Above: HMS Palomares My father - Arthur Albert Reed - served on HMS Palomares between October
1941 and April 1943 and was part of the PQ 17 Convoy in 1942. He was
born in 1913 in Hampshire in a village called Stubbington, across the
water from Portsmouth. He enjoyed cycling and belonged to the Gosport
cycling club. He worked for his father who was a local builder. He had
three brothers and one sister. He joined the Navy early in 1940, and
was 28 at the time of the Convoy. He very rarely spoke of his wartime
experiences but did tell us about the privations endured during the
Arctic Convoy - of the ice on the decks and rails, the extreme bitter
cold, lack of sleep, and lack of food and water once they arrived at
Archangel. His younger brother has told me how skeletal my father was
when he finally returned home barely able to talk of his experience.
After a very brief leave, he returned to HMS Palomares and saw action at
Operation Torch in North Africa. HMS Palomares must have been held
with quite high regard by my father because the bungalow they lived in
for 40 years was named "Palomares". Below: HMS Palomares |