Oral History Gallery

Equipment 2 - Right... load up the old 4 inch 1940s

Name: Harry Marrington

Service: 1942 - 1946

Rate: Seaman Gunner

Branch: Royal Naval Patrol Service

Harry Marrington joined the Navy in 1942, when he was 17. After training he joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service, a fleet of armed deep-sea fishing trawlers taken over by the Navy. These small vessels acted as escorts to other ships and for minesweeping and anti-submarine work.

Harry was a gunner and a member of the 4-inch gun crew. He also operated the smaller anti-aircraft guns.

In this clip Harry recalls the very first time he experienced the firing of a 4 inch gun.

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Extract Text (Duration01.46)

Q: And what was your job on the four inch guns, what were you doing?

A: Well, when I was Ordinary Seaman the first time I'd never been behind a gun before in actual firing. Because I never went to a gunnery school or nothing like that. I was Ordinary Seaman, I come down from Lowestoft, greenhorn, and we first went to sea this particular night and the orders went up there, "We're going to have a night shoot with Americans off Edison Lighthouse." Off Plymouth Sound, right out and you see Edison Lighthouse, you've seen it have you? And we went out there and the bloody E-Boats was waiting for us, 'cause they used to lay off, they used to tie up under a buoy and you'd go along and the radar would say, "Oh, is D1 boy there?" and there's a bloody E-Boat tied up on the damn thing, you see what I mean? You learn very quickly. And all of a sudden he sent up this star shell and next thing these things are coming in at us, 60 miles an hour. So they said, "Right, load up the old four inch," and when it fired, oh my God, oh my. 'Cause when she recalled like that the flash of it, well I don't like to say what I say... I can't say that o0n here or to you, what happened to me. It never happened again but by golly it really... 'cause you don't expect it, nobody tells you or anything like that, you know.