William George WEST Born 8 January 1925
Written 3 June 2004
I was born in Stockport Cheshire. Mum was a milliner, dad was a mill manager and formerly a soldier of the British Army in India. I left school at 15. I had a happy childhood, went to church and Sunday School at St. Mathews, Edgely, now a National Trust building, became a Cub and later a Boy Scout and a member of the Air Training Corps.
WHEN I LEFT SCHOOL
WW2 was under way then, and with so many men in the services there was no shortage of jobs for young folk, so, I applied for a cadetship with the LMS railways and was successful. Shortly before I was 18. I applied to join the Royal Navy as aircrew in the Fleet Air Arm and this was granted by the selection board.
I trained in Canada at the RCAF station Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, crossed the Atlantic on the liner RMS Queen Elizabeth from Glasgow and returned to Britain after training from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Dutch liner ‘New Amsterdam’.
My aircraft carrier was HMS Indefatigable and after raiding the German battleship ‘Tirpitz’ in Altjen Fioord Norway we proceeded to the Indian and Pacific Oceans striking the Japs at the Pelambang oil refinery in Sumatra, then Jap positions on island groups in the Pacific right up to Japan.
I was hurt on one of these strikes resulting in my return on a hospital ship to a Sydney naval hospital for surgery. On leave from hospital I went to the British Centre, then in Hyde Park, where I met Gwen.
Below" Certificate from Canada for the Year of the Veteran