Comms Conditions 3 - We chatted away by signal lamp 1940s
Name: Bernard Mallion
Service: 1943 - 1945
Rate: Signalman
Branch: Communications
Bernard Mallion joined the Navy in 1943 as a signalman in the Communications Branch. After training he joined the Revenge Class Battleship, HMS Ramillies in 1944. He served on Ramillies during the Normandy campaign in June 1944.
Here Bernard recalls using lamps to chat to sailors on other ships.
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Extract Text (Duration01.09)
We had a coded number 'X-Ray 48'. You could send that across to any ship and that meant it was for operator to operator, it was no official signals. You could just, if you'd got nothing else to do and it was quiet, you could chatter away to one another by signal lamp, find out who it was, where they were... you know, where they lived, where they were from, what they were doing, what they used to do. We used to chat away for ages, especially in the Pacific. The Americans were very keen on that, wanted to know who, why, what, where for, you know, how many children you'd got and all that. I Wasn't even married at that time. It was a bit archaic I suppose by today's standards, but it worked.
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We chatted away by signal lamp 1940s
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