204545 Able Seaman Norman Arthur "Nobby" Crowther Royal Navy HMS Penelope from: Walsall, West Midlands My Dad, Norman Crowther, was a survivor of the sinking of the H.M.S. Penelope in 1944 and told us many stories of the good times he had with his shipmates, and the history of a much loved ship.
He went to the re-union in 1973 when the next H.M.S. Penelope was named, where he found out that some people he thought had perished had not and some he thought had survived had perished, you see he was taken to Malta after the sinking for some weeks, and lost touch with lots of his old shipmates. When he finally got back to England some weeks later he went to see some families in Walsall whose sons had not been so fortunate as him, he also got married to my Mom, and as he had lost everything when the ship went down he actually got married in an army uniform with just his sailors hat as it was the only thing he managed to retrieve. My Mom told me that the first news of the ship going down was broadcast by Lord Haw Haw who apparently took great delight in the sinking of what was a very famous ship. My Dad then went on to serve on other ships until he was demobbed in the 1950s. We were very proud of him, sadly he passed away in 1983.
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