I was 17 years old. We were given a travel warrant - Carlisle to Fareham - leaving on the 8. After being given an official number, photographed etc. Others arrived during the day, all from the London area, about 28 in total.
The next few days were taken up with uniform issue and kit, marking the same and learning how to sling a hammock. Unfortunately our travelling companion from Carlisle was sent home as he had lied about his age.
Two or three weeks into our training a lone German bomber, probably lightening his load before heading home dropped one bomb which landed on a hut in the row next but one to ours killing 30 recruits and injuring over Also killed was a Chief Petty Officer who had apparently got out of bed to see what was going on. No- one seemed to know what to do with us on arrival not having had Plot Control ratings before so they put us in a General Mess.
The trip from Rosyth to Scapa Flow was my first time on the water since having a row on Derwent Water. Our first trip in anger was as covering force for Arctic convoy JW It was a memorable sight arriving in Akureyri Iceland , the city lights reflecting in the snow, especially after three years of blackouts in the UK.
Luckily I was never seasick. Sometime during the plot control and radar sections were amalgamated. We made I recall the first church service in Trondheim Cathedral after liberation, the boredom of the Fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow. Two false starts later, one on a Newfoundland Navy ocean going tug then an MGB we were finally picked up by HMS Stormcloud who was on her way to join the 12th for their sweeping operations out of Genoa and finally boarded Circe.
