He also had pastoral care for these young men, assisting them in keeping contact with their families, as well as helping them to find jobs. His knowledge of the various shipping companies no doubt proved invaluable when it came to getting their first job at sea. When the Second World War came in 1939, many of these boys were lost at sea when their ships again became the targets for U-boats. I have no doubt that this tragic loss of life affected my father deeply, although he never spoke about it to my mother.
Off duty, my father was an air-raid warden in the London bombing, remarkably surviving unscathed again. He was relocated to Liverpool as the port of London became untenable because of the threat from German bombers. (I am of the opinion that my father would have had official access to the top-secret Western Approaches command centre, deep underground in the centre of Liverpool. This centre for the command of the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945 was de-classified only after his death, so I was never able to prove it) |
