INTERVIEWED AT RANFURLY VETERANS’ HOME
MARCH 26 2010
 
I thought the only way I could get to Scotland was by sea, so I joined the Navy,” says Jack Noble, who went to war to see his Scottish grandmother. As a boy growing up in New Zealand he had sent many letters to her but longed to meet her in person, so when the chance came to go to Europe he took it.
He left the farm he was working on and enlisted. At first he was turned away because he was only 17, but was told to come back when he was 17 and a half, which he did. After initial training in New Zealand “involving much left, right, left, right marching” he was sent to join Britain’s Royal Navy. He finished his training in Scotland before joining the destroyer HMS Caesar and running escort duty in the Atlantic and up to the frozen waters of Russia. It was on the return journey from Russia that one of the destroyers in his convoy had its bow blown off after it was thought to have struck a mine. They managed to tow it back to Russia for repair.
When Jack got back to his grandmother’s house for leave he was so exhausted from catching only brief moments of sleep between four hour shifts that he slept for 24 hours solid.
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