208953 PO. Louis George Weare Royal Navy HMS Nelson My Late father, Louis Weare was on the Nelson in Pompeii Harbour in 1939. He joined the Royal Navy in 1938, like his father & grandfather before him. RN like the other forces were very big employers. My Dad was from Portsmouth, altho' my other forebearers hailed from Bristol. Dad said 'it was a helluva ship, because they had an admiral on board, altho' none of this hard discipline came his way, it did for others, in particular he mentioned too many stokers in the clink'
The Nelson struck a string of mines in Pompeii Harbour - now he knows it was a magnetic mine, dropped by a German plane. The damage was big, he said the big guns were bent and the train wheels skidded on the rail with their weight. So Dad spent time on shore... during the blitz! As he said - You just couldn't get away from it.
After this he joined the Penelope which also got hammered, and after the war HMS Mauritius. As he got older he became quite a hippy, and anti war. A real gentleman and not impressed at all with present day UK. He died in 2007, aged 90, had four children. He lost all his mates in WW2 and never made a close friend after that. God Bless you Dad, love you wherever you are.
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