Horace William Palmer's Arctic Star and White Star Emblem

My dad, Horace William (Bill) Palmer, talked quite a bit about the Arctic convoys, but only when I asked him. They were transporting food, fuel, and munitions to Russia in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. He served on various ships, including HMS Forrester, and said they were all nervous and frightened about a German battleship which was based in the Norwegian fjord—that it would come out when a convoy was passing and bomb or fire shells at the convoy. This was the Tirpitz, a very powerful ship which could fire shells 17 miles, so the convoy wouldn't even see it. In reality, any ships that were sunk were sunk by torpedoes from German submarines. Convoy ships were vulnerable and were attacked as they passed Norway.

Dad's Royal Navy records said that he joined as a volunteer in 1933, so he must have gone straight from Chatham into the Navy. I don't think he had another job before this. He could remember seeing the huge amount of ice in the water, and the ice gathering on the ship's structure as they got further north. Sailors had to bash the ice off; otherwise, the ship could become unstable. I've seen pictures of the ship covered in ice.

The noise in the engine rooms of the warships damaged his hearing, and he was invalided out of the Navy by about 1947. He was awarded the medals during the 2000s.