Merchant Navy Radio Officers

Harry Holdridge, First Radio Officer, 1938-1981

d. 2005

After studying for his Merchant Navy certificate in Hull, Harry qualified on March 23, 1938. He joined his first ship, the Nova Scotia, on May 1, 1938, sailing from Liverpool to Halifax NS, St. John's NF, Boston MA, and back to Liverpool. Harry then spent time aboard the Oporto and the Governor before joining the SS Cid in Antwerp on January 5, 1939. After loading 3000 tons of ammunition, the Cid sailed for Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, then to Cyprus.

While in Cyprus, the Cid went on manoeuvres with the fleet, and, as an ammunitions ship, she was escorted by the submarine HMS Sea Lion. During the manoeuvres, both the Cid and the HMS Sea Lion were "sunk" by the HMS Ghurka, a destroyer on the "enemy" side. When the Cid returned to Alexandria with the navigator from the submarine, Harry met up with the crew of the seaplane who told him that the HMS Sea Lion had veered sideways, forming a second tell-tale wake, and revealed their position.

The Cid entered the Suez and anchored in the middle of the Great Bitter Lake awaiting orders. On the day war was declared in 1939, they sailed for Alexandria. They dropped anchor in the harbour entrance where they stayed for the next twelve months.

In July 1941 the ship was emptied of ammunition and filled up with empty shell cases from the evacuation of Crete.  She then proceeded to dry dock in Bombay where the hull was cleaned, and then moved on to Suez where, on August 23, 1941 Harry was transferred to the Foreland, another ammunitions ship.

The Foreland journeyed down the Red Sea to Massawa, where they spent the next 14 months. They set sail to Mombasa, via Aden for bunkers, and back again. This trip was repeated a total of three times, at the painfully slow rate of 8 knots. Sometimes they were in convoy, sometimes not. If they had a convoy, the escort was usually a corvette which left after the first 500 miles, leaving the convoy to proceed unescorted.

The Foreland eventually went to Cape Town for dry docking, arriving in mid-November 1944. Harry spent Christmas and New Year living ashore in Cape Town. The Foreland then returned to Mombasa and, still carrying ammunition and without an escort, she journeyed on through the Suez canal, and through the Mediterranean to Gibraltar.

Harry had left home with a full cargo of ammunition and arrived back with a full cargo of ammunition.  He left Gibraltar three days before the end of the war in Europe, still without convoy, and arrived at Preston on May 15, 1945. While he was on leave, the war in the far east finished too.

Although Harry worked on ammo ships right through the war, he never saw a shot fired in anger nor had a ship sunk. He spent his entire working life as a radio officer in the Merchant Navy, signing on and off a total of 151 times. He left his last ship on August 19, 1981.

Harry Holdridge died on February 23, 2005.
The information and photographs were supplied by his daughter Heather Lewington.

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