The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War



This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.


If you enjoy this site

please consider making a donation.




    Site Home

    WW2 Home

    Add Stories

    WW2 Search

    Library

    Help & FAQs


 WW2 Features

    Airfields

    Allied Army

    Allied Air Forces

    Allied Navy

    Axis Forces

    Home Front

    Battles

    Prisoners of War

    Allied Ships

    Women at War

    Those Who Served

    Day-by-Day

    Library

    The Great War

 Submissions

    Add Stories

    Time Capsule

    TWMP on Facebook



    Childrens Bookshop

 FAQ's

    Help & FAQs

    Glossary

    Volunteering

    Contact us

    News

    Bookshop

    About


Advertisements











World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

208423

Ldg.Sea. Alfred "Wiggy" Bennett

Royal Navy HMS Acasta

from:Liverpool, England

My father, Alfred Bennett, was in the Royal Navy during WW II having served aboard a number of ships. He was just 19 years old. His job was "higher submarine detector" and his first ship was the "Acasta" then the "Coventry" and many more. He was aboard the "Coventry" when it was bombed on New Year's Day, 1940. The Germans dropped bombs alongside the ship and it sprung a leak. From there they went to the south of England for repairs.

He told me of being on board the HMS Havock when it was shelled by a battleship two miles off the coast of Gibraltar. He said he swam to shore and was taken by the Vichy French to a POW camp. They were taken to Tunis across the Atlas mountans to Algeria. He said that they were taken by train over very steep mountains. "You could look right over the edge of the tracks straight down". His Royal Navy papers record him as "missing presumed interred - H.M.S. Havock." Then there's a little note that reads "now safe in the U.K." He also told me of a game that they played during free time called "Tom Bowler". I wish that I had paid more attention or had asked more questions so that I could pass this part of our family history on to future generations.

If your veteran is still alive, I hope that you can take the opportunity to talk to them about their experience in the war(s).






Related Content:








Can you help us to add to our records?

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.




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.