Alec Wingrave
I was in HMS Taku in the last month of the war we stored the ammunition to go to the Skaggarack. We intended to stop the Germans evacuating Norway to get back to Germany and Denmark. But the friendly Norwegians instructed Britain that the Germans were leaving all their equipment in Norway before the war ended. And so after two days at sea we returned to Blyth and de-stored and de-ammunitioned ship. It would have been murder if we'd gone in and sank all the small German and Norwegian ships. All they wanted to do was get to the mainland, to go home without fighting.
Then we paid off Taku and joined Tactician to go to the Far East, but the atomic bombs were dropped and we took Tactician into Chatham for a refit before she was paid off.
I then joined HMS Token, a brand new submarine, and we had a glorious six months in Canada. Then onto Bermuda for a month in the sun and home via the Azores. When we returned to Devonport, there was 20ft of snow everywhere, Britian had probably come to a standstill. We were there until April 1 then paid off.
The Lincolnshire town of Spalding collected £3,560 during Warships Week in 1942 and bought HMS Taku for £2056. This year the local council named a footbridge over the river Welland 'Taku', and only two of the original crew, out of 300 over 4 commissions, turned up for the celebrations with the local MP, the Mayor and his wife.
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