Description
Gordon was born on 7 July 1926. He joined the Royal Navy on 10 August 1944 at the age of eighteen. He was an electrician on the North Sea Mine Sweeping Fleet.
The boats were not named, as there were so many of them. Gordon’s boat was the ‘41’. He operated from Queenborough Pier in Sheerness, went out in three-week blocks and worked in threes in front of convoys. The German aircraft would drop floating mines, with an anchor attached. He would find the mines by dragging a wire loop cable behind them and would then blow them up using their on-board guns.
Gordon’s job was to hunt the magnetic mines, which sunk to the seabed.
In his flotilla he had MTBs (Motor Torpedo Boats) and they were equipped with the latest gear that could pick up the exact location of the German submarines very quickly.
Gordon left the Royal Navy in 1948.
‘When you are out at sea, you do not think about death. It is difficult to explain to people who were not there what it is like.’
Print taken from the book ‘A TIME TO FIGHT Living and Remembering WWII’
