In June 1944, I had just turned 17 years of age. The war had been raging for nearly five years but the recent landing of Allied forces in considerable strength on the French mainland was giving hope that the tide of fortune was about to turn. The war in the Far East, however, was not yet giving such promising signs of resolution and my life had entered a period of increasing frustration. I felt that I had good reason for this...

In 1938, aged eleven years, I had enrolled in the Newport Sea Cadet Corps and, within its confines over the ensuing years, I had become one of a group of very good friends. But therein lay a snag that only became apparent during the later war years: the other members of this circle were all older than I was - most of them by as much as a year!

This meant of course that they had all reached their eighteenth birthdays in 1943, had been called up and were already serving in branches of the armed services (mostly naval). One was killed on a Russian convoy and some of the others had actually taken active parts in the D-Day Invasion! Hence my feeling of non-fulfilment each time I waved off an old comrade as he returned to duty after a well-earned leave.

However, a glimmer of hope finally appeared! My membership of the sea cadets had absolved me from having to make excuses for not joining the Home Guard or my school's Army Cadet Detachment. I did find some consolation in enlisting in the Civil Defence Messenger Service which meant another uniform (now with a steel helmet), my bicycle and the right to be out and about in the town, often throughout the night as demanded by air raids, mock invasions etc.

And one extra perk! At that time, the Newport Sea Cadet Corps possessed an old Brixham trawler, moored in the North Alexandra Dock and used at weekends as a training ship. It was a very special privilege for uniformed cadets to be allowed through the extremely tight security of wartime dockland. Of course, identity cards had to be produced but there were times when I was recognised by a gate keeper or a Home Guard sentry and waved through - a comfortable feeling indeed!

Furthermore, when the weather and tides were propitious, we often sailed the trawler out into the Bristol Channel where we beat up and down around the Flat and Steep Holmes and delivered the Sunday papers to the English and Welsh Grounds Lightship. In between the normal duties of sailing the ship the younger element kept look-out and indulged in fantasies about spotting mines or U-boat periscopes!

It was through my visits to the highly protected docks that I was privileged to witness what may be termed 'the beginning of the end!' On Sunday May 28th 1944 both North and South Alexandra Docks were crammed with the largest gathering of ships in Newport's maritime history! All kinds of craft were there: freighters, oil tankers, troop carriers Royal Navy escort vessels and even a small aircraft carrier!

On Sunday June 4th the armada had vanished - gone to assemble with similar fleets from the other Channel Ports to form one third of the greatest invasion fleet ever known. Thirty-six hours later they arrived off the coast of Normandy!

But to return to that aforementioned glimmer of hope ... early in 1944, the Admiralty announced that it was introducing a new recruitment scheme in which the age of the intake was lowered to 17½ years. It carried one condition other than the usual standard of fitness: it was for boys who had passed a minimum of five subjects in their school certificate examinations which, in those days, represented to my mind a sterner qualifying test of one's abilities than their equivalent today!

The new system was called 'The Y Scheme' and I received advance notice of it through my membership of the sea cadets. Needless to say, my application was in someone's Admiralty in-tray before the ink had time to dry!

An interview and a medical at Cardiff quickly followed and shortly afterwards, on the very day that I became 17½, I received my call-up to report to HMS Royal Arthur (ex Butlins) at Skegness. My mother's tearful comment: "That was quick!" My father's, more cheerfully: "They must be getting desperate!"

So now I was a fledgling sailor, a full member of the Senior Service with the rank of ordinary seaman, but at the time I felt that it could well have been admiral!

My training period ended - and so did the war in Europe! I have since made up a joke about that - as soon as he got news that I was in the war, Hitler shot himself!

The war with Japan went on and I was posted to a brand new destroyer intended to continue the fight. We were on the verge of sailing to the Far East when, as a result of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs (6th and 9th August 1945), Japan surrendered!

But we went just the same and at the time it never occurred to me how long two years away from home and family was likely to be!

Strangely enough as it happens, and viewed from a distance of over 60 years, the time seems to have passed all too quickly. It was by no means a wasted experience. Admittedly it did not contain the perils that my older friends had faced but I made journeys that they never did, I saw exotic places and sights that they would never see and I received a supplement to my education that no classroom could ever have provided!

Who today can envisage swimming in the Red Sea, exploring the ancient, vine-festooned Temple of the Tooth in the hills of Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it then was), watching from Tokyo Bay as a brilliant sunrise gradually set fire to the snow-cap on Mount Fuji, or standing in the atom-bombed devastation of Nagasaki - it was considered safe only 13 months after the cataclysm.

Chasing pirates and people-smugglers in the China Sea was not without its attractions although several batterings by fierce tropical storms somewhat dampened the euphoria!

Finally, the icing on the cake was a six-week visit to several cities in Australia where I was able to spend time with emigrant aunts and uncles.

And all this before my 20th birthday!

My little ship and all who sailed in her were very fortunate. When first commissioned, the intention was to take part in the final great assault on the Japanese mainland, a Herculean task that in all probability would have led to incalculable loss of Allied shipping and a further enormous toll of human lives. That it did not may be put down to luck, divine intervention or a mixture of both! From whichever angle it is viewed, the fact remains that the whole situation was responsible for giving me the experience of a lifetime and bringing me home safely.

Every so often these days, I stare into my shaving mirror and, as if in a dream, I see a callow youth who could not possibly be me! No way could this tired old face belong to that starry-eyed teenager who, for two years in another life, roamed far distant oceans of the world and gazed on remnants of ancient cultures and scenes of a terrible, recently-fought war!

On one short weekend in every year the fantasy snaps back into reality when I join a rapidly-dwindling group of old shipmates at a West Country hotel to splice the mainbrace and to recall faces and places that time has all but obliterated. It is during these few, precious hours, that backs straighten, laughter wipes away the wrinkles, rheumy eyes regain their sparkle and all is once again well with the world!

Postscript: By an amazing coincidence, nearly 20 years after I had last seen her, I renewed acquaintance with my old ship no more than half a mile from where I lived in Newport! It was not a happy reunion. The once-proud greyhound of the seas was moored at the jetty of a River Usk breaker's yard, rust encrusted and devoid of all its wartime accoutrements. Did a tear form in my eye as I gazed down on this hulk which had once been my home for two years? A week or so later she was gone!

Haydn Davis - Undy, Newport - August 2008