I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety

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When I was reading background for my annotations to  " I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety" I tried to understand what preceded British involvement in the war in the Pacific. Although the British Pacific Fleet didn't commence operations until 1945, the preparations were evolving throughout 1944. I stumbled upon some new information recently while reading "Churchill and Sea  Power" by Christopher M. Bell.  Apparently Churchill himself was very keen on a British only initiative in S.E. Asia and was not at all in favour of sending the Royal Navy to join with the Americans. He was committed to Operation Culverin which was intended to establish a British presence in Malaya and Sumatra with the objective of ultimately re-taking Singapore. However, since November 1943, the Chiefs of Staff of the three armed forces had been in discussions with the Americans about a British presence in the Pacific using bases in Australia. Churchill managed to get confirmation fro

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Visit our website http://www.spurwing-ebooks.com for details of all our books.

In the introduction to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II   I make the point that the majority of volunteers into the armed forces for the duration of WW2 had had little expectation of global travel prior to the war. When he signed up for the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in 1943 my dad, Norman Buckle, had only ever been on holiday to a few seaside resorts such as Scarborough, Blackpool and Morecambe. He rarely went more than a few miles from home and usually this was on his bike. His war-time experiences took him over 4,000 miles from South Yorkshire to the coast of West Africa and over 12,000 miles to the Pacific Island of Ponam via Sidney in Australia. Norman was born in 1924 in Royston, a coal mining village in South Yorkshire. His mother's family (The Smiths) had moved to Royston in about 1880 and his father's family (The Buckles) had gone there in the late 1890s. The Smiths came from Mon

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Norman aka Lofty is far left, second row from back When my dad first joined the Royal Navy in October 1942 he was sent for initial training to H.M.S. Royal Arthur. This was a naval shore base at the Butlin's Holiday Camp in Skegness, Loncolnshire which the Royal Navy had taken over for training purposes at the start of the war. My dad was just over eighteen and a half years old when he signed up as a wartime volunteer. He was almost 6' 1" tall and for that reason was nick-named "Lofty". Recently a friend has been doing some delving into his own father's World War II story; he's found that his father trained at H.M.S.Royal Arthur too. However his dad met a local Skegness girl and the rest, as they say, is history. There's a great Pathe News clip of some new recruits at H.M.S. Royal Arthur if you follow this link:  http://www.britishpathe.com/video/hms-royal-arthur If you want to read more of the book follow either of these links to read a fre

When my dad set off on his long journey to Sierra Leone in October 1943 he noted in his diary that he'd thrown a coin into the river for luck when crossing the Forth Bridge by railway on the way to Liverpool Docks for embarkation. Wednesday 13 th October 1943 "Left Dunfermline on the 4.45 for Glasgow . As we went over the Forth Bridge threw a halfpenny over for luck, although I reckon that won’t be much good if we get “tinfished” in the Bay." Tinfished meant being torpedoed. When I found the poem by Rudyard Kipling about "pack drill" which I referred to in a previous post I also found this poem entitled "Tinfish" written by Kipling during the First World War. "Tin Fish" The ships destroy us above   And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we move   In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes   To mark where we come . . . But the mirth of a seaport dies   When our blow gets hom

 Sidney Buckle, Norman Buckle, Elsie Buckle (nee Smith) This photo is Norman with his mum (Elsie) and dad (Sidney) and I think he looks about one year old. My guess is that they had this picture taken to celebrate his first birthday. They were quite old parents (especially for that era) as Elsie was 39 and Sidney was 43 when Norman was born. They'd already had a son (Vernon) in 1921 but he'd only lived for a few days before he died. Sidney was a coal miner in the South Yorkshire coal fields as were his father and grandfather before him. Norman had left school and gone to work in an office just before the outbreak of WW2. He signed up for the Fleet Air Arm in 1942 and after training as a radio mechanic for a year he was sent to the Royal Navy air-base at a village called Hastings, near Freetown the capital of Sierra Leone. 

I wrote in the introduction to  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II about Norman's family background. "His father, grandfather and great grandfather all worked at the local colliery and his paternal grandfather had been an under-manager at the pit." I think this photograph was taken in the 1890's. "Father" is the little boy standing on the front row. He was Sidney Henry Buckle (1881 - 1969). He spent his entire working life underground first as a pit pony boy and later in the maintenance of ropes and cables. Whenever I see images of pit ponies I'm always surprised at how big some of them are; certainly some are Shetland pony sized but others were much taller. Check out this link for stacks of images and you'll see what I mean.  Images of pit ponies  When I was about six or seven years old Sidney Henry, who was my grandad, used to take us for walks in the countryside arou