Ref. 26202-40FORMER Merchant Navy officer Ron Tubb has written a book about his days under the Red Ensign because he believes the wartime sacrifices of his fellow old salts have never been fully appreciated.

Mr Tubb, of Leamington Grove, Swindon, joined the merchant service in 1928 as a 12-year-old apprentice at a nautical training school in Cardiff.

In 1939 he was an officer sailing in convoys that faced German U-boats in the desperate bid to keep Britain supplied with food and vital raw materials.

Between September 1939 and the end of the war in 1945 a total of 30,248 merchant seamen died and 4,707 were disabled while serving in British merchant ships.

Now 88, he still deplores the fact that none the dependants of those who died were paid pensions because successive governments regarded merchant seamen as civilians.

"Their pay stopped from the moment their ships went down because their employment was considered as having ceased," he said.

"Yet the owners of merchant shipping got compensation from the government when their vessels were lost."

His book, Red Duster Recollections, has been published with the help of a friend, Shirley Burnham.

"We met several times in a newspaper shop in Windsor Road and got chatting," said Mrs Burnham. "He had such an interesting story to tell."

Mr Tubb was on board the last British ship to carry cargo to Rotterdam and Hamburg before Germany marched into Poland and war was declared.

The vessel and its British crew got back to London with a day to spare before hostilities broke out.

He spent the rest of the war working in convoys in dire conditions carrying food, military equipment, lorry parts, aviation spirit and other commodities needed to keep Britain's war effort rolling.

Some of the ships were old hulks that had been destined for the breakers' yard when pressed into service.

From the bridge he witnessed vessels laden with ammunition being blown apart by torpedoes and German bombs.

"I was one of the lucky ones," he said. "I came through it. But ships with munitions on board didn't stand a chance if they were hit. They went down in seconds."

For many of the merchant sailors who could be seen bobbing around in the sea there was little hope of rescue.

His book is a colourful and graphic account of a career that ended in 1945 when he was injured in an accident in the hold of his ship and was subsequently declared unfit for sea duties.

It was, he said, a bitter blow. He was still a young man and expected to remain at sea long after the war ended.

Instead he found a job with the Inland Revenue and he and his wife Gwynneth came to Swindon. She died ten years ago after more than 50 years of happy married life. They did not have children.

"Apart from wanting to pay tribute to all those members of the Merchant Navy who did not come through the war and to those who did but suffered long after it was over, I wrote the book for members of my family," Mr Tubb said.

"People should know what merchant sailors went through."

Red Duster Recollections, a Merchant Seaman's Recollections of World War Two, by Ron Tubb costs £9.95. It can be ordered from www.woodfieldpublishing.com.

Shirley Mathias