253841 Gnr. Dennis Marles Johnson Royal Navy HMS Indomitable from:Clerkenwell London Dennis Marles Johnson was my father-in-law. He was born in 1925 and at the beginning of World War 2 he was about to leave school and start work. In the first part of the war he helped out as a fire watcher. His 15th birthday, 29th December 1940 was the worse day of the blitz in London and he spent it watching the fires from the top of the buildings he lived in, Compton buildings in Clerkenwell.
He joined the navy when he was 18 and after training at Whale Island he was assigned to HMS Wren. He spent the first few weeks of his service trying to get on board the ship as he kept being sent to places where it was supposed to be docked only to find it had moved elsewhere. Eventually, he served as a gunner escorting convoys.
He was transferred to the HMS Indomitable towards the end of the war helping transfer POWs and demobbed soldiers back to the UK from Australia and the Far East.
Den passed away in 2003. He was always a pleasant, easy to get on with chap, who spoke very little about his war experiences although he did write up some memoirs of his time growing up in Clerkenwell between the wars and during the Second World War.
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