The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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204545 Able Seaman Norman Arthur "Nobby" Crowther Royal Navy HMS Penelope from: Walsall, West Midlands My Dad, Norman Crowther, was a survivor of the sinking of the H.M.S. Penelope in 1944 and told us many stories of the good times he had with his shipmates, and the history of a much loved ship. He went to the re-union in 1973 when the next H.M.S. Penelope was named, where he found out that some people he thought had perished had not and some he thought had survived had perished, you see he was taken to Malta after the sinking for some weeks, and lost touch with lots of his old shipmates. When he finally got back to England some weeks later he went to see some families in Walsall whose sons had not been so fortunate as him, he also got married to my Mom, and as he had lost everything when the ship went down he actually got married in an army uniform with just his sailors hat as it was the only thing he managed to retrieve. My Mom told me that the first news of the ship going down was broadcast by Lord Haw Haw who apparently took great delight in the sinking of what was a very famous ship. My Dad then went on to serve on other ships until he was demobbed in the 1950s. We were very proud of him, sadly he passed away in 1983. Kathryn Bramley Add to this record.  Related Content: HMS Penelope Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.