Our online forms and systems

Some of our forms and systems will be offline between 7:00pm on Tuesday 26 March and 7:00am on Wednesday 27 March. Forms or payments submitted or made by phone after 8:30pm may not be received. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

Image showing Joe Dodds
Joe Dodds, Royal Navy

Joe Dodds

I was called up into the Navy at the latter end of '43. I did the training and went out to the Far East. I was a torpedo man you see; never fired a torpedo in anger, but there you are! My war service was about 2 years, but during that time I did extensive training for torpedo work. We had to do all the electrical work on board ship as well.

A torpedo is in all different sections. They change the warheads in peacetime. They charge them when you get them aboard ship so if they let one go as soon as it hits the object, that's it. You've got the engine room, and what's called the buoyancy chamber. When a torpedo is fired, you have to set a certain depth so that it doesn't go under the ship. All this has to be done in a split second.

When I came out of training, I didn't get a ship. They sent me off packing to Sri Lanka; Ceylon they called it. Right in the heart of the jungle there was a secret base. We didn't know what it was; they sent us in a lorry, 20 to 30 torpedo men. We thought we were going into action, to be honest. Anyway, we finished up in the jungle about 30 miles inland and this base was full of torpedoes and warheads. What we had to do was supply any ships or submarines that were in action. It was all taboo, we couldn't say anything at the time.

When we got leave they'd take us right up into the mountains in Ceylon, the climate is beautiful up there. They had a camp up there, and the local tea plantations. Most of them were English, so they'd invite us to the plantations to show you how it was all done. We were about 40 miles from Colombo, but you'd only get one day there. They'd never let us stay the weekend, you never know what trouble you could get into if you had too much to drink; that sort of thing.

The conditions in the jungle were terrible. You were sweating during the day and freezing at night. The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either; a lot of the lads were going down with dysentery and things like that. Nineteen months I had of this. I broke down with, like the flu it was. I came home on the hospital ship and spent 6 weeks in Liverpool, but I got better again. I didn't see any action though. I was one of the lucky ones, if you put it that way.

So, in actual fact I didn't get out to sea until I came back to England. I didn't come out of the Navy until 1948, so I joined the home fleet and did minesweeping. I went up to Scotland on a destroyer and swept all of those waters. You have a fleet of minesweepers and the navigator works out each section of sea. There are different kinds of mines, the floating mine, acoustic mine, all that sort of thing. We used to destroy them with rifle fire.

It was very good working on the minesweeping because you had no war on for a start. You had your discipline, but nothing like in wartime obviously. Our skipper was a good lad. He only had one eye, whether he lost it during the war or not I don't know, but we used to call him Nelson! Then they called us in for the training of pilots for the aircraft carriers. The most difficult thing for the pilot is getting that aircraft onto the deck. So we used to trail the aircraft. One or two did go over into the sea, so we'd nip over and take them out. We saved 3 or 4 young pilots like that.

The Nautical club

I think this makes a very interesting story. We've got a lovely friendship between the two Navies'. We went on a trip to Hamburg in 1978 and that was when we met Karl Donitz. We were in the church with the Bismarck group when he went through.

At the church service we saw this old gentleman coming out of a car with 2 bodyguards, and they took him inside. I thought he looks familiar, but it didn't register just then. We came out of the service, and this German officer came up and said "this is Karl Donitz, Deputy Fuhrer". Donitz said he wanted to shake hands with the British sailors before he left. I think that makes interesting reading, Birmingham sailors shook hands in friendship with the German Deputy Fuhrer. Donitz was appointed Deputy Fuhrer even when Hitler was alive.

Mrs Dodds

The reason they went was to place flowers for the people who died on HMS Hood and The Bismarck. On one side the English lads would place wreaths for the Hood, and the Germans on the other. They'd place the wreaths together.

At first it was just the men who went. Then some of the women said they'd like to go, so they invited the ladies. I must admit the first time I didn't want to go. Because you are still thinking about what did happen. And, it was my mother actually, she said "I've lived through two world wars, and once war is over you should forget. You should go over and meet them".

When we went over I couldn't believe it. One of the first ladies that greeted us had been married to one of the lads off The Bismarck, and her husband had died when the ship went down. She was expecting a baby, so he never saw his child. And she was one of the first to come and put her arms around us, and hug us. I've never been made welcome anywhere so much in my whole life. So when you start talking to them and meeting the families, you realise they're no different to us. It makes you see a different side of it then.

rating button