The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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257992 Stok1. Stanley Hardy Royal Navy Minesweepers Royal Navy Patrol Service from:Doncaster My late father, Stanley Hardy, was the youngest of 11 children. Born in Doncaster in a mining community in 1923. His mother died when he was just 7 years old, and his father died when he was 11. His sister cared for him for a while until the welfare got involved and sent him and his brother to work in a shoe factory in Leicester to earn their keep. He was under 14 years of age at this time. Several of dad's brothers had enlisted in the Army and, not wishing to miss out on the action, he volunteered for the Royal Navy, just to be different from his brothers. He had never been to sea before and couldn't even swim. He was called up in March 1942 aged just 18years. He was always a very humble and stoical man, never ambitious but always ready to do his bit. He never spoke much about his service but he did reveal a few funny stories about his time in the Mediterranean where his major roll was minesweeping. He was based in Alexandria for some time and during that period, whilst returning from a short recreational break, he was stopped by an American seaman who asked him the time. Always obliging, dad glanced at his watch, and before he could utter another word, the American struck him over the head. When he regained consciousness, dad realised that his watch had disappeared and so had the American. When dad's commanding officer was informed of the mugging he marched dad to a nearby US vessel where they were greeted by the ships commander. The offender was identified, an apology given, along with a crate of bananas as compensation. The bananas were gratefully received by dad and his crew. However, their gratitude was short lived after they all got belly ache and spent hours digging holes in the desert. I am the middle child of dads five children and have been researching his service record for 9 months. I am proud and very humbled to find how he risked his life every day to keep harbours clear of deadly mines, and supply chains going. Sadly, dad passed away many years ago. He was always my hero before I learned of his bravery and will remain so forever. I salute ALL our brave service personnel. Pat Vause Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Naval Patrol Service 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.