Highlands and Islands

X-Craft Diver 1943 Introduction

The slight amount of diving practice to which until then X-craft crews had been exposed did not give them...

Return to London: Evacuation to Isle of Bute via Devon and Dorset

The Isle of Bute, West coast of Scotland is on the direct line from Glasgow using the steam ferry from...

Borland's World War II Part 3

When he got to Rothesay my sister was in bed with chicken pox. Apparently a German bomber was being chased...

A Lucky Escape

The other crewmembers were Flying Officer Ritchie, Flying Officer Faulks and Sergeant Hudson-Ball were the...

Why? (A Tragedy in Wartime Wick)

There were four boys Kenny MacGregor, Bruce Flett, Eric Blackstock and my brother John Wares. A memorial is...

Bill's War

It wasn't a bad posting, but neither was it without incident because there were huge artillery pieces...

Steamship Ashbury

On the 8th of January 1945, the British tramp steamer SS Ashbury foundered and sank at the mouth of Talmine...

Borland's World War II Part 2

Rothesay as a Military Base Rothesay was a submarine base and had HMS Cyclops supply vessel moored in the...

Memories of Tyne and Wear: An Army Regular in Perth and London

I left home and joined as an army regular at the age of eighteen in Perth, Inverness, Scotland....

German U-Boat Surrender, 8 May 1945

After the panic had subsided messages were rapidly exchanged with our flotilla leader and the naval base at...

Admiral Lord Jellicoe

Iain C. Macpherson's reference to the 'Admiral Lord Jellicoe' reminded me of aspects of my...

National Pigeon Service

The Day They Bombed Our Factory

Two men were killed that day when the factory was bombed... Apparently they had decided to bomb the whole...

Collecting for their Bottom Drawer

Dad was camped in Havant Thicket and eventually like many others went to France, then through Belgium and...

Eve of V.E. Day — loss of SS Avondale Park

He was George Anderson from Tudhoe, Spennymoor, a Merchant Navy Officer and at that time the Chief Engineer...

Enlisting by Leslie J. Sprigg ex: Leading Telegraphist.

With my two closest friends already in the forces: Bill Cumming a sergeant pilot in the RAF and George...

The Sinking of an Aircraft Carrier

I was five years old and my Mother and I stayed on in Corrie when my Father returned to our home in...

My Brother Joseph Tosh

My brother, Joseph Tosh — son of Joseph Tosh, the master butcher a well known Portonian who owned a...

Borland's World War II Part 4

HMS Cyclops, the submarine supply ship, had been a German ship in the First War and Lord Haw-Haw said that...

Brothers at War

He was mainly flying Hurricane fighter planes on the mission known as the "Shetland Bus". The...

Air Raids: Childhood Memories of Boddam

Air Raids: Childhood Memories of Boddam...