The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project KENNETH SMITH Interviewed by: David Reuther Initial interview date: December 7, 2020 Copyright 2021 ADST INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 7th of December, 2020. This is a Foreign Affairs Oral History Program interview with Ken Smith. This interview is being conducted under the auspices of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. I’m David Reuther. Ken, welcome aboard. SMITH: Thank you, I’m glad to be here. Q: It is a significant day; it’s December 7th, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. You are one of the few people I’ve interviewed who was born before Pearl Harbor. Let’s start there. Give me some background; where were you born, what were your folks’ occupations, where were they from. SMITH: I was born on the 16th of December, 1932 -- so I’ll be eighty-eight next week -- in Plymouth, Devonshire, South West England; where the pilgrim fathers came from; so I 1 missed the boat that time! At the time, my father -- Frank -- was in the Royal Navy, home-ported nearby at Devonport. I don’t remember ever being in Plymouth. Mostly what I remember was from 1937 on; after my mom – Dorothy -- moved to Kent, South East England. I’ve only got vague flashes of a couple of episodes in different places before then. My dad was a Stoker Petty Officer (SPO) – equivalent to a sergeant -- in the China Fleet. He supervised the ship’s engineering crew responsible for keeping the ship running. In those days, ships were powered by burning coal in furnaces to heat huge boilers of water and produce forced steam to turn the propellers. Smoke stacks were a prominent feature of those ships. [A movie “The Sand Pebbles” depicts Steve McQueen in a similar role on an American gunboat in China during that era.] I remember my dad had huge forearms with tattoos on them -- like Popeye -- probably from shoveling coal in his earlier years. [I always called him “Pop.”] His naval career started in 1917 -- during WWI -- and was due to finish in 1939; but WWII was just starting in Europe, so they kept him on for the duration. After the war ended in September 1945, recruits drafted for war service were demobilized first. Regulars weren’t released ‘till almost a year later. Dad’s family – my grandparents, his brothers and sisters -- lived in Wigan, Lancashire, in the north of England. My grandmother Annie was a McGrath -- from Ireland. My dad had four brothers and two sisters. My grandfather Peter, and uncles were all coal miners. As a very young kid, my dad tended the pit ponies who dragged tubs of coal through tunnels in the mines to the mine-head. But as soon as he turned ‘teen -- during WWI (the ‘Great’ War) – he ran away to join the navy; several times. Each time his father was called to fetch him home; until eventually, my grandfather gave up and said “You can keep him.” So, that’s how my dad began his career – as a boy apprentice in the Royal Navy. [Later, my uncle Peter also joined the Navy; and during WWII, uncle David was also at sea in the Merchant Marine, on ship convoys.] My mother was from the south of England. The Fullman family lived in the Cockney area of London’s East End. My grandfather Jim had his own business as a chimney sweep – just like Dick Van Dyke in the Mary Poppins movie – with a push cart, brushes, and a young boy assistant to scramble up on roofs, and crawl down chimneys. They were also a large family -- eight kids. Her two brothers were also in the military during the war; uncle Albert (Alby) in the Army, and Harry in the RAF – Royal Air Force. To sum up, I guess you could say our families ‘cornered the coal business’ -- from digging it out, using it up, to cleaning up the mess. I only saw my dad briefly and intermittently during the war, so pre-teen, I was an only child living with my mother. However, my mom sometimes took me to visit my grand-parents and cousins in Lancashire and London. I remember Wigan as a dark, dirty, sooty place, with huge slag heaps from the mine wastes they called the ‘Wigan Alps.’ I don’t know if you know much about England, but although the country is small -- much like the US -- the Northern region is quite different from the South. Wigan particularly -- 2 in Lancashire – with collieries was a grimy, industrial area; very cold, and lots of rain. It also rained a lot in the South as well as being cold; but by contrast, Kent – called the ‘Garden of England’ -- was pleasant, green and sunny; except yellowish ‘pea-souper’ fogs sometimes enveloped the area during the winter from factory and home coal (for heating) smoke mixing with the cold damp air. The British are also very parochial. Northerners tend to think of Southerners as sissies, while we in turn characterized them as rough louts; and never the twain should meet -- except to argue and fight in pubs, or at football games. [But in truth, while most other Northerners seemed dour, I always found ‘Lankies’ to be warm and friendly – very much like Cockneys; although with a different accent.] Q: You mentioned your father was in the China fleet? SMITH: Yes, he was on HMS (His Majesty’s Ship) Kent. It was a heavy cruiser; and the China Fleet flagship. I guess he was transferred from Devonport to join the Fleet sometime after I was born, because the Kent’s home-port was Chatham, Kent. From commissioning in 1928 ‘till early in WWII, the Kent was stationed at Weihaiwei, on the northeastern coast of China; but cruised the entire China Sea area. In the Royal Navy ships stayed in their region -- wherever -- for about two years; then would come back briefly for renovation and refitting; then return to station. So, while the ship was in Chatham dock, he could come home for a week or two every couple of years. The first time I remember seeing him was when I was about 7 years old. I came home from school one afternoon; walked in the house, and saw a strange man with a beard there. I ran out, screaming until my mother appeared and said, “Don’t worry, this is your father.” Nevertheless, it scared me sh*tless and took me quite awhile to adjust. Some additional background: For England, the war began on 1 September 1939, but the Kent didn’t return home from China until late 1940. Her initial war duties were anti-raider patrols on the China Station. Then early in 1940 she was reassigned to the Indian Ocean for troop convoy escort duty. Italy declared war on England in June 1940, and the Kent was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet for convoy duty, and based at Alexandria, Egypt. During intense fighting 17 September, they were aerial-torpedoed by an Italian plane off the Libyan coast near Tobruk. Although badly damaged, they were towed to Alexandria for repairs; then resumed convoy duty until December 1940, when they returned to England just after Christmas. He was then reassigned to North Atlantic convoys on HMS Mansfield – a U.S. Lend-Lease ‘four-stacker’ minesweeper-destroyer -- with escort duty between the US, Canada and Europe for merchant ships. I remember visiting his ship once in Chatham drydock and receiving a personal guided tour by one of his shipmates, who – among other things -- sent me climbing a mast to look for eggs in the ship’s ‘crow’s nest’. Later, the Mansfield was turned over to the Canadian Navy and my dad was reassigned to another ship – I don’t know which one – escorting convoys to Russia on what was called the ‘Murmansk Run.’ His ship was torpedoed on one run; he convalesced for a couple of 3 months in Cheshire, then was sent back for sea duty until the war’s end. [The movie “The Cruel Sea” depicts typical convoy escort events like he endured.] When my dad eventually retired from the Navy, he had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. He had seasonal bouts of malaria for about a week – when he would turn pale yellow and go to bed alternating between sweating with high fever and shaking with chills. After the trauma from the war, although genial, gregarious and a workaholic by nature, he was a lost soul in his early 40’s -- an alcoholic with ‘shell shock.’ [Today they call it ‘PTSD’ – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.] Any unexpected movement or noise nearby would trigger him into flinching and ducking, then turning into a frightening ‘fight’ mode and ranting rage before he calmed down with the shakes. That resulted in him quitting -- or losing -- several jobs. My mother used to say she always ‘walked on eggshells’ to avoid setting him off. I also learned to be cautious around him, and would deliberately make noise well in advance to signal my approach. As a young teenager I would sometimes go along with him to the pub. There he would socialize with his buddies – mostly former shipmates -- while I’d have a pork or steak & kidney pie, drink a Vimto (like a Dr. Pepper) and munch ‘Smith’s Crisps’ (crunchy potato chips). He never talked about his war experiences at home, but I learned a lot by eavesdropping on their war stories. He could drink lots of beer and stay jolly, but whisky would bring out the aggression.