240240 William Morgan Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm from:Birmingham My dad, William Morgan, was drafted near the end of WW2 when he reached 18 years of age. He spent time at HMS Royal Arthur before being sent to Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), just as hostilities ended.
Of his time at HMS Royal Arthur, he reckoned that Lord Haw-Haw twice reported it had been sunk. Dad also told us about the Liberty Boat. If they missed the last Liberty Boat after an evening out in the town, they had to stay outside the gates until the first Liberty Boat the next morning.
He had a few more stories of his time in Ceylon, much of which was based at a small, grass airstrip. One day, a squadron of planes was diverted there after the first plane crashed on attempting to land on a carrier. The planes all had their landing hooks down, and no way of retracting them. The airstrip looked like a plowed field after they had all landed.
Another story concerned a flashing runway marker light. After some months, someone noticed it was flashing Morse code. When they found someone that understood Morse, they found it was flashing 'Testing Testing ...'.
My mum, his girlfriend then, used to send him a stick of shaving soap every week. Dad did not have the heart to tell her that they lasted months, and was supplying all his mates with them.
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