Gibraltar and took a load of money on board. It was packed in tins. I don’t know what kind of money it was but we had to put a guard on it. We took it to Algiers. I’d seen the film called ‘Algiers’ about the Kasbah and all these dodgy characters and here I was, my first time on foreign soil, on my own in Algiers with some signals to deliver. I had my belt and bayonet on walking through the dockyard and I felt nervous so I drew my bayonet. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to happen or what I would do if anything did.

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