| Entry Text: | HUDSON, Norma. Sole Survivor: One Man's Journey. Biography of John Norman Walton, the Sole Survivor of HMS Neptune. xxi, 169p., bibliog., illus., index. Durham: Memoir Club, 2008.
A loving biography of her father. He joined up in 1938 and as war began was serving in Janus. He saw action with her in Norway and the Mediterranean, then after an appendix operation and some trouble with the military police worked with one of the shore parties in the evacuation of Crete. Evacuated in Orion, he moved briefly to Abdiel, but after more fisticuffs was sent to the small coastal whalers patrolling the North African coast. Late in 1941 he joined Neptune and was her sole survivor when she was mined a month later. Picked up by Italian forces, he was eventually repatriated in June 1943, but within three weeks was back in service re-training on Asdic. In April 1944 he was drafted to Mermaid on Arctic convoy duty and in August 1944 to the then building minesweeper Rowena. She served in the Mediterranean but was sent to the Far East at the very end of the war. He later became a professional boxer. |
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