- Contributed by
- tivertonmuseum
- People in story:
- Edna White, Husband, Ken.
- Location of story:
- Princetown and Milton Coombe.
- Background to story:
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:
- A7566564
- Contributed on:
- 06 December 2005
This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of Edna White.
EDNA WHITE
I was at my uncle’s farm so I was not called up. But I knew all the hard work, as a youngster having to make a rick of hay and sworn at if I didn’t get the sides and that up straight.
I met my husband at Princetown at the beginning of the war. We went to a dance. He was called up in the Navy. July 8th 1940 he sent a telegram home “Home on Sunday, marry Monday return Tuesday”. We went to Widecombe for one night and on Tuesday he got the train to Liverpool to return to his ship. We had the last reception in the tourist place in Princetown. It used to be the Duchy Hotel. The prison took it over. The next time I saw Ken he was home on survivors’ leave — 1941. From there he was sent to America. A little while after that I had a little girl. He never saw his daughter until she was 9 months old. He never knew I was pregnant until I was 6 months. Letters from here to America didn’t get through. He found out in San Francisco. I used to go to Liverpool to stay with him. Half the crew would have 4 days off. Ken would have to save up nearly a month to have a haircut. Compared to the Americans their money didn’t go anywhere. The families that looked after Ken when he was there have been back to see us and we’ve been back to see them.
When Ken’s ship went down one of the officers on board managed to send a message to his parents who went straight down to tell Ken’s parents that he was safe too.
They jumped in the sea, they had a lifeboat and were picked up by another destroyer but quite a lot were killed. It was in the Atlantic. It would have been in Mach 1942 I think or was in 1943?
Ken was a shipwright so he was called to see what damage had been done with the first torpedo and so he was partly dressed. In the lifeboat there was a man with nothing, and he said “you have my jacket”. It turned up in 1970. It was posted to his home address — a village called Milton Coombe. Where it came from we didn’t know. It was just in a package. It was good really — I could know what he’d been up to.
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