Hawthorns
I always knew my grandfather, Royal Navy Commander Michael “Skip” Wallrock was a war hero.
In 1941, he took part in the perilous Tiger Convoy and was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French for his role in the D Day landings in June 1944. We were very proud of him, but knew little else of his life at sea. Like many of his generation, Skip didn’t talk about the war. So, when he passed away in 2011 and I discovered his old war diary among his belongings, it was a revelation. He wrote about air raids and torpedoes; of being sunk three times and never getting his feet wet; his homesick men and playing ‘ruggers’ on deck; the time the King and Queen inspected the docks; the first time he took my grandmother to a dance…
