A Bit Of A Life

Dave Osborne, George Osborne

Description

This book covers a 14-year period when the author progressed from being a boy sailor in the UK to become a chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy. It offers a very interesting blend of life experiences of a growing young man through some frightening experiences and some happy times. Life as a boy sailor was exciting for him, but once the dark period of the WW2 emerged, things changed radically, and his knowledge and courage were tested in some dramatic experiences which are well described in his book. When he moved into the submarine service in late 1942, a very new experience awaited him and by then he was a married man entering fatherhood in the coming year and already wondering what to do when the war finally ended. The final chapter describes sadness and regrets as the author’s life radically changed with the pressures of finding a new profession and becoming a family member with three children and there was always a lingering regret at having taken the wrong pathway despite the emerging successes of his children.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 05 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798369492284
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Bit Of A Life
From A Boy Sailor To Demobilisation
A True Story
George Osborne   Dave Osborne

Copyright © 2023 by George Osborne and Dave Osborne.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2023911165
ISBN:
Hardcover
979-8-3694-9230-7
 
Softcover
979-8-3694-9229-1
 
eBook
979-8-3694-9228-4
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 10/27/2023
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
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www.Xlibris.com.au
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CONTENTS
Dedications
Foreword
Preface
 
Chapter 1Early Days
Chapter 2Big Decision
Chapter 3The First Ship
Chapter 4The China Station—Afloat
Chapter 5The China Station—Ashore
Chapter 6Prelude to War
Chapter 7Northern Patrol
Chapter 8Mediterranean—Afloat
Chapter 9Axis Power Italy and the Parallel War
Chapter 10Mediterranean—Ashore
Chapter 11Interlude from the Sea
Chapter 12Towards Life in a Cigar Tube
Chapter 13HMS Adamant and Her Fourth Submarine Flotilla
Chapter 14Submarine Service Almost Over
Chapter 15Towards a Bowler Hat
Chapter 16Family Life, Thereafter!
 
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Related Further Reading

 
 
 
 
 
 
You never enjoy the world aright.
Till the sea itself floweth in your veins
Till you are clothed with the heavens,
And crowned by the stars:
And perceive yourself to be the sole heir.
Of the whole world, and more than so,
Because men are in it who are everyone sole heirs as well as you . . .
 
—Thomas Traherne, Century of Meditations , 1665

Full quote source: ‘You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are everyone sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world.’

Author: George Osborne taken in the 1982

Son: David George Osborne
DEDICATIONS
Adeline Constance (Connie) Osborne—a mother who fell for a sailor
1915–2000
The Lord, gave me greatness of heart to see,
The difference between duty and his love for me.
 
Give me a task to do each day,
to help pass the time while he is away;
 
Give me the understanding, so that I may know,
That when duty calls he must go;
 
and, dear Lord, when he goes out to sea,
please bring him home safely to me.
I did all these things but when he returned.
I realised the sailor does never come home!
 
Navy Wife’s Prayer. Author unknown
Patricia Constance (Patti) Osborne—the daughter who left us far too soon
1947–2012
Forever loved and still very much missed.
FOREWORD
Michael White
I N 1932, A sixteen-year-old George Osborne joined the naval training establishment of Ganges and began a naval career in the Royal Navy that lasted for fourteen years. Over the course of those years, George served in destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and submarines in peace and in war. He served in European, African, Mediterranean, Indian, and Asian waters. He was sunk in the Mediterranean but was one of the few lucky survivors, and later, his submarine Tally-Ho was rammed by a Japanese destroyer but managed to make it back to the submarine base. He left the Royal Navy in 1946 and entered into an engineering employment until his retirement and eventual death in 1997. In the course of this time, George compiled the diaries of his life and career, and we are all the beneficiaries of his efforts by his leaving this outstanding book.
George married his beloved wife, Constance in Manchester, and they had three children. Their daughters, Carol and Pat, rescued the manuscript from their father’s belongings, and their brother, Dr David Osborne, the highly regarded engineer, has edited the manuscript into this book. While there are many books on naval careers, there are few that record so many hazardous naval adventures in so much detail or were written with such clarity. In my own Australian naval career, I served in surface ships and then for five years in submarines, four of which were in Royal Navy submarines, so I venture to suggest I have some inkling of this splendid man. In the service, George was a communicator, which was the branch into which the quickest and best were drafted; he was also a volunteer to join the navy and then for service in submarines, which indicates that, here, we have a man with a strong adventurous spirit, and he disciplined himself to write a long-detailed narrative of his life—a highly disciplined man.
To illustrate some aspects of George Osborne’s adventurous life, I take the example of his time in the submarine Tally-Ho in 1944, based on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (p. 412). Their engagement with the Japanese destroyer in the Indian Ocean was extremely hazardous for them as they nearly sank, but, fortunately, when the Japanese destroyer tried to ram it, its propeller only slashed the outer parts, the port ballast tanks, but not enough for the boat to lose buoyancy and roll over (pp. 406–409). They were given a hero’s welcome by the fleet when escorted into Colombo, and the photo of Tally-Ho ’s damage (on p. 414) tells a dramatic story. The RN Submarine Service operations had the highest British losses in WWII, except perhaps the RAAF bomber command, 1 but George Osborne survived.
The connection between George Osborne’s life and Australia is strong in this book. George’s son, David, lives in Brisbane and is an Australian. George’s old boat, Tally-Ho , came to serve in the Sixth Submarine Flotilla based in Sydney for several years after the war. However, the connections with George and Tally-Ho go much further.
The first lieutenant of Tally-Ho ’s sister vessel, HMS Thorn , was the Australian lieutenant Chester Parker, RNVR, a Rhodes scholar lawyer, when Thorn was sunk with all hands in the Mediterranean in 1940, 2 not so very far from where George himself had been sunk in his destroyer. Finally, I could mention my own connection with George in Tally-Ho , as I was the first lieutenant of a sister submarine, HMS Tiptoe , in an earlier naval career when she entered her last commission in early 1967. Of course, my Tiptoe was modernised, but it still had that wretched low bridge, which meant we bridge watchkeepers were frequently wet and cold when the swell rolled over us. Tally-Ho ’s ship emblem was a fast fox (its motto was ‘Swiftly’), but Tiptoe ’s emblem was a ballerina on tiptoe, and we had some of the London Royal Ballet ballerinas as our guests at our commissioning ceremony. However, two years later, at the decommissioning, they had a ballerina dancing on tiptoe on the casing.

HMS Tiptoe at decommissioning in 1969 showing the low bridge and a ballerina on tiptoe on the casing
Another high risk of submarine service was tuberculosis, which George was diagnosed as having in Tally-Ho towards the end of the war (pp. 457–458). Because of the damp and cramped conditions on submarines, the passage of TB from one crewman to another in the boat was frequent. Fortunately, closer examination revealed the shadow on his lung was not TB, and he was released (p. 458) from the TB ward. The war was then over, and the submarine service had only limited billets for someone as highly skilled as the chief petty officer telegraphist, so George left on 16 August 1946 when his term of service came to an end (pp. 479). I will not recount the hard life George had in establishing himself in civilian life, but, as one expects from a man of such ability and determination, he achieved this and, as I have mentioned, was a section leader in an engineering manufacturing company for the rest of his working life.
We should all be grateful, therefore, to George Osborne and to his son, Dave Osborne, for bringing this book to fruition as it is a valuable addition to naval history and naval scholarship. I extend my gratitude to the author and the editor for a job well done—bravo, Zulu George and David Osborne. 3
Michael White
Dr Michael White OAM KC
Adjunct Professor of Maritime Law
TC Beirne School of Law
University of Queensland, Brisbane
PREFACE
Dave Osborne (son of the author)
M ANY YEARS AFTER the end of the Second World War, my father, George, once echoed the words that I read many y