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Able Sea. William Henry Lewis
Royal Navy HMS Aurora
from:Acton, London
My father, William Lewis served aboard HMS Aurora and was stationed mainly in Malta, Convoy to Archangel [Russia] and D-day. He didn't speak much about the war but I have found his service record and torpedo launch records (St Vincent, where he had an average score 72.5%, which based on the technology of the day made this a pretty good rating. I also have a book the Silver Phantom, which is written by the crew about the exploits of HMS Aurora. Apparently the nickname was given to the ship by the Chinese, but there is no record of Aurora being stationed in the Pacific basin during WW2.
He did tell me a little of his time in Malta and how they used to look at dolphins for spotting U-Boats in the Med, apparently, dolphins dive under water when subs purge tanks. I went to Malta and was lucky to be invited into a naval facility and when I mentioned that my father was stationed in Malta, they took me to a room and showed me a large amount of records and photos.
He also once made a comment when we watched the film "Saving Private Ryan", that D-day was not like that. Apparently, my father was on bridge, responsible for gunnery onto the beaches and inland, when an American broke radio contact with "take us off the beach". The captain (Agnew) pulled the headset off my father and shouted in no uncertain terms that they were to stay on the beach and get off the f****ing radio. My father never swore, so hearing that always made me think it was true.
He once told me that they transported the king to Gibraltar and that the king had gone out to smoke and left a door open, someone shouted to close the effing door and got a very polite apology from him.
I think he enjoyed his time in the med most and the trips to Archangel the least. However, he met my mum, when stationed in Glasgow. I have a varied family, as an aunt (Scottish) married a Dane who fought for the Ling and my dad's brothers all went to Canada to train RAF bomber crew and married Canadian women.
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