He joined up as a boy in 1936 and by the start of the war was an Ordinary Seaman in Repulse. He was with her when she was sunk and there is a full and lively account of her sinking and of his escape from Singapore to Malacca in the water tender Heather. He then went on to Fremantle in Stronghold and finally and briefly describes two years with the RAN on Wollongong before returning to the RN and the Mediterranean with Teviotbank, then stood by the new destroyer Comet.