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 William
(Bill) George West was born on January 8, 1925 in Stockport, twelve miles from
Manchester in Cheshire, a northern England industrial
town with both cotton mills and hat factories. His mother was a milliner,
his father a mill manager and formerly a soldier of the British Army in India.
Bill was one of two sons. A brother, Tony, was born when Bill was seventeen.
During the war Tony was little, and whenever saw a plane going over, he thought
it was Bill.
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Bill West
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Stockport was a Roman fortress town
and historically one of the oldest Roman centres in England.
“When I was a boy there were
still Roman cobbled streets/roads about including our main road fully cobbled
'five chariots wide' running through our town centre from London to the North.
We had the Stockport Tram Lines on the cobbles! The trams have gone now and so
have the cobbles but the authorities have kept some sections for heritage
reasons.”
“I had a happy childhood. I went
to church and Sunday school at St. Mathews, Edgeley, became a Cub and later a Boy
Scout, and a member of the Air Training Corps.” Bill attended Stockport
School and left
school at age fifteen.
At the outbreak of war
in 1939, with so many men enlisted in the services, there was no shortage of
jobs for a young man. Bill
applied for and received a position with the LMS Railways. The Company
sent him back to part time school at Stockport College to become a bookkeeper
but Bill joined up before he finished the course. We experienced air raids on
Manchester and Stockport experienced air raids and Bill, although in the Air
Training Corps was a messenger in the Auxiliary Fire Service.
“The industries of Manchester
had been severely bombed and some of the over-bombing struck parts of Stockport.
There were many casualties and in most of our minds there was a distrust and
even hatred of the enemy, so many of us were volunteers before our call up
dates.”
“When World War II broke out
my home town of Stockport had at least a dozen cinemas and my suburb of Edgeley
had two and most folk went to the pictures. Just before I was eighteen in
1942, I went to the Alexandra Cinema and watched a war film about the Royal
Navy's Fleet Air Arm and what its ‘birdies’ did. I was already impressed with
the Fleet Air Arm, but as I was nearing call up and it was said that
volunteering got you into the unit of choice, I volunteered and applied to join
the Royal Navy as aircrew in the Fleet Air Arm.”
Just before turning eighteen, Bill received a
letter from the recruiting office with orders to report to the Air Crew
Selection Board at Crewe in Cheshire. An interview and medical followed.
*I asked to join the
Fleet Air Arm as aircrew and after a selection board interview and tests I was accepted to
do a Telegraphist Air Gunners’ course.”
After several weeks and nearing his birthday he
got the approval letter and a train ticket to HMS Royal Arthur at Skegness on
the east coast of England. Royal Arthur,
the former
Butlins Holiday center at the sea-side resort in Skegness
had hut accommodations and was taken over by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of
war. As a ‘boot camp’, the new recruits were given the usual sailor’s uniform
and lots of military drill
by a Chief Petty officer.
The group was then sent to the
cadet training school at HMS Saint Vincent, Gosport, in Hampshire, for air radio
and aircrew regulation training.
After a month at HMS Saint
Vincent, Bill was one of those chosen to train
at No 1 Air Gunners School at East
Camp, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in Canada and
was sent to a holding base in
Glasgow, on the Clyde, to await passage. During the war fifty percent of
Telegraphist Air Gunners were selected to train at East Camp.
The group crossed the Atlantic on the liner RMS
Queen Elizabeth from Glasgow
to New York. In New York that ship would berth alongside the French
liner
Normandie, which was turned over on it side attributed to Nazi sabotage.
They stayed at the
Royal Navy service camp
at Astbury Park,
New Jersey. The camp had been, prior to the war, holiday apartments for New
Yorkers. The Royal Navy barracks comprised two hotels which were fenced
and had a center forecourt as a parade ground. From there the group travelled by train to Boston and to St
John, New Brunswick in Canada. From St. John they crossed the Bay of Fundy to
Digby in Nova Scotia on the ferry Princess Helene and by train to Yarmouth.
“The Princess Helene was
blacked out because of U-boat activity and we were told that another ferry, a
sister ship to the Princess Helene, had been sunk most likely by a mine from a U-boat”
In April 1942, it was reported by intelligence services
that a submarine might try to attack the dry-dock in Saint John and the Princess
Helene. The ferry SS Caribou, from Sydney to Newfoundland, was sunk on October
15, 1941 with 137 lives lost. The Princess Helene made two return trips daily,
Between St. John and Digby.
The
group of young British lads became Course 50A at Yarmouth for Telegraphist Air Gunners.
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Bill West (far right) at East Camp, Yarmouth, NS - 1942
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Training went on with very few breaks because of the weather. Air radio
in the Fleet Air Arm had just moved into RT (radio telephony); however, it was
new and WT (wireless telegraphy) for Morse code was still very much used as it had
a much longer range than RT.
“We did ops room training for
about eight weeks before we were chosen for flying and sent to the RCAF store to
get our aircrew log book with Royal Canadian Air Force printed on the cover. We
trained in Fairey Swordfish with both Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air
Force pilots. The course was issued with RCAF aircrew log books, which is the
only one I had. The trainee TAG's did air radio exercises, air to ground plus
plane to plane. We had to roll out very long trailing antennae and drag it back.
The trainee also had to wind down and lock the wheel undercarriage for landing.”
Bill’s first flight at East Camp
was for wireless training on September 20, 1943 at 0930 hours in a Swordfish
piloted by P/O Hayward. The flight lasted forty minutes. His last training
flight was on December 29, 1943. That flight lasted over 8 hours.
“Our 'passing out' certificates
were in the form of regulation cloth/paper record forms headed "History Sheet
for Telegraphist Air-Gunner and Rating Observer" with all our examination
results listed. We had to immediately hand them back to the Writers' Office and
we were formally presented with TAG Wings which we wore on the left cuff.”
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Bill West - Summer 1942
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Like many of the young British TAGs
training at East Camp, Bill made friends with people in Yarmouth.
“I recall the Lake Milo Yacht
Club and taking Betty Miller to a dance there (or she took me). I also recall
ice yachts on Lake Milo after a big freeze, fridges were not around in those
days, but many Yarmouth folk had ice chests and I do recall a Yarmouth ice
company cutting huge portions of ice and burying that cut ice for sale later
on.”
Another
memory I recall was that Helen Gavel worked in the Woolworth Store on the main
street.”
At eighteen years of age, Bill was confident and
outgoing. He spent time at the Gavel farm in Richfield traveling by the train
from Yarmouth to Richfield and detraining in the village of Hectanooga in Digby
County. The village lies in rural Nova Scotia beyond Richfield. There he worked
in the hay during the summer of 1942, spent time walking the wooded road to the
river and relaxing away from East Camp.
On completion of his training
George Gavel and his wife Cleta gave Bill a copy of the Bible which he still has
among his belongings. Cleta Gavel corresponded with Bill’s mother in England
during the war.
Bill returned to Britain and
Lee-on-Solent
after his TAG training on the Dutch liner New
Amsterdam from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Bill had seven operational training flights
from the Fleet Air Arm Station at Lee-On-Solent before temporarily joining
826 Squadron.
For the next four years
Bill was with 820 Squadron assigned
to HMS Indefatigable spending time both in the Atlantic and Pacific campaigns
Bill was sent to the Royal Navy Airs Station in
Crail Scotland for Ops training in Barracudas. He never managed to fly in the
Barracuda because 826 Squadron within a few weeks of his arrival was merged into
820 which flew Grumann Avengers.
Down with a bad case of the flu he didn’t
participate when 826 Squadron flying Barracudas went to sea to attack the
German battleship Tirpitz in Alten Fiord Norway
in Operation ‘Goodwood IV’ during
August 1944.
Training in Avengers was completed at the Royal
Navy Air Station Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands. 820 Squadron then rejoined the
HMS Indefatigable with the new Avengers and with the rest of the British
Pacific Fleet sailed for the Indian Ocean and then into the Pacific Ocean.
There were twelve more advanced training
flights from the Royal Navy Air Station HMS Ukussa in Ceylon in the district of
Katakarunda not far from Colombo. These training flights were flown off the
Indefatigable in December 1944.
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Attack at Palambang
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Squadrons
from HMS Indefatigable and other aircraft carriers of the British Royal Navy
Pacific Fleet led air strikes against the Japanese held oil refinery at Medan on
January 4, 1945, and against the Japanese held Dutch Oil refinery at Palambang on January
24 and 29, 1945. On the 29th, the final day of operations,
having made the two hundred mile flight from the carriers over ocean and the
jungle terrain of Sumatra, the British Avengers came under heavy attack
from Japanese Zero fighters and ground artillery.
“Just
before our Grumann Avenger got to the target we lost engine revs and couldn't
keep up with the main strike force. We were still flying on course but we
observed Japanese Army buildings that were not far from the general target area.
To lose a lot of weight we bombed the new target then started to limp back to
the Indefatigable on our own. We were fortunate not to meet any Zeros. We had
flown from the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra to the target area on the other
side. Getting back all on our own was dicey.”
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HMS Indefatigable
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Following the Palambang strikes HMS
Indefatigable sailed for Sydney Australia where several destroyers from the
Royal Australian Navy joined the larger Royal Navy Aircraft Carriers as escort.
HMAS Quiberon became attached to HMS Indefatigable. Earlier HMAS Quiberon had
picked up some downed flyers from 820 Squadron after an encounter with the
Japanese Air Force.
Sydney, Australia became the home port for the
largest fleet ever assembled by the Royal Navy. That fleet included battleships,
cruisers, destroyers, tankers, supply ships, minesweepers as well as several
light fleet carriers, an aircraft repair carrier, and former merchant ships
fitted with flight decks called auxiliary or MAC (merchant aircraft carrier)
ships. Among the five
aircraft carriers was HMS Indefatigable. The fleet was made up of warships
from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and France.
The Pacific Fleet moved on to
Sumatra and carried out strikes on the Sakishima Islands and Japan itself.
Until the landings at Okinawa the task
assigned the British Pacific carriers was to attack Japanese airfields on groups
of Japanese islands called The Sakishima Gunto and the Ryuku Islands.
Prior to those attacks, 820 Squadron carried
out operations against small shipping in Hirara Harbour, Myoko Jima, south of
Japan.
“After Palambang the Squadron made strikes
against small Japanese shipping in Hirara Harbour on
Myoko Jima south of Japan. This raid was on March 27, 1945. It was successful
and a few days later we sensed there was a Japanese sub some where checking us
out. We did a checkered anti sub patrol with others of the squadron with no
result. This was on March 30, 1945. On the next day we did a
strike on the Japanese airfields on Ishigake. Our aim was to wreck the runways
and this we did. We were successful with raids on shipping in all parts of the
Sakishima Gunto. Similar raids took place on April 7th, 10th,
13th, 15th, 17th, and on the 29th.”
 On
Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945 the British fleet carriers had flown off their
first fighter strike when Japanese aircraft were detected by radar seventy-five
miles to the eastward, closing in on the fleet at 210 knots at a height of 8000
feet. Low cloud and consequent poor visibility gave initial advantage to the
Japanese, who split their formation some forty miles from the fleet.
The ships were firing
at the enemy aircraft when a Kamikaze bomber carrying a 250-kilogram bomb came
out of the clouds and attacked HMS Indefatigable. The plane crashed across the
carrier flight deck.
“I
was on board when the Kamikaze plane hit the after end of the Island Control
unit rear of the bridge where the island sick bay is situated and finished
exploding on the flight deck alongside. A few aircraft were damaged but
four officers and
ten ratings were killed and sixteen others were wounded.
The sick bay was empty except for the doctor on
duty who was killed in the attack. He was a Canadian doctor on loan to the Royal
Navy.”
The Canadian,
twenty-nine year-old
Dr. Alan McCarthy Vaughan (Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer
Reserve) was serving as a Surgeon Lieutenant aboard HMS Indefatigable.
“The British aircraft carriers had armour
plate steel flight decks unlike the United States carriers that had wooden
flight decks. While this gave them a somewhat larger ship with more aircraft
than the British carriers, those wooden decks were an ideal target
for kamikazes.”
Bill participated in eleven strikes on the
Japanese including one anti submarine search. On his last operation, April 29, 1945, his aircraft didn’t
quite land smoothly on the aircraft carrier. He was thrown forward and his face
injured. Initially, he was taken to sick bay and the facial injury bandaged;
however, the following day it was discovered the injury was more serious. After
Bill passed out and once again found himself in sick bay, a decision was made to
return him on a hospital ship to Sydney,
Australia.
Sydney, Australia became a
favourite place for R&R. Various centres were established in the city to
provide allied service personnel with meals and recreation. Freed from the
military hospital with a pass, Bill and Denny Vaughn, another TAG, made their
way to the British Service
Club in Hyde Park.
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Gwen West
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Gwen
Jamieson, a Sydney girl, was employed
at the T & G Insurance Co. She
had answered a request
posted on a notice board at work to young Sydney women to go to the British
Service Club to help welcome young English service men. Her first night at the
Centre in mid 1945 she met Bill West.
After that first
meeting in the early part of 1945, they met every night as he had a leave pass
for every second night and a very good copy of a leave pass for every other
night. Bill became
a constant visitor at Gwen’s
house. He went to church with her and enjoyed the involvement and friendship of
her family.
Bill had to ask the
permission of the captain of the Indefatigable marry Gwen, and she had to go for
an interview to determine that she was suitable. The British Navy
was impressed with Gwen, a school teacher’s daughter who had graduated from
high school and was employed with an insurance company.
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Wedding - November 2, 1945
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Bill and
Gwen were married at Hurlstone Park Baptist Church, Sydney, at 7 p.m. on a Friday
night, November 2, 1945.
Bill
was involved in some early training of Australian Fleet Air Arm personnel at
Schofields in New South Wales. He did not return the Pacific Campaign.
In June
1945, HMS Indefatigable and 840 Squadron joined the 7th Carrier Air
Group, and was involved in strikes around Tokyo until the war ended and the
carrier returned to Sydney.
Bill returned to England on
Indefatigable in January 1946 to leave the Navy and resume employment in the
railway.
In 1946 civilian travel
was restricted as the seas were still fraught with danger and it wasn’t until July 3, 1946 that Gwen sailed from Sydney, one of 655 Australian war
brides of British servicemen, on the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious. Bill met Gwen at
Plymouth on August 7, 1946.
They reunited couple
settled down to live on in post-war England. They lived in Stockport and Gwen
worked at W. G. West, a business owned by Bill’s uncle.
Bill decided that post-war England
was not as attractive as Sydney and so
in the spring of 1947 Bill and Gwen
decided to return to Australia making the trip onboard the SS Stratheden on
its maiden voyage to
Australia after conversion from a troopship.
They were on a waiting list and a vacancy occurred three days before sailing.
The ship sailed from
Tilbury and arrived at 8:00 am on August 1, 1947 in Sydney Harbour.
Gwen was six months pregnant
and six weeks after arrival in Sydney the first of their three daughters was
born.
Bill
had a job organized in Australia
working as an apprentice French polisher with family friends who owned a
furniture making business. After three months he obtained employment with BP in
a clerical/administrative capacity. Bill continued to work with BP for
thirty-five years until his retirement in 1979.
On November 2, 2005, Bill and Gwen
West celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary.
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