UK

041670 - BROAD OCEANS AND NARROW SEAS by John Townend (special offer)

By John Townend

John Townend volunteered for the Navy in 1941.  The years that followed took him to South Africa, the Persian Gulf, India, Norway and into the dangerous waters of the Channel between England and occupied France.  He served chiefly in MTBs, sometimes engaged in secret and hazardous operations.

At the end of the war in Europe, he volunteered for minesweeping in the Far East, helping to clear Singapore, Thailand and Burmese ports.  But this did not bring his sea-faring life to an end, for the challenge of sailing small boats was irresistible.  He went fishing for basking sharks off the coast of Ireland, returned briefly to the Navy during the Korean war, was involved in a collision at sea and then became a semi-fisherman, first in Irish waters and later from Fleetwood in Lancashire.

This is a wonderful, fast-moving story, told with gusto and remembered as though it were yesterday.