224627 Marine George Wilfred Billington Royal Marines HMS Penelope from:Bristol Dad, George Billington was on several ships including the Cardiff and Newcastle I believe. The story I remember was his being on the Penelope and somewhere off Malta in an engagement and being injured on a large gun by being thrown against its interior after an explosion. He ended up in hospital in Malta and while there German fighters machine-gunned the hospital, killing the man opposite dad's bed, apparently because we had sunk a German hospital ship by mistake. Penelope left and Dad stayed during the heavy bombing.
When he was discharged from hospital he eventually boarded a ship going to India before managing to get home as there was no other means of getting off Malta. He went back there with my Mum on holiday in the 1980s, but it was a mistake as it brought back too many memories. Dad died aged 86 in 2003. He was a good man with a wonderful wife, my mum. He was very lucky, a lot of people were not, and we all need to remember how much we owe them.
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