Alfie Batchelor and Reg Ellison

Alf

I volunteered for the Navy, but by the time I got in they also called me up! Me and a friend volunteered and we had the medical, then the letter came to call us up, but I did volunteer.

Reg

I joined the Navy in 1939. I passed the exam, and they gave you the King's shilling then when you joined as a regular. I joined the HMS Westminster and went on the western approaches. Nobody knew what the German Navy were going to do. We were preparing for them to come down through Flushing Harbour, Zeebrugge, Belgium and Holland. I was in what they called e-boat alley, because it swarmed with e-boats; ships were sunk by the dozen.

Alf

After I joined up I went to Warrington and did the square bashing. I didn't know an aeroplane from a steamroller! I joined this squadron 855, the American torpedo bombers, and we did a lot of coastal command work chasing the German shipping up and down the coast. Then they refit The Emporer and I finished up on that out in the East, the Indian Ocean, Carnicabar Island and Sumatra where the Kamikaze bombers were based.

There are some parts of a carrier ship that are primitive - the toilets! Some were just a long plank with holes in and you'd sit shoulder to shoulder. There's no privacy whatsoever. Seawater is gushing out through the scuppers and you're doing what you've got to do, but there was always some joker on the end and he'd set light to the paper and drop it.

Reg

And it would run down the plank!

Alf

I'm sure that's how the Mexican wave was started!

We were giving air cover to the minesweepers in the straits of Malacca. On the way back they decided to do a dawn attack on Sumatra. Well we caught them unawares and blowed them all to bits, all the Kamikaze bombers. It came over the tannoy on the mess deck that 200 carrier-based bombers had attacked Sumatra. Well there were 18 of us so that doesn't add up, but that was the propaganda.

It's only later years that I've looked back and thought God blimey Alf, you were lucky! You see on the flight deck it was my job when a plane came on to refuel it. I mean, I'm standing there with a petrol hose and all these bullets going past! It never dawned on me that it could ignite and I'd go sky high. When it took off I'd have to wait for it to come back so I'd climb inside one of the lockers underneath the flight deck. One time I heard Bing! Bang! Bong! And it was a cannon shell from the Japanese, dropped in front of me, so somebody up there likes me. But we were young, it was one big sky lark to me if I'm honest.

I have seen people afraid. We had one plane in front, then two at the side all he way down the flight deck. This plane of mine was in front and my job was to shove a coffen cartridge up the breech before the electric inertia came in to start the plane. This kid, who's the engineer, was supposed to be in the cockpit to fire it and warm it up for the pilot. But he was hiding under the bridge and there was nothing I could do. If you can understand my point, he was holding the rest back. He'd just lost it. We covered up for him though, so he got away with it.

We went to the invasion of the Rangoon. Our 6 weeks were up and we came back to the harbour. The ship, the Keydive, had broken down. They had Avengers on board and we had Hellcats, they were torpedo bombers, heavier planes. So we had to take the place of the Keydive and go straight out again chasing this Japanese cruiser. This is right at the end of the Japanese war, we crippled it and the destroyers moved in.

Reg

I joined the Indomitable and we escorted the Queen Mary across a very wild part of the North Atlantic. We didn't know at the time, but Churchill was on it. The war had started in Pearl Harbour and he was anxious to get over there and encourage them to start in Europe first. Then we went on into the eastern fleet.

Admiral Phillips had ordered the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, who were at Sydney, and the Indomitable to rendezvous and go up into the dragon's mouth, where the Japanese were. Phillips was arrogant enough to think they'd be scared of these 3 ships, after what they'd done to Pearl Harbour! Just think about it! Now the Prince of Wales and the Repulse got smashed to smithereens; wiped out. Our captain, Captain Moore, was taken for a court-martial, and we said they should have given him a medal for saving the Indomitable, that's what it amounted to, because the easiest one of those 3 ships to sink would have been the Indomitable.

All along the African coast Rommel was in charge. It was impossible to supply Malta. All they'd been doing was sending the odd submarine or plane, totally inadequate to keep them going. So we'd got a new captain, and he said we're going back to Europe for an exercise that is so dangerous that those of us who survive will be able to say in years to come "I was there". So of course we all said that sounds handy! We went back to Gibraltar to the most amazing sight. There were 14 merchant ships flanked by HMS Eagle, Indomitable, Victorious, Hermes, Rodney the big battleship just astern, an arrow of the best cruisers we'd got, and outside of them a mass of destroyers. An unbelievable sight, but we're going to sail right into their backyard! We were flanked on all sides, and I still can't believe it now actually, but for 3 days and nights, slaughter is not the word for it. The Italians had high level bombers, there were the Stuka dive bombers and Messerschmitt 110 planes, which was a fighter bomber, and we knew sooner or later we'd run into the well-known wolf pack of submarines. They attacked constantly, God knows where they got all the ammunition and energy from.

Before we got hit, somebody said "look at the Eagle!". She was toppling over towards us, been hit by 2 torpedoes. If that sub had been facing the Indomitable, I wouldn't be here. Our sailors were diving into the sea, obviously she was going, and when they were amassed in the sea one of our own destroyers came up and dropped depth charges! It had to, because they knew the subs were below. I'll never forget that.

Just after that we were hit on the flight deck, right on the stern. Our marines manned their own turret, the starboard side turret, all marines wiped out with a bomb! And then we also got a bomb on the port side, and we're supposed to be supplying aircraft. Impossible! In the meantime, the destroyers and cruisers are being knocked off, ten a penny. Any my mate, my real boozer mate, a Stuka dive bomber came down and he caught it right in the head.

Anyway, these 14 merchant ships that were the purpose of the convoy, only 3 got to Malta. All the rest smashed, the Indomitable put out of action. Nobody could understand the fury that had been thrown at us. We all couldn't get into Valetta harbour, so the Indomitable and the bigger ships turned round and started to go home, remarkably unattacked because they just hadn't got the resources to come again.

When we first entered the Mediterranean they said we're alright, we're going to get air protection from squadrons of beaufighters. So we've gone through all that, and we've never seen a beaufighter, and as we get near Gibraltar they came over. Well you can imagine the signals we gave them! But it wasn't their fault. The Germans knew everything and they had waited until the last minute and attacked them.

We'd had 60 killed and God knows how many wounded on the Indomitable. Our people knew this was going to happen. They'd got the sheets of canvas laid out on deck for anybody who volunteered to go and put the bodies in, and they put a shell by the side of each one. Then on the evening they build a wooden chute down the far end of the ship. It was just sunset and they had a boy marine play the last post. He started it and he's crying, 16 you know, so one of the others took it from him and finished it for him, and that was that.

When I was on the Westminster, every night we were in a constant fight with E-boats, a brilliant ship, low in the water and very fast. They fired the anti-personnel gun that was specifically for gun crews, and 4 of us got hit. I got it worst, burning hot shrapnel in the back of my leg. It was pitch black and then I couldn't feel my leg. The lads dragged me up and took me to the sick bay. All of that night and most of the next day I was hoping to die. I didn't have any treatment or injections. We got to the naval hospital and I went straight down for an operation. An officer said he was going to save the shrapnel for me as a souvenir, but I told him I wasn't interested. When I came round I could see these shapes at the foot of the bed with hoods on and lanterns. I thought I've gone! They were singing silent night and I remembered it was Christmas Eve! I really thought for those few seconds that I'd gone. The officer came in the next morning and asked the nurse where the shrapnel was. I told him I wasn't remotely interested. It turned out that it had been thrown out. He went mad! At the time it didn't bother me, but since then I've often thought it would've been quite nice.

Alf

Coming out I started married life living with my mother and two sisters. Then we had a bedsit in Nechells. I was working at the Delta on nights on the pump house engines, and God knows what. Twelve hours a night, coming home and standing in the queue for coal. I've stood all day and worked all night. I was bitterly disappointed, I mean talk about a home fit for heroes. You expected better.

Alf and Reg show their medals.

Alf

That's nice that is Reg. What's the inscription, I've got the wrong glasses on?

Reg

Oh I don't know Alf, I've hardly looked at it.

Alf (inspects the medal closely)

For drinking five Coke Cola's a day, Reg Ellison has been awarded this medal!

I didn't know Reg had been wounded until the other week. We were standing at the bus stop and this lump of shrapnel fell out of his trouser leg. I picked it up and said is this yours?