| Entry Text: | HOLDEN, Herbert D. Incidents in the Life of a Wartime Seafarer. 77p. Ilfracombe: Stockwell, 1996. ISBN: 0722329512.
In 1939, aged 16, he joined the Merchant Navy's Gravesend Sea School. In 1940 he joined the Wellington Star as a deck boy. After a three-month trip to Australia she was torpedoed and sunk off Portugal and Holden spent some days in a lifeboat. Shaken by this he spent two years ashore. In that time he trained as a radio officer and eventually joined the trooper Empire Pride. After two runs to Algiers he joined the tanker Thorhild and made several Atlantic crossings. In 1944 he joined the Hardingham as Chief Radio Officer. She sailed regularly to North Africa and later Italy. At the end of 1944 he was declared unfit for service and hospitalised. |
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