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LINDOP, J. B. AB RP3: AB Lindop, J. B., His Life and Times. 113p., illus. [n.p.: author, 1995].

A hearty self-published account of his service. He joined up late in 1944 and after training at Royal Arthur specialised in Fighter Direction, joining Fighter Direction Tender 13.  He served on after war’s end. It was first published privately in 1989 and a revised edition was published in 1995. It was then republished in 2015 by Mercianotes as A Sailor’s Tale: The Wartime Reminiscences of AB. RP3. D/JX 540875, Lindop, J.B.  ISBN: 1514802139.      

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The autobiography of a career officer. He was First Lieutenant of Whitshed in 1939–40 until she was seriously damaged in the Fall of France. He then served as First on Southdown, before taking command of Guillemot in mid-1941 with Nicholas Monsarrat as his First Lieutenant. After East Coast convoy work he stood by Rockwood before she served in the Mediterranean and Aegean. He brought her home damaged in early 1944 and the book ends as he goes to Staff College. A good tale.

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The only son of an Irish father and an English mother, at the age of seven he left India with his mother, who had decided to return to England following the death of his father. He entered the Royal Navy, in which he served as a signalman on trawlers in the North Sea and the Channel. He was commissioned and transferred to landing craft. He saw action in Sicily, Italy then Normandy. Drafted to the Far East, he eventually left the Navy and became a tea planter in Assam. Some years after that, he and some friends migrated to Australia, to eventually settle in Western Australia, where he became a pioneer farmer.

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Love joined up in 1936 and by 1939 was in Inglefield which joined the Home Fleet soon after the start of the war. She served in the Norwegian Campaign and on Operation Menace. In 1942 he transferred briefly to USS Sterett before returning to Inglefield and the Arctic. In 1943 he did a spell in several troopships. Early in 1945 he joined Palomares and soon headed for the Pacific, but had got no further than Ceylon by war's end. Not the liveliest of tales.

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A fascinating insight into the mind of one of the great admirals as the invasion of Europe unfolded from conception to success.

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In September 1939 he was serving on Skipjack as navigator. She was sunk at Dunkirk. He next went to Bridlington as First Lieutenant, then in June 1941 he joined Mendip. Next came a complete change when he became the Signals Officer in Charge on Largs. In April 1943, she arrived in North Africa and he spent eighteen months working in the Mediterranean theatre. In January 1945 he joined Tartar as Staff Signals Officer, 8th DF. They were bound for the Far East and in Trincomalee at war's end.

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MCGEOCH, Ian. The Princely Sailor: Mountbatten of Burma. xiv, 285p., bibliog., illus., index. London:  Brassey’s, 1996. ISBN: 1857531612.

A supportive and exculpatory account by a loyal supporter of this charismatic figure. Republished by Sparkford in 2009 as Mountbatten of Burma: Captain of War, Guardian of Peace  (ISBN: 1844256863).                                

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Somerville is best known for his command of Force H and later of the Eastern Fleet. He was one of the major naval figures of the war.

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A fictionalised autobiography. The author joined up in 1939 and after training as a Signalman worked on merchantmen on the staff of convoy commodores. He was commissioned early in 1941 and became a Boarding Officer based in the West of Scotland. After further training he joined North Sea escorts briefly (including the Dieppe Raid) and then Penylan (Ramsey in the book) in which he was sunk in December 1942. He then joined another Hunt and served in the Mediterranean through the various invasions. In late 1944 he was given a shore job at a Mediterranean repair base.

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The war is covered in 50 pages in which he served and was sunk in Transylvania on the Northern Patrol, then spent three years on the staff of the Royal Naval College Greenwich before taking command of the frigate Cygnet in Arctic waters. This was followed by a spell on the staff of the C-in-C Mediterranean and finally command of a ship in the Fleet Train. US title: The Captain's Bridge.

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He joined up in 1940 and after training joined Windsor. He trained as an officer and became liaison officer on Rubis. After a year there he joined Intelligence as a member of a COPP unit, working mainly in the Far East. An enjoyably told tale.

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An RNVR autobiography. One man's experiences of WW2 from Ordinary Seaman to Lieutenant in command, from RNPS minesweepers in Home waters, an Antarctic whaler, in the Mediterranean (torpedoed) and landing craft of various types..

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Some 44 pages recount his varied wartime career: contraband control at Ramsgate; Dunkirk; assistant navigator of the King George V and the Bismarck chase; the Freetown run in Ibis and finally on the escort carrier Activity from Murmansk to Singapore.

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A brief memoir. He joined as a Boy Telegraphist and fought at Jutland. After 24 years service he retired in 1939 as a Chief Yeoman, only to be recalled to the colours that August. He served in various Port Signal Stations at Scapa, Lulworth, Gibraltar, and from mid-1943 on Pretoria Castle. Has little of interest but one or two yarns.

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In 25 pages he gives a short account of his career in the Engineering Branch in various smaller craft and depot ships.

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MELLY, George. Rum Bum and Concertina. iii, 183p. London: Wei-denfeld & Nicolson, 1977. ISBN: 0297773410.

A riotously funny account of Melly’s anarchic naval career as an ordinary seaman. From his conscription in 1944 he spent the next four years as a misfit, homosexual, jazz enthusiast, dilettante, surrealist, and journalist. A very different view of shore training establishments and the base ship Argus at the end of the war.

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He joined the London Division of the RNVR before the war and in September 1939 was sent to Curlew. Service on her forms the bulk of the book. After her sinking in Norwegian waters, he moved around barracks until he volunteered for Coastal Forces as a CW candidate on HMML 147. His career as an officer is covered in two pages.

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A solicitor in the City and a member of the RNV(S)R, he was called up as war began. He spent some time shuttling between Malcolm and Wren. The two destroyers worked on training reservists, escorting troops to France, escort and A/S work then Dunkirk. From October 1941 he was based at Derry, briefly in a shore post. Late in 1941 he took a party of signallers on Prince of Wales to cover the Churchill–Roosevelt meeting at Argentia. He next acted as Secretary to Commander (D) on Brighton an escort group for minelayers based at Loch Alsh. He took radar training and was appointed to Queen Elizabeth and the Eastern Fleet based in Ceylon. In January 1945 he was promoted Lieutenant Commander and moved to the depot ship Woolwich, before returning to the UK as an instructor at the radar school in Portsmouth.

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Based on his illicit wartime diary. He served first in Dorsetshire joining her in Hong Kong in October 1939 as an RNVR Officer and seeing service in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic, mainly hunting commerce raiders or as convoy escort. After a brief refit in the UK and more of this work he joined the new destroyer Brocklesby as a sublieutenant. She took part in the St. Nazaire and Dieppe Raids as well as convoy work. From November 1942 he spent six months standing by the refitting Griffin, but when she transferred to the RCN he joined Orwell as First Lieutenant. She served with the Home Fleet and in the Atlantic and Russian convoys, notably taking part in the sinking of the Scharnhorst. In April 1944 he took over the new Fitzroy as CO, based at Harwich. In September 1944 he went to Greenwich for the six-month staff course and in March 1945 took over Wolverine and was based at Gibraltar until VE Day. After paying her off he finally took over Holderness in July 1945 shuttling back and forth to Europe

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The autobiography of a RNVR officer. He served briefly on the trawler Flanders in Home Waters then was commissioned and posted to work with landing craft in the Mediterranean. He helped in the evacuation of Crete and was captured at the fall of Tobruk. After a spell as a POW in Italy he was repatriated then served as a beachmaster at the Normandy landings.

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