The Channels

[Michael Black]

Remember, Gear before beer 😇
Regards Michael

[Anne Hamilton]

Hi - I was on Oriana for that voyage. - telephonist. Remember the trip well. Had previously been with Union Castle on Pendennis Castle, their first ship with female telephonists (and for all I know any telephonists!) anyway as you said it was a long voyage.
Anne Hamilton (now a very old lady living in Australia)

[happy daze john in oz]

Yes we had female telophonists on the Windsor

One would offer services if you rang at the correct time, very nice too.

[Lewis McColl]

Ah well John nice to know not everyone in UCL was not a member of the Brown ring club.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Anne.
Welcome to the site, hope you stay and enjoy the company, we need more females to calm some of the lads!! down at times, and remember you are as old as you feel, many on this site including myself feel very young when we are reminiscing on here.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Hi Anne.
Welcome to the site, hope you stay and enjoy the company, we need more females to calm some of the lads!! down at times, and remember you are as old as you feel, many on this site including myself feel very young when we are reminiscing on here.
Cheers Des

Well Des, it has been said you are as young as the person you are feeling!!

[Ken Atkinson]

no one who hasn't been to sea
would appreciate 'The Channels'

Reading in a magazine article about WW2 Luftwaffe pilots suffering from "Channel Sickness" or as they called it "Kanalkrankheit" - a combination of chronic stress and acute fatigue brought on by constantly flying in the "Luftschlacht um England" or "Battle of Britain and Blitz". The confidence anticipating a swift victory was replaced by chronic fatigue and a crippling fear of drowning in "the small dirty water". Mid September to October 1940 there were 79 suicides and attempts and the Luftwaffe surgeon-general issued a directive for prevention of suicide. Average German bomber crew survived 3-4 sorties in this period. In November 1940 British intelligence report 158 came down in the channel usually dead.

[j.sabourn]

One of my earliest childhood memories must have been about 1941 when I was about 5 ,For some obscure reason we were staying in Droitwich and I had a girlfriend called Angela and we used to squeeze through the railings of a park at the bottom of the street.Their had been an air raid the previous night but not to be deterred we did the normal and visited the park where it was being said a plane had come down close by. We found a body on our wanders dressed like an aviator , but with his knees through his chest and later was told he was German pilot who had bailed out whose parachute had not opened . Myself being the brave kiddy I was managed to squeeze back through the railings and ran home to my mother leaving Angela stuck in the railings screaming her head off, it was a case of every man for himself. Today still don’t know if he was a British or German pilot maybe was just told he was a German to pacify us a bit. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

One of my earliest childhood memories must have been about 1941 when I was about 5 ,For some obscure reason we were staying in Droitwich and I had a girlfriend called Angela and we used to squeeze through the railings of a park at the bottom of the street.Their had been an air raid the previous night but not to be deterred we did the normal and visited the park where it was being said a plane had come down close by. We found a body on our wanders dressed like an aviator , but with his knees through his chest and later was told he was German pilot who had bailed out whose parachute had not opened . Myself being the brave kiddy I was managed to squeeze back through the railings and ran home to my mother leaving Angela stuck in the railings screaming her head off, it was a case of every man for himself. Today still don’t know if he was a British or German pilot maybe was just told he was a German to pacify us a bit. Cheers JS

Lovely bedtime story for the greatgrandad kids John

[Johnny Kieran]

My dad was cycling home from work during a dogfight, and a parachute was coming down near the Merry Fiddlers pub in Dagenham. The home guard were shooting at the pilot, but when he landed it was clear he was a British pilot and was shot in the leg.
Many years since he told me about it, but that was the gist of it.