The Yachtsmen Volunteers of World War II
WHILE fishing about in the attic one day looking for the logbook of Peter Duck – the family yacht once owned by the author Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) – journalist and sailor Julia Jones discovered a story longing to be told. Among the boxes, her attention was drawn to a blue HM stationery office folder, in which was contained long-hidden details of her father George Jones’ astounding wartime adventures. An officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Supplementary Reserve (RNVSR), his diary began with his descriptions of a trip to the Baltic in August 1939. George, then a 21-year-old with good knowledge of Britain’s shoreline and coastal environs, had just joined the RNVSR and been posted to a submarine depot ship, HMS Forth. Julia then found George’s commission papers, charging him to “execute the King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions for the Government of His Majesty’s Navy Service”. From then on she read, often with tears splashing on to the pages, through years o…
