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"Twenty-Two Hundred Days to Pulo We", by Jack Edwards (Melrose Books, 2005). This is a first class work and
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Edwards commenced his career in the Royal Navy
as a boy sailor at the age of 15. He joined the navy just before WWII began
and, after some rather brutal training, was posted to the brand new ship,
HMS Nigeria. He was one of the few of Nigeria's crew to stay with the ship
for the entire duration of the War (much to his horror). Every major action
of the ship is covered including the convoys to Archangel and Murmansk,
Porsangen Fjord, Operation Pedestal and Nigeria's Far East operations.
I must admit that I was struck by the difficult lives the enlisted men
were forced to endure. I was also surprised by how much of the time the
Nigeria was under attack, usually by enemy aircraft. The book is a fascinating
read, not only for those interested in HMS Nigeria, but for anyone wishing
to gain an understanding of what it was like to be the Royal Navy during
WWII. This book is available for purchase here and I would highly recommend it.
"HMS Nigeria Magazine", edited by J.W Aubrey and printed by R. I. Servers Ltd. of Cambridge
in 1946. This work, 64 pages in length and containing several photo plates,
was written by the crew of Nigeria and compiled and published immediately
following WWII. About half of it involves a history of HMS Nigeria (and
the vast majority of the history involves her later service, after the
Operation Pedestal incident in 1942). The remaining portion of the work
is comprised of crew songs, crew fiction, sporting events, the ceremony
undertaken by the crew for new sailors crossing the equator, ship's dances,
chapel notes, several ship cartoons and an "In Memoriam" page
for those lost. I am currently reading it as I put up pages. The section
involving the history of the ship can be found here. The "In Memoriam" page can be found here.
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