I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety

On 19th May 1945 Norman embarked on H.M.S. Arbiter , an escort carrier, to start the 2000 mile journey to Ponam. On June 1st they arrived at the island of Manus, the main base, before going on to Ponam. The next day Norman wrote: Yesterday we weighed anchor in the morning and a few hours sailing brought us to Ponam, a small island just off the main one, two miles long by six hundred yards wide. Highest point above sea level 6 ft. About 12.00 we came ashore in the cutter and surveyed our new home. To look at it is a typical desert island complete with lagoon, coral and wind swept palm trees.  Vegetation found growing naturally appears to be coconut palms, wild orange trees, bread fruit with a few tropical flowers and grasses. The seasons appear to be two – wet and dry. (Now we are at the end of the wet). Rainstorms are fairly common. The main island of Manus lies about a mile across the straits and is fairly large. I judged it at some ten miles long; the ground rises to a r

I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety:  The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm  during World War II  by N. Buckle & C. Murray http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009QXEUG2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QXEUG2

A reader called "Frank" has posted a fantastic review on the Amazon site in both U.K and U.S.A. for  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II . Thank you so much "Frank" and I'm delighted you enjoyed the book and took the trouble to post your thoughts about it. I've been involved in ebook publishing since the start of 2012 and one of the many wonderful aspects is the personal feedback that comes from readers. Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed our books; you can check out our other books from this page if you're interested or visit our website . If you've read  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II you'll know that my dad, Norman Buckle, went out to an airbase on Ponam Isalnd in the Pacific Ocean as part of the British Pacific Fleet. When I was trying to piece together the story of his experiences

After I retired I spent many a happy hour researching both my own and my husband's family histories. Eventually though, I came to a dead end after I had explored every aspect of the lives of even the most distant relatives. I had already sorted through a box of old photos that had been in the loft for years and had labelled as many of them as I could. Now I turned my attention to an old, homemade, hard backed notebook with the initials N.B stencilled on the deteriorating hessian cover. I knew that this was a collection of photographs and postcards that my dad, Norman Buckle, had stuck in the book accompanied by captions in his tiny, precise handwriting. Folded into the book were lots of pages torn from an old diary for 1943 and several sheets of notepaper covered in that same spidery handwriting. This was to become the starting point for my book I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War Two . Link to amazon UK book pa

When I was reading background for my annotations to  " I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety" I tried to understand what preceded British involvement in the war in the Pacific. Although the British Pacific Fleet didn't commence operations until 1945, the preparations were evolving throughout 1944. I stumbled upon some new information recently while reading "Churchill and Sea  Power" by Christopher M. Bell.  Apparently Churchill himself was very keen on a British only initiative in S.E. Asia and was not at all in favour of sending the Royal Navy to join with the Americans. He was committed to Operation Culverin which was intended to establish a British presence in Malaya and Sumatra with the objective of ultimately re-taking Singapore. However, since November 1943, the Chiefs of Staff of the three armed forces had been in discussions with the Americans about a British presence in the Pacific using bases in Australia. Churchill managed to get confirmation fro

When my dad set off on his long journey to Sierra Leone in October 1943 he noted in his diary that he'd thrown a coin into the river for luck when crossing the Forth Bridge by railway on the way to Liverpool Docks for embarkation. Wednesday 13 th October 1943 "Left Dunfermline on the 4.45 for Glasgow . As we went over the Forth Bridge threw a halfpenny over for luck, although I reckon that won’t be much good if we get “tinfished” in the Bay." Tinfished meant being torpedoed. When I found the poem by Rudyard Kipling about "pack drill" which I referred to in a previous post I also found this poem entitled "Tinfish" written by Kipling during the First World War. "Tin Fish" The ships destroy us above   And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we move   In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes   To mark where we come . . . But the mirth of a seaport dies   When our blow gets hom

 Sidney Buckle, Norman Buckle, Elsie Buckle (nee Smith) This photo is Norman with his mum (Elsie) and dad (Sidney) and I think he looks about one year old. My guess is that they had this picture taken to celebrate his first birthday. They were quite old parents (especially for that era) as Elsie was 39 and Sidney was 43 when Norman was born. They'd already had a son (Vernon) in 1921 but he'd only lived for a few days before he died. Sidney was a coal miner in the South Yorkshire coal fields as were his father and grandfather before him. Norman had left school and gone to work in an office just before the outbreak of WW2. He signed up for the Fleet Air Arm in 1942 and after training as a radio mechanic for a year he was sent to the Royal Navy air-base at a village called Hastings, near Freetown the capital of Sierra Leone. 

I was delighted to find two reviews for  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II on the Amazon UK site today. Thank you so much "clive nolan" and "Gaarghoile" for going to the trouble of posting your reviews - really appreciated. http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B009QXEUG2 Since I wrote this post a couple more reviews have been posted on the Amazon site. They're not very enthusiastic about the book but thanks anyway for taking the time to tell readers what you think. Don't forget that you can read a free sample of the book in the Kindle Store before you download it which will give a pretty good idea of what you're getting. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009QXEUG2 If you don't read with a Kindle you can download a free app which will work on most devices on this page on the Amazon site:  Free app for Kindle  .

In the introduction to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I explained that when I started researching my dad's story I paid for a copy of his records from the Royal Navy Archives but these gave incomplete details of his service. Then my sister discovered in her loft a folder containing the original documents that were his Fleet Air Arm records: they detailed in chronological order where he'd been and what his job was. There were other documents that added further to his story. Amongst these other documents were copies of his school magazine and in the Summer Term 1940 (the year he left school) it included this contribution from him: I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE "Few of us will be going away for holidays this year for we carry out the "Go to It" slogan. We shall smell the Chemical Works rather than that "honest, seafaring smell compounded of tar, rope and fish, known to the

Seventy years ago, World War II uprooted my father from a coal mining village in South Yorkshire and transported him thousands of miles to Sierra Leone in West Africa and later to a tropical island in the Pacific. I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II is a short, annotated diary (approximately 22,000 words) which records his extraordinary experiences and the on-going banalities of everyday life on a naval air-base far away from home. This blog includes the collection of original photographs that go with my short e-book I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II.  They are in the October 2012 folder of the Blog Archive. If you would like to read I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II you can get a flavour of the book from the free sample on the Amazon site. Just follow one

I published I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II as a download for Kindle in October 2012. At the start of the book I explain how I came to research my dad's war time diary and publish it with my annotations as a Kindle download. "After I retired I spent many a happy hour researching both my own and my husband's family histories. Eventually though, I came to a dead end after I had explored every aspect of the lives of even the most distant relatives. I had already sorted through a box of old photos that had been in the loft for years and had labelled as many of them as I could. Now I turned my attention to an old, homemade, hard backed notebook with the initials N.B. stencilled on the deteriorating hessian cover. I knew that this was a collection of photographs and postcards that my dad had stuck in the book accompanied by captions in his tiny, precise handwriting. Folded into the book were lots of

A couple of days ago I visited the National Railway Museum in York. When I was looking at my photos later I realised that some were photos of trains from the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway. I remembered that my dad had made a reference to that railway company in his diary which I'd quoted in I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II. He wrote: "On Tuesday 8th May (1945) the newspapers were head-lined "It’s all over in Europe" and gave histories of the last five years. Flags were flying in Sydney but no crowds surged through the streets. We made sure our rooms were booked at the British Centre and went for a drink to celebrate Victory. A couple of drunken sailors were the only signs of the momentous day it was. At seven o’clock we were steaming out of Central Station just as the city began to warm up and celebrate. Australian trains are horrible. They are uncomfortable, slow, draughty and

As I wrote in my previous post, my dad (Norman Buckle) had kept a copy of the first edition (Friday July 20th 1945) of  The Pacific Post: Daily Newspaper of the British Pacific Fleet with his photographs and diary. It's only a 4 sides of a folded sheet newspaper but it is crammed with interesting stories. It's fascinating to read what the authorities thought would interest the servicemen all those thousands of miles away from home. Here are the remainder of the cuttings from the front page:

I explain in I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II that o n Friday July 20th 1945 "The Pacific Post: Daily Newspaper of the British Pacific Fleet" was launched. My dad, Norman Buckle,  saved a copy of the first edition with his diary. He was a member of  MONAB 4 stationed on the island of Ponam as part of the support network for the British Pacific Fleet in 1945. [If you click on the cuttings they're easier to read when they are on the black background.]   First page of the first edition of the Pacific Post: Daily Newspaper of the British Pacific Fleet 20/07/1945     Close-up of the main picture story.     Editorial Part 1     Editorial Part 2     From the front page of the first edition of The Pacific Post  

In the introductory pages of I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I've written about my father's background: " Norman was a working class lad who was born in 1924 and brought up in the village of Royston , near Barnsley, in South Yorkshire . He was fortunate, having passed his eleven plus, to have enough family support to go to the local grammar school at Normanton. He was studious, worked hard and passed his School Certificate. At the age of sixteen he was offered employment as a clerk at the salary of £1 - 0s - 0d per week (about £30 in to-day's money) in the Public Health Department of the West Riding County Council in Wakefield thus breaking three generations of the family's tradition of going down the pit." Norman in 1939 aged 15 years. Normanton Grammar School in 1920 Normanton Grammar School in 1925. Norman started there about ten years later. In August 1

When I was researching the background to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I tried to find out about the development of the island of Ponam, near Manus, in the Admiralty Islands (part of present day Papua New Guinea) as the naval air base to which my dad was posted in 1945. I was delighted to find out more last week in Hansard (the record of Parliamentary debates). In The House of Lords on July 11th 1962 in a debate to do with Naval Estimates Lord Ashbourne reminisced about the base at Manus, in the Admiralty Islands of which he had had first-hand knowledge during the war. "Within about three months of capturing the Admiralty Islands from the Japanese the Americans had turned this almost desert island into a great fleet base, with alongside berths for unloading cargo, with floating docks, with a 10,000-feet airstrip, completed, they say, within fourteen days of the initial landings on the island. They bu

I wrote in I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II that when my dad was de-mobilised from the Fleet Air Arm at the end of World War II he received a war gratuity properly known as a Certificate of Post War Credit. The actual document was preserved amongst his papers.

I wrote in I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II about some of the abbreviation's my dad had used in his diary. The most difficult to interpret was P.D. (See previous post). More on the subject of "pack drill". A member of the WW2Talk forum pointed me in the direction of Hansard (the record of Parliamentary debates which is available on-line) where there are a couple of interesting references. In April 1943, Mr Walter Edwards (1900 - 1964), the M.P. for Stepney and Whitechapel, asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if pack drill was being used as a form of punishment in the Royal Navy. The First Lord of the Admiralty gave him a categorical assurance that it was not and had never been used as a form of punishment   in the Royal Navy. In July 1946, Mr Jack Lawson (1881 - 1965), M.P. for Chester-le-Street and briefly Secretary of State for War (1945 - 1946) assured the House of Commons tha

When I was researching the background to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I joined a forum called World War Two Talk. I lurked around the site for several months before I signed up. It was here that I got my first clue as to why my dad had been sent to Freetown , Sierra Leone . Until I read about the convoy system on one of the WW2Talk threads I didn't have any idea about the strategic importance of the harbour at Freetown to the war effort. While exploring the site I realised that several members were asking for help with their enquiries into a wide range of topics. I had become stumped by several abbreviations that my dad had used in his diary and decided to see if any members of the site could help: so I signed up, introduced myself and posed my question. Within a couple of days most of my problem abbreviations were solved but one remained stubborn. "P.D." My dad had used the abbreviat

When I was researching the background to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I became very interested in the history of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. Amongst my dad's papers was a page from the weekly edition of The Times newspaper which included these images of life on an aircraft carrier. I speculated that it was after seeing these photographs that he decided that he wanted to join the Fleet Air Arm.  On board an aircraft carrier, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm December 1940  On board an aircraft carrier, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm December 1940  On board an aircraft carrier, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm December 1940  Links to Kindle Store on the Amazon site for the I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II by N. Buckle & C. Murray book page. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009QXEUG2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QXEU