World War Two

Sea

These pages are updated as and when new information or images arrive.

SS Allende. Her sinking, crew capture and trek across Africa.
American Submarines - The war in the Pacific.
HMS Audacity. The Story of the Audacity and her "previous life" as the MV Hanover, a German cargo ship. Of her capture by HMS Dunedin.
SS Athenia. How the U-30 sank, without warning, the liner Athenia on the opening day of the war.
HMS Audacity. The Story of the Audacity and her "previous life" as the MV Hanover, a German cargo ship. Of her capture by HMS Dunedin.
The Battle of The Atlantic. The longest ever battle in history. 3/9/1939 - 8/5/1945.
Bismarck. One of World War 2's supreme example of marine engineering. This formidable battleship was designed for one purpose - to destroy allied shipping.  But for a monumental effort by the Royal Navy and some sheer luck, she would have done devastating damage to the Allied war effort in the Atlantic. 2 pages on this beautiful ship.  Large, detailed update on her fate (Feb 2003).
SS Blairlogie. 7 days after sinking the Athenia, the U-30 surfaced, ordered off the crew, then sank the SS Blairlogie.
My Book. Its WW2 and is called On A Sailors Grave (No Roses Grow). Written by me and is now available online or order it from your booksellers. Publisher is Woodfield Publications and it costs £15. 
British Submarines. Not as well documented as their American and German counterparts. British Submarines operated mainly in secret missions and in the Mediterranean; many were lost on their perilous tasks. Several new pages.
Coastal Forces - Lecture notes. An insight into what went on in the Secret War in the English Channel.

Convoy PQ17. How decisions by those behind desks crucified the convoy and killed many many civilian lives.

Crests Of The Royal Navy. Ships of the Royal Navy in World War 2. If you have a crest of your Royal Naval Ship of WW2 send it to me for inclusion on this page?
Duncan Cameron Kennedy. A look at the life afloat of a ships Captain, who, in WW2, was Mentioned in Despatches for his heroism in a lifeboat.

Exercise Tiger. Tiger was a little known, highly secret in its day, but disastrous exercise preceding D Day. April 1944 and 749 US soldiers lost their lives to 9 German E boats. Could it have been avoided? Did the US High Command make an almighty mess? A massive cover up ensued and lies told to relatives. Soldiers told keep it shut - or be shot!

HMS Fidelity. Special Operations Ship. How a small, insignificant, British built French freighter tried to change the course of the war.

Japanese Heavy Cruiser Haguro. The last destroyer action of World War 2 in which several British destroyers found and destroyed the Heavy Cruiser Haguro. All due to a radar operator who would not take no for an answer!

The Hedgehog. Its inventor, Charles Goodeve, and how he got Churchill to accept it as a weapon against the U boat. Used with great effect by Capt Johnnie Walker.
HMS Hood. How the pride of the Royal Navy went to her doom with a shell straight through the deck into a magazine

HMS Kite. Originally an offshoot of Walker RN; this has grown into over 15 pages in the remarkable story of the short life of a Royal Naval Black Swan Class Sloop in WW2.  Personal items, images, transcript of the Board of Inquiry, copies of secret signals and never before seen photographs provided by Ray Holden, whose brother Tom lost his life when Kite lost hers. This is the only and original site on the internet giving so much info on this  "Walker" ship.

RMS Lancastria. The secret of the sinking of the Lancastria. A fact kept hidden for fear of morale. Survivors machine gunned in the water.

HMS Lapwing. 20th March 1945, sunk by U968 who radioed in as sinking a destroyer, In fact it was the Black Swan Sloop. 158 Dead.
SS Leopoldville. DEMS Passenger ship sunk in Channel on 24th Dec 1944 and a cover up ensued with the authorities lying, again, about the soldiers fate.

Able Seaman Lunt HMS Kite. A sailors scrapbook. Life on board two ships in WW2, HMS Camellia and then, fatefully, HMS Kite. Never before seen images thanks to his scrapbook and his grandson, Paul Masterson, Crosby, Liverpool.

Merchant Navy. The role of the Merchant Navy in World War Two.  Civilian sailors in the thick of the fighting. Account of the sinking of the SS Allende including eye witness report exclusively by Frank Brookes for this site. Other ships treated in individual sections also.
HMS Mermaid. A sailors account of life aboard the Mermaid, a Black Swan Class Sloop during WW2
MGB's. The boats themselves and a story of a particular sailor, Norman Hine; his trials and tribulations on the seas of WW2 on board a MGB (Motor Gun Boat) with the Royal Navy. A hero of those times.
MGB Master Standfast. A letter concerning the capture of the Master Standfast, by the Germans, in November 1943.
Motor Launch 150. Walter Woods was Engine Mechanic of board one of Peter Scott's Flotilla. This is Walter's story.
MTB 694. Wally Saunders own story of life aboard in World War Two.
MTB 755.
HMS Prince of Wales. Sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10th December 1941, 3 days after the attack on Pearl Harbour
HMS Punjabi. The tragedy of her sinking by Ken Tipper.
HMS Regent. British Submarine, lost in WW2.
HMS Royal Oak. The sinking of the Battleship Royal Oak with some unique images sent to me by a forum friend.
Scharnhorst. The story of the Battle-Cruiser Scharnhorst and her death in the Battle of The North Cape.

SS Steuben. Like The Wilhelm Gustloff below, and by the same submarine, enormous loss of life ensued from the torpedoing of this refugee ship carrying German civilians and troops.

HMS Stork. Images of Wartime. Never before seen images taken by DA Bell, of HMS Stork. Thanks to Len Bell for these photographs.
HM Submarine Thetis. Sank on 1 June 1939 on her first sea trial on the River Mersey. How she was raised, renamed and fought on as HMS Thunderbolt.
The Batttle of Truk, a seaborne airborne operation to smash the 'impregnable' Truk lagoon stronghold of the Japs.
U Boat U33. A dangerous mission, and a heaven sent opportunity for the British. Enigma components were found.
U Boat U234. The U 234 and her secret cargo to Japan and how it finally did arrive there, but not as they expected!

U Boat U344. The U 344 is the one sank HMS Kite, the only "success" of its career. Contains some archive images & documents. Some information has been removed, as someone, from a u boat site, who I didn't get the material off, claimed copyright and wanted cash up front or threatened legal action to "recover" the sum of 40 euros! Therefore the information, vital to our continued quest for knowledge, has been removed and deleted from my computer.
U Boat U534. Sunk on the last day of the war and raised in the 90s. The U 534 is now a resident on Merseyside, the home port of the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2. Images of a visit I made there in August 2000 and later. The U534 has left her home on Birkenhead docks in Feb 2008. I have yet to verify she is at Woodside Ferry Terminal Birkenhead.

U Boat War. 1939 - 1943. How close these U Boats came to winning the war for Germany is well documented. Here are my own pages on this crucial phase in the Battle of the Atlantic.  Of 40,000+ German sailors who left port; 30,000+ did not return. That's 75%!!!

Capt Johnnie Walker. He was the master U Boat hunter of the Battle of the Atlantic.  This is the story of a remarkable, yet very ordinary Royal Naval Officer who devised a deadly method of combating the threat from Germany's U boats.  He could "smell" a U boat and, accompanied by a small flotilla, took them on and won against all the odds. Includes pages on his ships, Wild Goose, Wren etc
HMS Westcott. Once credited with first successful; 'hedgehog' attack but now known to have sunk U581 by ramming.

HQ Western Approaches. This until recently secret and forgotten HQ was probably the most responsible HQ of all for "winning" the war. Without HQ Western Approaches Britain would have been starved into submission. Based in Liverpool, I recommend a visit to it to see for yourself. Authentically original in all aspects.
Wilhelm Gustloff. A maritime disaster that by far eclipses events such as the Lusitania or the Athenia, the relatively unknown story of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by a Soviet submarine.
SS Yoma. DEMS ship en route from Tripoli to Alexandria, torpedoed by U-81
HMS Zulu. A Tribal Class Destroyer that died as a result of Italian bombings in the Med in Sept 1942 and of Eric Bell who served upon her.

Looking for images of old ships? Try http://www.photoship.co.uk/