209415 WO. Arthur Kitchener Coulson Royal Navy HMS Manchester from:Portsmouth My Dad Arthur Coulson served on HMS Manchester during WW2.
He was a warrant officer, I believe, in charge of the weapons control systems and was involved right from commissioning in Newcastle (the shipyard had to use Glaswegians to translate as the southern officers could not understand the local accent) He was one of those who managed to swim to shore when the ship was torpedoed and ended up in the prison camp.
His views of the Vichy French were unprintable but beyond that he wouldn't talk about it. He was also in Scapa Flow over Xmas when the fleet was expecting war to be declared and said that it was one of his most miserable Xmas's ever. Additional Information: | Of all the convoy duties he was involved in, he said that the Artic convoy runs were the worst.
The weather was often appalling and the bow of the ship would be so heavily covered in ice that as the ship's bow tried to lift out of a wave, the ship would shudder and you could hear every rivet straining... The weather was a two edged sword as when bad the ship's ovens would be shut down so the food would be miserable, but good weather meant waves of air attacks from Norway.
He remembered severe bow damage from an engagement in the Mediterean with the Captain
having to close the forward bulkheads and then the ship limping into Malta and then having to lead a team into the damaged area to remove bodies.
Despite the bad press generally about the Italians, he had tremendous respect for their Torpedo boats. Fast with brave crews as extremely vulnerable to gunfire.
Alan Coulson
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