My late dad is listed in the crew. He joined the navy in 1941 when aged 16. He "put his age on" to 18 to do so. Quite how he managed to persuade the Admiralty that he was old enough to join for "Hostilities Only", I cannot imagine. He was 6'1" tall, so that may have been a factor. He was registered on his birth certificate as Jack O'Shaughnessy but he was baptised as John - the priest would not allow the name Jack as there was no saint of that name. The day he joined up, his close friend Maurie Walker received a  telegram advising him not to report as "we know your true age". Maurie later joined the Hampshires and was very severely wounded in Normandy. Maurie's dad was a merchant seaman on the Mauritania (hence the name) whilst my grandfather was on the Aquitania in which he spent most of WW2. Dad and granddad crossed paths in Greenock during the course of the war. John O'Shaughnessey - son December 2007 Bill Burn (webmaster) replied to John's message as follows: As there are no records of who served on these ships I simply add names as I come across them. Your father's name was recorded in Brendan Maher's 'A Passage to Sword Beach'. You may be interested in the full extract which reads as follows:  Friday 3rd March 1944. Scapa Flow  ....Returned and after great difficulty secured to our allotted buoy in Gutter Sound. O/S O'Shaughnessy broke his finger being buoy‑jumper and Leading Seaman Slykes nearly succumbed to cold and was washed off the buoy. He hung on to the shackle and was picked up and taken inboard. No great harm suffered. Very difficult operation due to weather. No.1 taking place of Captain. Unable to get ashore to dance at Officer's Club as promised to R.A.D. [Rear Admiral Dockyard]. When a warship moors to a permanently placed mooring buoy, she is secured by attaching her anchor cable to a large ring shackle on top of the buoy. Mooring in this way requires that the ship approach the buoy very slowly until she is close enough for the anchor cable (which has been unshackled from the anchor itself) to hang down directly over the top of the buoy. The end of the dangling cable is a few feet above water level. In advance of this, a seaman, the "buoy‑jumper," is taken in one of the ship's boats to the buoy, onto which he jumps to wait for the approach of the ship itself. When the ship has come close enough to the buoy for the jumper to reach the dangling anchor cable, he shackles it onto the ring on the buoy, and he is then taken back to the ship in the small boat that has been waiting nearby. In bad weather, this can be a hazardous operation as the buoy rolls and pitches with the waves, which also wash over the buoy and its occupant. Bad weather can also cause the ship herself to bump against the buoy and hurl the jumper into the water. This is what happened at Scapa Flow. Two luckless jumpers were brought aft to the wardroom and given tots of rum to restore their moral equilibrium. John Replied: My father's only buoy story I recall involved the first time he performed the task. He used to say that he jumped onto the buoy and then found himself running round and round as if on a very fast carousel which he could not control. If my memory is right, I think this occurred at Dover.   I do not know the dates - but Dad served on convoys which voyaged to Archangel, Murmansk, Iceland and Malta. I recall seeing his "bluenose" certificate when I was a child.   He did not talk a great deal about his own war service although he was a very proud 'matelot'. For example, his wellingtons were his "sea boots" and a cup of cocoa was "kye". The floor was always the "deck". He would often whistle or sing "Hearts of Oak".   His father, Tom, had been a regular soldier (Royal Artillery) before his merchant navy service and he was awarded the DCM at Ploegsteert in 1914, just before he was badly wounded. Dad's brother George was also a regular (RA) who fought at El Alamein and Arnhem in WW2. He was really proud of them and spoke more of their war service than his own. Granddad was an Irishman from Boher, county Limerick, who served Britain superbly in both world wars. We were a Fareham family so there was always a naval background to our lives. I recall, when very young, crossing Portsmouth harbour with him on board the Gosport Ferry and his pointing out a minesweeper, explaining that it was exactly like HMS Jason. Dad spent a quarter of a century as a merchant seaman with Cunard from circa 1950.   I do recall some details of his recollection of the "friendly fire" incident. He was off watch and was dozing and was confused when he noticed Jason's funnel falling into the sea. He could not understand what was going on initially. He also talked about German coastal artillery opening up when they realised what was going on.   He also talked about how inwardly fearful he was when the captain of HMS Jason announced that the Tirpitz had been reported as being in their vicinity and that if she was sighted, Jason would attack (!). He laughed about this, saying that he shook with fear but pretended that the shaking was caused by the cold weather.   He used to tell a tale about the crew of HMS Jason being in dire need of fresh food. The request went out to the Russians to supply some. In due course a dead reindeer, antlers and all, was delivered to the foot of the gangway. The Russian hosts were thanked and the dead reindeer was taken on board and then thrown into the sea out of sight of the Russians.   My mother was a cook in WRNS during WW2. She and dad met at HMS Shrapnel, Southampton (formerly the South Western Hotel and latterly the BBC South studio). They married in West Hartlepool, mum's home town in September 1946. ...Another snippet from the memory bank. Dad recalled the opening of the bombardment prior to the D Day landings. Jason was very close to HMS Belfast. When Belfast's guns opened up he thought that the end of the world had come. In the fifties and sixties, Dad was always picked up at Southampton Docks on "docking day" with RMS Queen Elizabeth by the same taxi driver, John "Mac" McGill. Uncle Mac, as I always knew him was a Pompey lad who joined the RN in the thirties. Mac was a "seasick sailor" who was desperate to leave the Navy in 1939 but had to stay on a further 6 years due to WW2. He was CPO on Belfast at D Day and he and Dad often reminisced.   ...my two sons and I are 99% sure that Jack O'Shaughnessy is the bare-headed sailor with the life saver around his neck in the group photograph (see Crew photo on HMS Jason Crew page) ... Aunt Ellen, Dad's only surviving sister - now aged 87 but her eyesight is good - confirms that the matelot with the life jacket is Jack.       ...Uncle Peter rang me yesterday and he recalled Dad's return from the friendly fire incident. Peter said he was alone in the house in Fareham when Jack arrived unexpectedly. He said he recalls how angry Jack was and he said that he took a very long time to get over the incident. He said that Jack blamed carelessness by "whiskey-soaked" old Admirals. I guess that explanation was based on rumours and speculation overheard by a nineteen year-old O/S. I know that his best friend Maurie Walker was very seriously injured in Normandy with the Hampshires around that time and that Dad visited him in hospital. So I guess he found the world an upsetting place. When I recall that his father was overseas with the Merchant Navy, still suffering from a very pronounced limp from being wounded in WW1 my heart goes out to him. Then I recall his brother George having to swim back across the Rhine from Arnhem and eventually reaching Allied lines wearing only his shirt and underclothes. George and Jack rarely discussed these incidents in my presence. They exchanged many amusing stories when they were together. On the other hand, my grandmother often recalled the worry of having a husband and two sons serving overseas in unknown locations.