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Follow up to “Royal Marine’s Diary — Harry Gould”

People and places in my story: Lympstone - Crete - Maldives - Ceylon - London
Royal Marine Harry Sinclair (fiancée Ivy Pennington)

This is so much a copy of my late husband’s experiences with the Corp. Harry was called up in September 1940 and spent time at Eastney and Lympstone training camps. In December (cira 20th) he was given a few days leave which he spent travelling home to Scotland; two days there and then travelling to Manchester to spend two days with me at the height of the Christmas blitz. When we said “goodbye” that was the last I saw of him for the next 3 and three quarter years. He was then sent to Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth during their blitz. From there it was up to Glasgow, ready to embark for destinations unknown. There followed days spent weighed anchor in the river Clyde waiting for the convoy to assemble. He had the heartache of being just a mile or two from his home and nobody in his family knowing he was so near. He managed to smuggle a short note to me saying he was on the Bergens Fyord going to God knows where.

After months of silence the next news was newspaper accounts of the German invasion of Crete and the loss of so many Royal Marines. Next came the agonising wait for news until on the 6th June (how significant a date!) his family received a telegram saying “Safe and Well”. Like Harry would, he kept two diaries one of which he buried on Crete and the other brought home. After reading it to me he burnt it page by page but one entry dated the 25th May read, “Tomorrow is my birthday — I hope”. During the journey to Crete, Harry Gould would remember passing through the harbour at Durban and where some troops disembarked and enjoyed the hospitality of the people. Most will remember the “white lady”. This was Perla Gibson an opera singer who every day went down to the harbour to sing to the troops passing through singing through a megaphone. She even turned up the day she learnt that her son serving with the Black Watch had been killed. My husband and I visited Durban a few years ago and went on a pilgrimage to the harbour and saw a wonderful statue of her standing there with the megaphone to her mouth. The Queen had unveiled the statue on a visit there.

After Crete, the Marines who were rescued spent time in the Indian Ocean. Their main deployment was in the Maldives where they worked building bridges, linking the islands. It was very hard work, getting scars from the coral beds where they had to work under water. Oh, what would my husband have thought if he had been alive to witness the tragedy that has begotten these lovely islands? I have so many tiny photographs of these islands, isolated as they were, in those long ago days. After leaving the Maldives they were sent to the Garrison in Ceylon and had the luxury of receiving mail, if not very often. There were various false reports that they would be coming home and in early 1944 there was a definite buzz this time.

During the time Harry and I were apart I joined the National Fire Service where I served from February 1941 until August 1945. What a blow I received when I was notified that I was to be classed as mobile and to be posted to the South coast — just when Harry was on his way home. However, luckily for me I was based at the Fire Force HQ and being on specialist duties was exempted from transfer. So after all those years we were reunited on the 28th March 1944 and wasted no time and were married by special licence on the 8th April.

After four wonderful weeks together Harry was posted to London. A selection of Royal Marines who had worked in the building trade in “civi sreet” was mustered and the 26th Battalion was formed. This might have appeared a “square number” who (with hindsight) were being prepared for the Normandy landings but their duties which were to render first aid to any homes or buildings that had been damaged by the V1s and V2s (*buzz bombs) was thwart with and element of danger. For instance working in one road whilst t bomb was exploding in the next.

Harry eventually returned to Eastney in February 1946 for demob. Years went by with Harry being an active member of the Royal Marine Association from 1946 until his death in 1998. It was good to attend the reunions especially when he met up with his pal, Douglas Vickers from Bideford with whom he had served during the years from Crete to Ceylon and so started

a very long and deep friendship between our two families. Douglas sadly died last Christmas. Another happy memory was the reunion of the MNBDO in Portsmouth,The Association’s 25th anniversary attended by Lord Mountbatten and HR Prince Philip.

I could go on and on but now 84 years young I am so thankful for the joy I have had from being associated with the Corp and for the wonderful times and life long friends I had made through my husband. I recently attended a lunch with a few remaining members of the Manchester and Salford Branch of the RMA and it was so good to meet up with them again and see them all so proudly wearing their ties but so sad to remember those “absent friends”.

Ivy Sinclair (nee Pennington)

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