The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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209031 Acting Ldg Sea David Cox MID Royal Navy HMS Penelope from:London My father served on HMS Penelope from June 1941 until she was sunk by enemy action in February 1944. He was mentioned twice in Dispatchs, first in 1942 following the siege of Malta where he served as a naval air gunner on Penelope and then later when he saved the lives of two shipmates when they spent between 24 and 48 hours in the water waiting to be picked up. Dad told me of the horror when the American rescue ship came in too close to the survivors, killing some with their propellors. Following the sinking, my mother received a telegram telling her my father was missing presumed drowned whereupon she gave up her flat where she was living with my brother then aged 2 and returned to live with her parents. Imagine the shock when one dark night the door bell rang and my father was standing there! In April 1945, my father joined HMS Nelson and was at Penang for the surrender of the Japanese and then one month later, he was at Singapore and the liberation of Chiangi jail which held many British POWs. Dad was in the advance party that entered the jail and he said that they entered full of high spirits at setting their countrymen free only to be met with suspicion and distrust as these poor men had learnt to trust no one and nothing. This could only have been another trick of their captors! Dad was demobbed in February 1946 and returned to civvy life with the same dedication and good humour he had shown during active service. He was a reservist for many years and I can remember his kitbag residing in our understairs cupboard until after I started school and I wasn't born until 1947, 2 years after the war ended. My father died in 1975 aged only 54 and I have little doubt that his war service contributed to his early demise. Barbara Compton Add to this record.  Related Content: HMS Penelope Siege of Malta HMS Nelson 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.