This is my father, Frank Smythe, on the left, on the Lady Somers in the South Basin, Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda in 1941. The ship was here for six months being refitted.
He told us many things about his time here; how he hopped on and off the train runningalong-side it for exercise and that Maureen O’Hara, a famous film star, gave him a lift to Church one Sunday.
What he never told us was what it was like to be on the Lady Somers when she sank in the Bay of Biscay in July 1941 or what it was like to be swimming in the north Atlantic watching his ship, the Laurentic sink amid flaming oil in November 1940, or what sustained him on the five mile swim to the coast of Algeria when the Tynwald, went down during the North Africa Landings in 1942.
My father was small in stature, reserved, a kind and humble person from a family of gentle people. He did not feel the need to talk too much about himself. I think about what it must have been like for him leaving the confines of a religious order and going straight into the Merchant Navy and the war.
When I came to live in Bermuda in 1969 and married and had children, he visited often andsent stories he had written and illustrated for them. I see him in my children; one son who is an open-ocean swimmer and one who finds peace in nature. I learned from him love and commitment to family and an acceptance of life as it unfolds for you. Work hard, do the right thing and you find your path. His faith helped him deal courageously with personal and family health challenges.
It would have given him great pride and joy to know that his Bermudian granddaughter, Elena, works in Dockyard, his wartime sanctuary, at the National Museum of Bermuda and, with her team, is preserving the history of Bermuda and the stories of her people.